After having occupied me with the well-priced Soul-M, combined to the Keces DC-116 power supply, I finally bought that server for my wife's audio system. The purchase of two power supplies, astonishingly, wasn’t recommended by Keces’ distributor Robert Ross – the review, by the way, also imposed a must-have-impulse on colleague Peter Banholzer, who, already, was a proud owner of a Mytek Brooklyn.

However, the owner of the German Keces distribution company didn’t suddenly loose confidence in one of the manufacturers he was representing, but rather had the opportunity to listen to the new P8 power supply right before the High End show. And since then, he has been convinced that it is capable to realize significantly bigger improvements than the replacement of a standard power supply against the Keces DC-116 could. The P8 is even larger, heavier and more expensive than the DC-116. It also comes up with a solid, well-engineered metal enclosure and, in addition, with a large white-lettered display, which offers information on the given voltages at the two outputs and the current power consumption of the connected components. Furthermore, there Is a USB port that provides up to one ampere of current. Using the ifi iDefender 3.0 to simply provide clean power via the USB connection to the converter, then the P8’s third output is a welcome extra feature. However, the big Keces is not as flexible as the DC-116, which internally allows the adjustment of the two outputs to a multitude of voltages. Here, there are two models with only one output, one model offering the choice between 9 and 12, the other model between 19 and 20 volts. In addition to that there are four so-called "dual versions", in which then each of the two voltages can be varied to a small extent by means of a switch.

Similar to the power supplies from SBooster, when buying a P8 it is very much determined by the voltage(s) of the connected component. But even in these fast-moving digital times, you surely are not intending to exchange your components in an annual cycle, aren’t you? During the test procedure, however, this looks a little different. Since I would like to compare the "big" Keces power supply with the DC-116, the latter supplying power to the living room’s audio system hosting the SoulM music server and the Mytek Brooklyn DAC, I ordered a dual version offering 19 and 12 volt options. The two safety switches on the back allow for reducing the voltage of the first output down to 18 and for the second output down to 9 volts. As aforementioned, further adjustments are not possible. The Mutec MC-3+ Smart Clock USB is not only responsible for processing the digital signal between the server and the converter, but also isolates the two devices galvanically. So at this point I dispense with the Defender3.0, so the 5 volts output of the P8 remains unused.

As it is normal with a power supply, it’s the voluminous toroidal transformer together with the two smoothing capacitor banks that instantly catch one’s attention. Transformer and electrolytic capacitors are separated by a heat sink, on which some of the active components are mounted for voltage regulation. Three more of these are mounted to the right side of the enclosure. Design and workmanship of the circuit boards offer no grounds for complaint..