As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start from scratch and build what I wanted from the ground up.
Start at the beginning of the chain.
AC power.
In the mid 1980s Stan Warren (the S in PS Audio) had stumbled onto an amazing discovery. The bigger the power transformer the better the sound. And this didn't really make sense. Think about it. A transformer capable of running a 200 watt per channel class AB power amplifier capable of consuming 600 watts of power, connected to a preamplifier that consumed no more than maybe 30 watts max, dramatically improved the sound of the preamplifier.
Bonkers, right?
Let's remind ourselves of a few things. First, power transformers take the AC out of the wall (120V or 230V) and through their coils of wire and magnetic coupling, they reduce (or increase) that voltage to what's needed for the circuit they are powering. So, let's imagine our preamplifier runs on +/-30 volts DC (which all of our did). This means you need a bit more than the cumulative voltage (30+30=60 volts) so that your voltage regulators have headroom to do their business. So, let's imagine we want a total of 75v coming into our preamplifier. Great. As long as the power transformer feeding your preamplifier is big enough to supply that 75V to the preamp (without strain or loss) then all is good. Choose the smallest viable transformer for your circuit and you're in (transformers are expensive and you can usually price them by the pound).
But, here's the thing. While there is a minimum size transformer there is no maximum sized transformer. In other words, once you satisfy the transformer size you could then switch to a transformer the size of a Honda Civic and, as long as its output voltage is the same as a small transformer, it would theoretically perform the same. The preamplifier circuit shouldn't care it's connected to a beast or a wimp.
That thinking works well for slide rules and calculators but not for sonic performance.
So, back to our story. Our preamplifier was under development at the time and Stan didn't have the standard small power transformer we normally used. He did, however, have a same voltage 'former used for our power amplifier. This sucker was easily 20X the size we would ever consider using, but, what the heck?
Rules are rules (at least that's what the textbooks told us).
He (and later me) nearly fell over. From the very first note, this preamp sounded out of this world better than anything we had ever heard. And, it was thanks to the lower impedance and superior regulation provided by this massive power transformer.*
*Side note. This revelation would lead to our release of what we called the HCPS (High Current Power Supply), one of the world's first optional external power supplies available in high-end audio. It would also lead to the development of the Power Plant AC regenerators).
This insight was clue number one on the trail for how to make a new "Blue Ocean" product.
More tomorrow.
