I recently had the opportunity to try out the PS Audio Duet Power Center for a couple of days with my home systems.

Power conditioning with the living room home theater system
My primary TV is a Panasonic 50” TH-50PZ800U 1080p plasma HDTV plugged into a Panamax M8-HT power line conditioner and surge protector. I usually keep the TV set in the THX mode for the most accurate picture reproduction, but even so, the image can be a touch on the dark side when it comes to white levels.

I plugged the Duet into my plasma TV, and immediately saw a difference in picture quality. At first it was hard to say exactly what that difference was. I soon realized the picture contrast was better than I have ever seen before. The black level was darker, the whites were brighter, and the colors were richer.

Then came the real test. I watched "Ratatouille" on our DirectTV's Disney HD channel with my eight-year-old daughter. The animation looked fantastic. It was a lot richer and more detailed than I have ever seen from DirectTV displayed on my screen. It looked more like Blu-ray. I asked my daughter if the picture looked any different to her.  She replied “Yeah, it does look better. It looks almost like one of those 3D movies, but not all blurry." I had to chuckle inside. My eight-year-old daughter — a critic in the making.

Power conditioning with the bedroom audio system
The next day I tried the Duet out with my bedroom system. This time my focus was purely on sound quality. My setup includes a pair of Polk Audio LSi9 bookshelf speakers in two-channel stereo mode with an older Onkyo TX model receiver powering them.

I chose Natalie Merchant’s “The House Carpenter’s Daughter” CD for the test. It’s a good demo disc for a number of reasons. There's a good mix of soft and loud parts for contrast. The album's a good collection of traditional and contemporary folk music with a semi-bluegrass influence. There are some really nice parts with just vocals, acoustic guitar, banjo, and bass, but there are a few harder-rocking  tunes on the disc as well.

I use a Monster Power AV800  power protector with my bedroom system, so there's no power filtering going on there. I switched back and forth between the Duet and the AV800. The sound quality was noticeably warmer with the Duet. The vocals, and the string instruments were more pronounced, and the bass was a little tighter. Natalie has a nice range in her voice, but sometimes it sounds slightly distorted on the louder parts on my system. This was not noticeable when I was using the Duet. It was a nice surprise.

I now know first-hand that the PS Audio Duet Power Center is well worth the investment.