Power supply for Perpetual P-1A

Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

I just won an Audiogon auction for a Perpetual P-1A
digital processor, **without** power supply (the owner
had sold the Monolithic P3 he had been using, and had
lost the factory-supplied "wall wart").
There are a couple of reasonably-priced regulated switch-mode
power supplies available from Calrad that I imagine would
work with the P-1A (the Monolithic P3 outputs
12VDC @ 2.5A for the P-1A, so I looked for current
capacities at that level, which makes the PS a
"floor wart" rather than a "wall wart") -- either
the Calrad 45-602 (12VCD @ 2.5A) or 45-603 (12VDC @ 4.1A)
http://www.ba-electronics.com/calrad45.pdf
These come standard with 2.1 mm (inside diameter)
coax plugs with positive-center polarity. I gather
from the photo of the rear of the P-1A at
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_3/perpetual-technologies-p1a-p3a-9-2000.html
that the power input of the P-1A is for a coax
plug.
So my first question is: does anybody happen to know the
plug size and polarity of the P-1A's factory-supplied
wall wart?
My second question concerns bypassing the P-1A's internal
sample-rate converter chip (the Crystal CS8420) by
using the I2S input. I gather from the operating-mode
information provided by a Perpetual tech-support person
at
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=digital&n=15187&highlight=redundant+SRC&r=&session=
that the only way to get the P-1A's "resolution
enhancement (24-bit output) **without** having the
sample-rate converter in-circuit is to use the P-1A's
I2S input.
Since I will be using the P-1A to drive a Bel Canto DAC-2
(with its own upsampling to 24/192 via an Analog Devices
AD1896 chip), my only use for the P-1A is as a
"resolution enhancer". I suspect the best results
might be obtained by using the P-1A's I2S input and
thereby bypassing its own SRC chip. To do this, I
would have to convert from my transport's S/PDIF coax
by connecting a Genesis Digital Lens to the transport
via coax, then using an AES/EBU balanced cable to feed
an old Audio Alchemy DTI v.2, then taking an I2S output
from the DTI to the P-1A (yes, I've got a closet-full
of gear!). To do this, I'll have to buy a balanced
cable and an I2S cable (my DTI also has a BNC input,
but its ground connection is loose and intermittent).
Alternatively, I could just use coax from the transport
into the P-1A and live with sending the signal through
**both** SRCs -- the CS8420 in the P-1A and the AD1896 in
the Bel Canto (this happens with all non-I2S inputs to the
P-1A even if you've got it set for 44.1kHz output -- this is
what counts as the P-1A's jitter-reduction, I guess).
Do you think it's worth spending money on a couple
of exotic cables and having 2 extra black boxes
in the chain just to bypass the P-1A's CS8420?
Thanks.
Jim F.

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Topic - Power supply for Perpetual P-1A - JimF 08:02:26 12/16/02 (2)

Re: Power supply for Perpetual P-1A - steve b 10:16:52 12/16/02 (1)

Re: Power supply for Perpetual P-1A - JimF 11:17:04 12/16/02 (0)

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