PS Audio, Inc. is an American company specializing in high-fidelity audio components, commonly referred to as high-end audio equipment, for audiophiles and professional audio applications. The company manufactures audio amplifiers, preamplifiers, power-related products, digital-to-analog converters (DACs), streaming audio devices, and loudspeakers.
Corporate history PS Audio was founded in 1973 and shipped its first products in 1974. It was started by audio designers Paul McGowan and Stan Warren (with whose initials the company was named). Warren left the company in the early 1980s to form Superphon. His position as audio designer and co-owner was assumed by Dr. Bob Odell, an audio designer who had created notable Harman Kardon designs. McGowan left the company in 1990 to join Arnie Nudell of Infinity Systems to build high-end speakers with Genesis Technologies.
PS Audio was purchased in 1990 by Steve Jeffery and Randall Patton, and operated independently until 1998. During this time, the company introduced its Ultra series of products, based on technology developed by the Ultra Analog Corporation, including the UltraLink DAC (Stereophile magazine product of the year) and Lambda transport. Jeffery and Patton later purchased Ultra Analog and Threshold Corporation.
In early 1997, PS Audio Inc. ceased operations due to financial problems. Shortly thereafter, Paul McGowan bought back the name 'PS Audio', and has been the CEO and principal designer for new products since then. In December 1997, he left Genesis Technologies to work full-time for PS Audio. In the first quarter of 2000, the new PS Audio International grew quickly, and Peter Rudy was added as president. In 2002, former owner Steve Jeffery became president. In 2009 he retired from the company and James H. Laib assumed the role of general manager. Laib became the company's president in 2015.
As of July, 2019, PS Audio employs 51 people, nearly half of whom support its engineering team. Manufacturing takes place at PS Audio's Boulder Colorado facility, and the company ships products worldwide.
Historic products
Pre-1990s PS Audio's first product was a standalone phono preamplifier, sold direct to consumers for $59.95. The small unit had a passive RIAA curve sandwiched between two 709C op amps running in class A mode and considered state of the art at the time for solid state. Later iterations of the phono preamplifier were introduced that moved away from the use of integrated IC op amps and moved to discrete high-voltage solid state amplification modules, retaining the passive RIAA curve. Models include the II and the III.
To augment the company's standalone phono preamplifiers, standalone line stage preamplifiers were introduced next, known as Linear Control Centers or LCC. One of the innovative features of the LCC was a bypass switch that permitted the user to select the use of an internal amplification module or straight into the potentiometer for volume control. Originally labeled 0 dB (line stage in) or -20 dB (passive only) this feature remained with all future PS Audio line stages and preamplifiers, later becoming labeled Straightwire in or out.
With the advent of the III phono stage, the form factor moved from no faceplate to a small 8.5" rack style faceplate enabling owners to combine the two chassis into one unit, thus forming the first PS Audio preamplifier with phono input. This series marked the end of the first era of modular chassis approach to preamplification.
Later preamplifier offering included the PS IV, the company's first 17" full chassis design and featured an external power supply for the first time in the American high-end audio industry. The IV featured a built in phono preamplifier with a novel switch on the bottom of the unit enabling users to select Moving Coil or Moving Magnet cartridges. Instead of adding in another circuit known as a head amp to increase the gain for Moving Coil cartridges, the IV took advantage of its passive RIAA curve design and simply increased the gain of the input amplification stage by an additional 30 dB. All future preamplifiers pre-1997 had this unique circuit that reduced the circuitry in the path of the phono cartridge.
During the same era (late 1970s) PS Audio introduced its first power amplifier, the Model One, a solid state design producing 70 watts per channel into 8 Ohms and 140 watts per channel into 4 Ohms. The design was a classic AB amplifier design featuring the company's first full 19" chassis design, large power supply, low feedback and minimalist design constraints. The Model One was later followed with the world's first Audiophile integrated amplifier introduced by an American High-End company, the Elite. Based on the Model One architecture, the Elite integrated the Linear Control Center into a Model One amplifier chassis. The Model One was replaced by the Model II, moving back to a smaller modular chassis approach at 8.5" with faceplate. The Model II produced 40 watts per channel into 8 Ohms, 70 watts per channel into 4 Ohms and had a Bridging switch enabling the user to bridge the internal stereo amplifiers into one mono amplifier, producing 160 watts into 4 Ohms. The Model II was followed by the IIC, featuring the same circuitry placed into a standard 19" rack mount chassis. The IIC introduced a new concept to the Audiophile marketplace, use of a separate external power supply for an amplifier. Users could choose from two models of external power supply, one as standard and an upgrade to a larger High Current version. The concept of an external power supply was first introduced on the PS Audio IV preamplifier and later applied to power amplifiers like the IIC. The concept became known as the High Current Power Supply or HCPS and was popular because improvements to the sound quality were gained by moving to a larger power supply, both in the application of the preamplifier as well as power amplifiers. The model IIC is factory rated at 55 watts into 8 ohms and 200 watts bridged mode (400 watts into 4 ohms bridged). The IIC Plus is rated at 70 watts into 8 ohms. Amplifier successors to the IIC included the 250 Delta monoblock and the 100 Delta amplifier.
In the early 1980s and with the advent of the Compact Disc, PS was one of the first American high-end audio manufacturers to modify one of the few CD players of the day by replacing its internal audio amplification stage following the internal D to A player. The first and only modified CD player introduced by the company was the CD-1 based on the Philips Magnavox line of CD players. The company engineers chose the Magnavox unit because the belief at the time was it sounded better to its only rival in the marketplace, the Sony. Inside the CD 1 PS engineers added a discrete high voltage line stage and power supply, replacing the NE5532 op amps used as the output amplification stage of the Magnavox. This unit was a stopgap product designed to get the company "in the game" of this new format that would someday challenge vinyl, the company's core products addressed. In the background, PS engineers were working to figure out a way to utilize the CD players digital output and create a standalone D to A converter. In late 1982, the company succeeded in releasing the first high-end standalone D to A converter known as the Digital Link. Other manufacturers such as Arcam and Theta were also on the same path and both companies released competing D to A processors within several months of the Digital Link's introduction From this point onwards, the company has produced a succession of DACs with the same goal in mind - that of supplanting the built in DAC and line stage of CD players. Later advances in CD technology led the high-end audio industry to release a new category of product called a CD Transport that contained no DAC and meant to use as a pair which became known as a DAC and Transport combination.
1990–1997 From 1990 to 1997, co-founder McGowan left the company and joined Infinity founder Arnie Nudell to form Genesis Loudspeakers. During the 7-year period between 1990 and 1997 the company was owned and operated by Steve Jeffery, President and general manager and Randy Patton, VP of sales, marketing and product development.
Products during this era of the company took a somewhat different direction under the design guidance of Dr. Robert Odell and product development VP Randy Patton (Sumo). Preamplifiers built during this era included the 6.0 and 6.5 and were IC op amp based rather than discrete high-voltage designs of the past era. It was during this time period the company acquired a more modern look to the industrial design.
The biggest contributions to the company product legacy was the line of digital audio products engineered by the outside vendor Ultra Analog located in the Bay Area. Ultra Analog, headed by Dick Powers, was an engineering centric ODM/OEM producing some of the world's first 24 bit DAC modules. These modules were hybrids potted in epoxy and were built around multiple Burr Brown 16 and 18 bit DAC chips. The first products from this partnership were the PS Audio Ultralink DAC, Reference Link DAC and A/D converter and Lambda transport. The Ultralink garnered Stereophile magazines product of the year. The Lambda transport was built around a Marantz CD mechanism. The Ultralink, Reference Link and Lambda transport were designed and built by Ultra Analog and marketed under the PS brand for nearly 5 years. PS Audio Inc. acquired Ultra Analog in 1994.
In 1995 PS Audio also acquired Hales loudspeakers and the Threshold Corporation. Following the two acquisitions Randy Patton purchased all shares of PS Audio from Steve Jeffery and owned 100% of the corporation. Steve Jeffery went on to be appointed President of the Wadia Corporation, a competing high-end audio DAC manufacturer.
Patton ran PS Audio and the Threshold Corporation until 1997 when the entity ceased operations and declared bankruptcy. Steve Jeffery, the primary creditor of the corporation, liquidated the remaining assets of the company and sold the name PS Audio back to McGowan for $1, who restarted operations in 1998.
Modern products
1997–2014 With the return of co-founder McGowan to PS Audio, the company returned to audio work by producing an entirely new category of product, the AC regenerator. McGowan reasoned that in order to return the company to viability in a very crowded and competitive market it was necessary to take a Blue Ocean Strategy and provide a product that solved a major problem in all high-end systems, the AC power feeding them.
Realizing that the (then) infantile power conditioning category consisted only of filters that cleaned power line noise and did not address the larger issues of voltage regulation and sine wave purity, a new type of product called a regenerator was created. The first regenerator prototype was large stereo power amplifier fed by a low distortion Hewlett-Packard sine wave oscillator. Each channel of the power amplifier produced 60 volts AC and when a load was placed across the two out of phase channels of the amplifier, the required 120 volts AC was achieved to power products. The research and prototype phase of the regenerator included various listening tests at different frequencies and 400 Hz was found to sound best (50 Hz and 60 Hz is standard) when equipment was powered by the amplifier. Further research negated the use of 400 Hz sine waves because many tube amplification systems were not filtered well enough at higher frequencies and the 400 Hz tone could be heard through the system. 60 Hz was the final design choice and the first product was launched. It was called a Power Plant and the model was the P300, producing up to 300 watts of regenerated, regulated AC power.