Cheap music server power tweak that is VERY good.

[TJHUB]

I've had a CAPS v2, v3 Lagoon, and now a custom build with an Intel server board and XEON low TDP processor (think specialized CAPS v3 Zuma). I've been tweaking on PC based music servers for a while now. I've never wanted to go crazy on linear power upgrades (I've tested a few with mixed results), but I tried something recently that is one of the best bang for the buck improvements I've heard.

 

I purchased an Anker E4 rechargeable USB battery pack. My intensional was to test it powering both the OS SSD, and my Paul Pang USB 3 PCIe card. When powering the SSD with the 1A output, and the USB card with the 2A output, the sound was terrible. I lost bass articulation and output, I lost clarity in the midrange, and the treble had rounded edges. It was terrible in every way. However, powering just the SSD with the 1A output is revolutionary.

 

Powering just the SSD, the bass maintained great articulation, the midrange and treble clarity changed significantly. I'm now certain I understand what noise sounds like. This is not a blacker background thing, because every time I get a blacker background, it is at the expense of some detail and realism. This change is clarity actually causes the sound of instruments to change to something even more realistic. Low level details are much easier to hear, and none of this comes with any increase in brightness or elevated timbre. This is one of those improvements that makes any track I play sound better; MUCH better.

 

i read a few posts on other forums where others have found these same results. I can't explain why the OS SSD is this sensitive to power, but it certainly is!

 

To to be clear, I power my PC with a wide-input picoPSU powered by a FSP SMPS (19V, 6A). Obviously YMMV, but I think this is worth a try. My total cost was less than $60 shipped for the battery pack and USB power cable that I modified to work with SATA power.

[barrows]

I suspect the improvement is not from an improvement in how the SSD operates at all, but is a result of your USB card being now isolated from the large power spikes the hard drive injects back into the power supply itself (noise).

[sandyk]

I suspect the improvement is not from an improvement in how the SSD operates at all, but is a result of your USB card being now isolated from the large power spikes the hard drive injects back into the power supply itself (noise).

 

 

 

I agree.

[TJHUB]

I suspect the improvement is not from an improvement in how the SSD operates at all, but is a result of your USB card being now isolated from the large power spikes the hard drive injects back into the power supply itself (noise).

 

Could be. I plan to test this by trying a linear PS on the SSD. Nonetheless, the improvement is very significant for me. I just wanted others to know what a few have already figured out.

[Mike Gillespie]

TJHub:

How long does the Anker last (for powering SSD)?

 

Let us know what the linear PS does for the SSD.

[TJHUB]

So far I'm over 60 hours and the power indicator is still showing 2 out of 4 LEDs.

[ted_b]

Barrows, you might be right on because I tried a similar experiment after Terry told me about what he had done (in fact, Terry was the one who reminded me I could do it with what I had). My normal setup was a Hynes SR7-18V5 (dialed to 12V) powering my Zuma, with my Paul Pang USB card already being isolated by an older Acopian linear (wired for 5V) power supply. So when I tried powering the SSD independently (eventually using my iFI iUSB power supply and a quickly rigged USB-to-SATA power cable) the effect was minimal...maybe slightly better but not nealrly the eye-opening that Terry had. Again, I had already isolated the USB card; Terry hadn't.

 

Weird by-product of this experiment was that my first attempt was simply a swap: but the Acopian did not spin up the SSD (using the internal Pico-Molex to drive the PPA card). Instead the SSD sort of tick-tick-ticked (or something near it did) and I never got the machine up and running. We can't imagine why the Acopian (an older 12V/5V supply that Vinnie at Red Wine made for me years ago and I recently reduced to 5V only) would not have enough oomph to spin up a lowly 120GB Sandisk Extreme SSD...while the iFI iUSB power supply did easily (5V/1.2A).

[ted_b]

Update: last night's listening (iFi powering the SSD, Acopian powering the PPA card) has me amending my statement above. The clarity and focus is definitely improved by externally powering the SSD. RLJ's Pop Pop never sounded so 3D, and yet retained great musicality. Nothing became analytical, just clearer. Will an Anker battery (due here today or tmrw) improve that, dunno. If not, I will use it with our family's plethora of iPhones and iPad needs.

[firedog]

Dumbass question: how do you power just the SSD? In other words, what hooks up to what?

[ted_b]

Dumbass question: how do you power just the SSD? In other words, what hooks up to what?

 

I took a 5V power supply (ifI iUSB) and took a USB cable and cut it, found the black and red power wires and attached them to the black and red SATA power leads. Then plugged it into the SSD. It is on 24/7, regardless of whether I reboot the pc, etc. When I try the Anker battery version I will not leave it on 24/7, of course.

[edn4x4]

Would this make any difference if I am using a RWA Black lightning to power my pc and sotm card (CAPS v3 Lagoon)? Wouldn't the ssd get clean power from the BL?

[ted_b]

I could be wrong here, but like my Hynes the RWA Black Lightning is powering the general motherboard-based electrical system, which then uses cheap parts to power its peripherals, like the SSD. So although our main power supplies are clean (yours even cleaner than mine) it is more effective to separately power each individual piece. That being said, at some point it gets too OCD for most people. I think what Terry is saying here, and others have chimed in, if you're gonna power one thing, make it the SSD...cuz it's an inexpensive and easily powered tweak. It isolates the SSD from sending garbage back into the general mobo electrical system (picopsu, etc) and it gives the SSD clean power. Unlike cpu power, the SSD does not seem to have to care when it is on, as long as it's on before the pc boots up.

[edn4x4]

thanks Ted. My OCD side of me will try this. Do you have any pics? And thanks Terry and others for the info.

[JJJ]

Dumbass question: how do you power just the SSD? In other words, what hooks up to what?

 

Here is what I did with guidance from sandyk. I took a Velleman 1A power supply module (cheap little thing), made the modifications described in the "Powering an SSD" thread (removed several of the diodes and added a jumper to basically remove the rectifier, swapped the trim pot out for one that would make it easier to trim the module to 5V) and powered it from my 12V supply. It's fitted to the base of my enclosure simply by bolting the regulator with a Sil pad and isolator. Simple. Cheap as chips and works well. The output wiring is an old SATA power plug with the 12v and 3.3v wires removed leaving just the red 5V and black GND. See below. 12V in from the left, 5V to the SSD from the right. (The pic was taken before I tidied up all the wiring.)

 

 

 

All that said, I doubt the benefit is cleaner power to the SSD per se. After all, the data from the SSD is packeted and processed completely before playback. Therefore I would agree with Barrows and Sandyk that the benefit can only come from isolating any noise from the SSD affecting other components. In any event, putting this in place is cheap insurance.

[davide256]

uhh, that's a lot of wires, that don't look obvious for how to wire. Maybe this off the shelf solution would be safer and as effective for most of us? USB 2.0 to IDE / SATA External Hard Drive Adapter Cable - SATA / Hard Drive Cables

[ted_b]

So, I got the Anker Astro E4 battery ($43) in today, and made up another USB-to-SATA power cable for it. I compared it, in both 1A and 2A outputs, to the iFI 5V/1.2A power supply ($199 but also gives you iUSB capability if not used as a 3rd party power supply) running on the audiopc, then moved the Anker to my Caps V3 Lagoon (aka Caps V2+) controlpc.

 

Here is the comparison:

 

Summary:

* these improvements are HUGE! And should be compared with the best cable improvements or even changes in DACs, etc. IOW, substantial!

* I will continue to evaluate the Anker 2Amp output as I think it is ever so slightly better, albeit with much worse discharge times.

* I would have to put any of these options (except the Anker 1 amp on the audiopc) as incredible values at $43-$199 (wasn't there a rumor iFi would sell the power supply only)

* if doing only one half of a dual pc setup, my gut is to startt with the audiopc. If I have more time I will compare controlpc only.

[JJJ]

uhh, that's a lot of wires, that don't look obvious for how to wire.

 

Yes if you think 4 wires, 2 in and 2 out, is a lot you shouldn't be touching the inside of a computer!

 

The Velleman module with its very nice regulator cost £9 assembled in the UK.

[TJHUB]

Thanks for the results Ted. I appreciate the confirmation that I'm not imagining things.

 

just as an update, I decided to charge my battery pack last night as it spent a good part of yesterday with 1 out of 4 LEDs lit. It lasted over 100 hours on the charge it was shipped with. This is more than twice what I hoped I would get making the battery a good solution for powering the SSD. MHO of course.

[ted_b]

More listening last night made me even more committed to my "huge upgrade" comments. Another two aspects of this improvement: fuller bass, still tight and musical, but more body...and secondly, a cleaner less splashy top end (cymbals, etc). They seem to decay more naturally. Again, YMMV.

 

I can live with 50 hrs on a charge so I have decided, for now, to stay with the 2A output on the Anker-controlpc combo..at least until I do more a/b. Instead, I find myself immersed in the music.

[JJJ]

Your SSD will be using less than an amp of current

[ted_b]

Your SSD will be using less than an amp of current

 

Yes, I'm simply reporting what I found, so folks can help solve and learn. I fully realize it is a mystery so far, and that SSDs use a pittance once spun up. Did you read my comparisons? Can you explain, then, why the 1A Anker port to the audiopc SUCKED the life out of the system, even compared to the mobo power, yet on the 2A it sung gloriously? Yes, I realize that the SSD requires around an amp to spin up, and wayyy less to run.....but my results are the ONLY reason I am doing the 1A vs 2A in the first place. It was obvious that the SSD was starved out when on 1A port (not the case with the controlpc's SSD). By the way, as I stated ealrlier, that same audiopc SSD (Sandisk Extreme 120GB) would not spin up using the Acopian's 5V/1.2A but I'm wondering if it's the molex to SATA adapter I had to use. I can't get a good multimeter reading.

[JJJ]

Do you bring the file into memory before playback?

 

The reason I ask is that, theoretically, if one were fast enough you could switch off the SSD once the data was transferred and prior to playback. I think we can very safely say that the effects you observed have nothing to do with data transfer and nothing to do with peak or normal current draw from the SSD. Isolating the SSD power supply from the other components might help. Personally I'm rather sceptical on this topic except in really bad power situations but I did drop in the little power module albeit more as a learning exercise. It cost next to zip, was a bit of fun to tinker with and insured against the "what if" factor of isolating this power component. You could just run it off the 12V from your Hynes PSU.

 

For the 1A port of your battery to be worse than the 2A port, the 1A one would have to be injecting noise into the SSD and out with the SATA line and that noise would have to remain even when data transmission has ended. Personally I am even more sceptical of the results you witness there. But hey, you may be right!

 

(I think you will find that even at peak load a decent SSD will use less than 0.5A.)

[edn4x4]

ted are you using hibernate mode on your audiopc? My guess is that you are.

[ted_b]

ted are you using hibernate mode on your audiopc? My guess is that you are.

yes I am.

[ted_b]

JJJ, thanks for the feedback.

 

In computer audio I have learned to trust my experienced ears, and then work backward from there to try and find the physical reasons for the changes. Yes, placebo, expectation bias and simple buyers remorse/loyalty can tint those perceptions, but at the end of the day I have been very successful trusting my ears..and making sure I remove as many variables as possible. But that aural trust only goes so far...then I need to verify (or sometimes help a more knowledgeable hobbyist discover) a physical explanation. I think my time in computer audio has left me with several unexplained (and/or undiscovered...as in new) phenomena, but many more that are later simply explained (and often coming from a direction that wasn't intuitively obvious). It can be frustrating when not in the right mood, but overall it's very exciting. Knowing what we don't know is often the most difficult concept to accept.

 

The converse would be to use commonly accepted principles and make everything form fit to those principles. To me, it stifles discovery, it often leads us down wrong paths, and it definitely does not advance the hobby.

 

So...I am currently assuming that the vast majority of the benefits of these isolated SSD power supplies is what Barrows has postulated; that is, that we've simply gotten a bad apple isolated, and reduced its potential for sending garbage noise back through the pc ecosystem. However, why these 1A, 2A and battery vs iFi/linear/SMPS differences to the SSD are easily heard? Heck if I know, but I am dedicated to find out.