My unshielded cable and switching power supply extraction journey thus far!

VR3

So I have never been a huge proponent for power products, esoteric power cables do nothing for me, sorry guys! I have been there and did that

I do invest in quality cables, just nothin' crazy!

Anyways, so over the past few months I have successfully done the following -

Cables -

ICS: Unshield Duelund DCA16GA rca interconnects
Power cables (streamer, DAC, integrated) Duelund DCA12GA unshielded power cables

Power supplies -
Lumin U1 Mini - went to a S Booster external power supply versus onboard power supply
Netgear nighthawk switcher - went to a S Booster external power supply versus wallwart

Netgear nighthawk router & Modem - Teradak DC200W external power supply due to amp requirements of the router


Initial impressions
I first started with the lumin and @treitz3 can confirm the differences, the differences in the high end response is staggering going from the internal switching supply to external. The nighthawk switcher did not make as much of a difference, but still had a little more blackness to the stage.

I have not had a chance to evaluate the power supply on the router/modem yet, either way, this has been a fun journey and I highly recommend anyone using components with a switching power supply in their 2 channel system to eradicate them!

audioluvr

Could you dumb this down for me some please? Are you saying that if a device can be switched on/ off remotely to have that eliminated???

VR3

This is a switching power supply versus a linear power supply (like I included images of above)




More info:
https://www.actpower.com/educational/linear-vs-switching-power-supplies/

mhardy6647

Switch mode power supplies are smaller, lighter, and much more energy efficient than the classic "linear" (transformer to rectifier to filter) AC to DC converting power supplies that we all grew up with* -- but at the expense of generating lots of high frequency "hash" (noise, "RFI") that must be dealt with by the component(s) using, or in the physical vicinity of, the switch mode power supply.

____________
* all of us old guys, that is!

motorstereo

Reading this thread got me to thinking; and with time on my hands sometimes that's not a good thing. I have an old and very heavy Tripp Lite 550 dc to ac converter that hasn't seen use in years. So I'm thinking it would be nice to get rid of my noisy 12 volt wall warts and use this old monster as it should be quieter. So instead of outputting ac I inputted it though the outlets with a temporary cord. Sure enough there was a steady 12 volts at the 12 volt terminals. But I'm wondering if this is a good idea? I'd hate like hell to come home to a fire.

pitdogg2

Better bump up your insurance....

motorstereo

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Better bump up your insurance....

No need to now; I've put the Tripp Lite back into storage. But at least I know these things can be reversed........ dc to ac can be ac to dc if there's an urgent need.

jdjohn

Here's a good podcast discussing the differences between linear and switch-mode power supplies: https://www.thehifipodcast.net/episodes/episode-09-the-truth-about-power-supplies You may want to skip the first 17:45 or so where they talk about stuff they have recently done to their systems, and then they also answer a listener question before actually diving into the topic. And then the last ten minutes or so they discuss the beer they've been drinking, an album-of-the-week, etc., so you could stop at about 1:30:00. If you do that math, it equates to almost an hour and fifteen minutes of discussion on power supplies, where they get fairly technical.

mhardy6647

Linear power supply (low voltage DC).

DSC_4595 (2) by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

VR3

Great podcast Jody.

I think the mythology a poorly designed and built product versus a well designed built product is fairly universal.

That is one of the reasons I went with the teradak is there was actual information available with reviews, I actually believe a few members here have used it.

The s booster is legit, uses nice quality parts throughout, great product but also kind of expensive for sure.

machone

I use a Mojo Audio V3 Illuminati dual linear PS. One side at 12vdc to power my SS server and one side at 5vdc to power my RPi player. The combination is fantastic.
The blogs at mojoaudio.com have very good info about all kinds of power supplies.

VR3

That one is very nice!! I dig it

machone

VR3 wrote: »

That one is very nice!! I dig it

A view of the guts.

invalid

machone wrote: »

VR3 wrote: »

That one is very nice!! I dig it

A view of the guts.

That thing looks like it has choke input, that's a serious power supply.

Clipdat

Lovely design.

VR3

That is a solid power supply, I didn't know about that one but it also out of my budget haha

The s booster has a nice kit to convert the lumin over, took about ten minutes and looks stock.

Would be very interesting to compare the s booster to the mojo

machone

invalid wrote: »

machone wrote: »

VR3 wrote: »

That one is very nice!! I dig it

A view of the guts.

That thing looks like it has choke input, that's a serious power supply.

This from the Mojo website:

Combining modern ultralow-noise regulators with old-school heavy iron:
Choke input power supplies were engineered roughly 90-years ago by Western Electric. By adding a choke between the rectifier and first capacitor of a power supply the crest factor, heat, and parts wear are reduced by literally 50%. The choke also acts as a reservoir for power and pre-regulates the DC doubling the efficiency and effectiveness of each consecutive stage of filtering. Our Illuminati concept combines the best of old-school heavy iron choke input regulation with modern ultralow-noise ultrahigh-dynamic regulators resulting in a power supply with lower noise and faster dynamic response that runs significantly cooler and lasts significantly longer.

VR3

I love it

invalid

That's an excellent power supply.

VR3

So I swapped out the supra quadrax with the duelund dca12 dual (cloth jacket with two cloth jacket 12 awg wires.

Simply blown away at how good this wire is... Not even sure why it's good. It is just tin plated copper, tightly wound and baked in oil... Not even twisted, just side by side

Sounds great, super natural.

Highly recommend checking out the duelund wires with their low cost of entry

treitz3

VR3 wrote: »

I first started with the Lumin and @treitz3 can confirm the differences, the differences in the high end response is staggering going from the internal switching supply to external.

That I can. It cleaned up the top end quite well and got rid of some of the harshness along with some kind of "noise" that followed the transients, whether it was a heavy transient or a soft passage. I was rather impressed at what this thing did to Trey's system. It did a fantastic job of cleaning up the imaging, overall sound and especially the top end. The difference was way more than just "subtle".

When you don't hear what you didn't know you were hearing, you now know what you didn't know before because now it's gone. This was definitely one of those times. I knew it was there (and honestly, so did he) but this little doohickey did a fantastic job cleaning it all up.

Tom

jdjohn

Trey, I thought you had been using DH Lab speaker cables instead of the Supra Quadrax. I guess you went back to the Quadrax?

VR3

I have used the Q10 before, it is a great wire, just way to expensive for me. I need 16 ft per speaker.

I've also found silver cables don't go well with the tioxid tweeter.

The quadrax is a great wire, but dare I say the duelund dca12 has slightly better imaging

VR3

Removing 6 more switching power supplies off the circuits...

4 x fans
1 x IR repeater
1 x ethernet switch

This will also free up 3 outlets, bonus + no more wallwarts

VR3

So much better than having wall warts everywhere and the extra outlets is very nice

Clipdat

Are you crazy! Stacking FOUR linear power supplies on top of each other?? Are you trying to be the sole reason for the next Chernobyl?

VR3

I installed a siren to be sure, like rotating yellow one

Clipdat

mhardy6647

Clipdat