[CGabriel]

RE: Why Shunyata Research never adopted regeneration

When creating a product it is good, actually necessary, to have clearly defined concepts of what that product's purpose is and what specific issues it will solve. Then you can start exploring possible engineering solutions and then finally create the actual product.

What is the first issue?
First is to provide power distribution. Notice I didn't say make a power conditioner. When you have more than two components in a system you need some form of power outlet expansion from what the wall outlet can provide. The simplest form of power distribution is a simple power strip.

What about noise reduction, voltage regulation, power factor correction, transient protection and whole host of other AC power related issues that be addressed in a product. A product that includes noise reduction or other power correction or manipulations would be considered a "power conditioner".

You will notice in our technical write-ups that we are constantly talking about two principles: DTCD (dynamic transient current delivery) and CCI (component to component interference). The reason we have settled upon these two principles is a result of our years of research into power related variables and their correlation to audio/video system performance. In other words, there are many technical issues that a power conditioner could address. But the key question is whether or not those have direct improvement to system performance. We must always keep in mind the context which in our case is delivering a product that will "improve" or at minimum NOT "degrade" audio or video performance. You spend tens to hundreds of thousands on audio/video equipment in a quest to do - what? Improve the sound or video quality. What sense would it make to audition component after component in your search to improve the system when a key component of your system that you may be blissfully unaware of is degrading total system performance. That would be the power system which includes the power distributor/conditioner and the associated power cables.

So over the years we have kept our primary goal very clearly in mind when creating our power products. It's all about the perceived sound and video stupid. Not calling anyone stupid, it's just a simple goal statement. What use is providing voltage regulation when in most industrialized countries that is not a problem and it has little to no correlation to perceived sound quality and most implementations of it actually cause other problems. What problems? - Hum, buzzing, heat and a severe loss of DTCD. DTCD being that ability of the product to deliver transient pulses of current.

So our design imperatives are to first and foremost: Improve or avoid loss of DTCD. DTCD has a direct and powerful correlation to what people hear in their systems. We consider the base of the pyramid in our design hierarchy. Next in importance would be to reduce noise - but if and only if you can do it without significantly impacting DTCD. This is no easy task since coils, transformers and inverters (regenerators) ALL have a deleterious impact on DTCD. You can design products that mitigate the inherent issues but that requires very large coils and transformers. This makes the resultant product very large, heavy and noisy. So what's the point of getting a power conditioner to supposedly improve audio performance when that product itself is injecting noise either directly into the room with humming transformers, DC offset (hum again) or buzzing sounds. Doesn't make much sense to me. I want a product that is dead quiet, doesn't hum or buzz and doesn't produce heat. If the power conditioner is producing heat that means that it is converting some of your power to heat which means it is not available for your system.

One of our breakthroughs was the development of our CCI-X noise filters that are very effective but can still pass very high levels of continuous current. For instance the new Denali 6000/S v2 can reduce noise from 100 kHz to over 30 MHz by greater than 60 db. Compare this to some other products that top out at 24 to 28 dB of noise reduction and notice that they don't specify a frequency range. And yet even with that noise reduction ability each and every outlet is capable of delivering the full current potential of the power line. This is why products from our sister company, Clear Image Scientific, have been so successful in high-tech medical imaging applications when other product designs have failed.

So now why have we never implemented a power regeneration product. First you should know that we possess a patented technology for active power correction. So we could make such a product that would be superior and patented. Further you need to know that there are no proprietary or patented regenerators. Regenerators are simply AC-DC-AC converters. That means that they are simply a form of amplifier that is fed a 50 or 60 Hz signal to an internal inverter to create an AC waveform. Do you know what happens to amplifiers when they are run 30-50% of their maximum capacity 24/7? All of these products are dependent upon the reserve current that they store usually in large capacitors. I know, you have seen ads where they say they can deliver high impulse currents but that is always measured into a single load with the device lightly loaded. Try powering the regenerator with a typical system load - then run the instantaneous current test again. It will not look so good.

So let me ask you this: What is the superior design? A product the solves the design issues and does it simply with minimal complexity? Or a product that is very complex and creates problems along the way?

There were many companies that made regenerators - most of them are gone. There is a reason. Heat, complexity and lack of reliability.

Our product carries a LIFETIME WARRANTY. There are no regenerator designs that can compare.

I could go on but I think that is sufficient for now.