UltraCap™ LPS-1 LISTENING IMPRESSIONS thread

[Mike Rubin]

Time to get a uRendu and get rid of the rest clutter?

 

This is a uRendu-based system.

[sockpit]

This is a uRendu-based system.

 

Oh, I see. My bad. Have you sought professional help?

[Mike Rubin]

Oh, I see. My bad. Have you sought professional help?

 

Nope. Got anyone to whom you can refer me for a diagnosis of audiophilia nervosa?

[elcorso]

Nope. Got anyone to whom you can refer me for a diagnosis of audiophilia nervosa?

 

Anyway, as always, is hard to get well recorded music than audiophile gadgets. I got over audiophilia nervosa by removing some of them, from the eating (and drinking / inhaling?) principle, "too much of the good thing is a bad thing"

 

Roch

[sockpit]

Nope. Got anyone to whom you can refer me for a diagnosis of audiophilia nervosa?

 

I've observed that Jesus at Sonore has a good sense of humor and proportion about these obsessions . . . But I think he's busy with non-psychiatric problems, i.e., helpfully troubleshooting this, that, and the other thing.

 

I salute Sonore and Uptone for their generosity and attention to CA readers. Am enjoying my uR and JS-2 daily, and now nervously and reluctantly veering toward the LPS-1, another box.

[mrvco]

Congrats, can't wait for mine!

 

Just wanted to add a few more devices to the list of those confirmed by users as working well--and sounding great--with the LPS-1.

 

Over in another thread, this post a user confirms the sMS-200, and someone wrote me about his powering of both the PS Audio LANRover and USB REGEN off a single LPS-1.

 

And Jesus from Sonore wanted me to mention that the little SonicOrbiter SE is of course an easy load for our ultracap supply.

 

Oh, and here is a link Michael Lavorgna's review at AudioStream. Michael bought one at full price, waited in line just like everyone else, and even declined my offer of a modest "industry accommodation discount" that I wanted to give him. What a guy. (But he can't stop me from sending him a nice bottle of something.)

 

Have a great weekend all.

 

--Alex C.

[earnmyturns]

Out-of-the-box LPS-1 replaces Teddy Pardo LPS powering a microRendu into Bifrost Multibit>Jotunheim>Ether C Flow. First impressions: listening to a new live recording (PCM 192/24) of SF Symphony playing Debussy. Great dynamics, strings (especially higher violin notes) and percussion may be more accurate than with the Teddy Pardo. Too complicated to compare rigorously in my setup, but certainly not a step back. The LPS-1 runs *hot*, glad that I have a well-ventilated place for it.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Anyone tried it with a Chromecast ? Is it complete overkill ?

[str-1]

Are things still on schedule for mid-November shipping of the second 250 units? My mRendu is sounding very nice with its £15 smps but I want it to sound better. Mid to late November should also see arrival of my Focal Utopia, which, with my Chord Dave and LPS-1 powered mRendu, should be quite something.

[earnmyturns]

The LPS-1 runs *hot*, glad that I have a well-ventilated place for it.

Interesting... running cooler now, 12 hours later, wondering if the ingress voltage regulators are working less hard now that the ultracaps are recharging steadily. Sounds great, listening to Brian Blade's superbly light touch with drumsticks on cymbals on "Triad Song" in the "Rising Grace" album (Wolfgang Mutshpiel guitar, Ambrose Akimmusire trumpet, Bard Mehldau piano, Larry Grenadier bass, Brian Blade drums; PCM 88.2/24 ECM release via HDtracks). The cleanest background, best defined attacks I've heard with microRendu>Bifrost MB>Jotunheim. The Teddy Pardo was doing a good job, but another slight layer of fuzz seems to have been lifted.

[pl_svn]

just for the records: my LPS-1, feeding a Regen, only runs somewhere between lukewarm and warm-ish

[JohnSwenson]

just for the records: my LPS-1, feeding a Regen, only runs somewhere between lukewarm and warm-ish

 

A REGEN by itself is a very light load. Now if the REGEN is powering a DAC, that can be a different story.

 

John S.

[pl_svn]

right, sorry John, forgot to mention: my Regen is feeding and powering an Audiophilleo 1 SE

(actually just its input stage, the output being powered by its dedicated battery PS)

[JohnSwenson]

Anyone tried it with a Chromecast ? Is it complete overkill ?

 

I don't have a chromecast so cannot explicitly test it, but I have tried the LPS-1 with several other inexpensive audio devices and it has made a huge improvement. So if you have an inexpensive device that you really like the functionality of, but think it lacks a fair amount of audio refinement, you may just find that powering from an LPS-1 really improves the sound.

 

John S.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Thanks. You should get a chromecast

[DavidZ]

All: I was in the second batch of LPS1s, and have had my unit powered up since Thursday. I am using it to power my microrendu. It is replacing a Mojo Audio Joule LPS (note: my Joule has 2 outlets, configured for 12 v and 7v. the 12 v still powers my Zuma server; the 7v outlet was replaced by the LPS1). I highly recommend the Joule for higher powered components.

 

I have had a chance to do a few listening sessions, even some weekend listening, where I wasn't falling asleep after a hard day's work. I am happy to join the chorus of praise the LPS1 has received. Definitely 5 out of 5 bags on my Holy S##t-o-meter!

My first mistake was starting to listen to Pet Sounds when I had other stuff to do. I was just going to listen to one track. (Thinly disguised self-deception, for sure).

 

By way of background, instead of glomming on to this album when I was 14, I downloaded the 26/96 version from HDTracks last spring, 50 years late. What amazes me is how the album coexists both the realm of the Beach Boys' (amazingly good) bubblegum music, and a niche that puts it up there with the best of anything the Beatles ever did. ("You know I hate to be a downer, but I'm the guy she left before you found her." What an amazing lyric.)

 

Those of you who have listened to the LPS1 will know I didn't get to the cleaners that night. I guess it's human hearing that makes changes in the frequency extremes the most immediately noticeable, and that was the case again. For those of you who haven't checked out the BIS downloads on eclassical.com, they are highly recommended. One in particular is a new release, Sonnengesang, by Sofia Gubaidulina, a protege of Shostakovich.

 

Gubaidulina is not easy listening. She is light on melody and strong on atmospherics. The impact of her recordings definitely scales up with improvements in your system. There's an organ cut on this album where she simultaneously uncorks both the positivs at the high end and the diapasons at the lower end (my subwoofer chuffed at one point). Gubaidulina doesn't do this for effect but to cut to the chase. It is amazing music that will grow on you with trance-like power. I've never heard anything like it.

 

Ah, but back to the gear: the LPS1 nudged this into another dimension. As I mentioned, improvements in the frequency extremes were very powerful. The cleansing of noise unveiled astonishing particulars of the positivs and let the bass flow with all its suppleness and menace intact. I put the Joule back in to compare, and it was still great, but the impact was muted.

 

I'm going to cut it off here with a quick nod to Alex and John -- you've got a real winner here. Thanks. -- David

[earnmyturns]

Gubaidulina is not easy listening. She is light on melody and strong on atmospherics. The impact of her recordings definitely scales up with improvements in your system. There's an organ cut on this album where she simultaneously uncorks both the positivs at the high end and the diapasons at the lower end (my subwoofer chuffed at one point). Gubaidulina doesn't do this for effect but to cut to the chase. It is amazing music that will grow on you with trance-like power. I've never heard anything like it.

 

Ah, but back to the gear: the LPS1 nudged this into another dimension. As I mentioned, improvements in the frequency extremes were very powerful. The cleansing of noise unveiled astonishing particulars of the positivs and let the bass flow with all its suppleness and menace intact. I put the Joule back in to compare, and it was still great, but the impact was muted.

 

I'm going to cut it off here with a quick nod to Alex and John -- you've got a real winner here. Thanks. -- David

Getting the same impressions listening to another well-recorded atmospheric piece, "Tocar for violin and piano" by Kajia Saariaho, a PCM 96/24 Ondine release I just got from HDtracks after reading an article about Saariaho in the New Yorker. The clarity in the strings, especially higher frequencies, and all the teeny details from fingering and bowing, I'm getting with the LPS-1 powering a microRendu is outstanding.

[Superdad]

Are things still on schedule for mid-November shipping of the second 250 units?

 

Yes we are. Many hours of work between now and then to pull it off (just my assistant and myself), but I am confident that we will do it.

Especially now that we have moved into our new space--and just in time as we were beginning to trip over all the boxes of parts!

 

 

 

The warehouse:

 

Shipping/Receiving:

[jjraffin]

How does the ping-pong / table tennis table help? Productivity? [emoji16]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[Superdad]

How does the ping-pong / table tennis table help? Productivity? [emoji16]

 

Absolutely it does! The protective brown panels you see on it turn it into the single most used work surface for us. That big table has held and produced thousands of REGENs, and hundreds of JS-2s--and now LPS-1 units. I designed the layout and workflow of the new space around that table.

 

And yes, on the rare occasion I'm not working, I drag my wife or one of our kids our to slap the ball around. It is going to be more fun and comfortable to play in the new space than in the garage! Just ordered the mini-fridge...

[earnmyturns]

Yes we are. Many hours of work between now and then to pull it off (just my assistant and myself), but I am confident that we will do it.

Especially now that we have moved into our new space--and just in time as we were beginning to trip over all the boxes of parts!

I hope the new space will help with the next batch of orders, just placed my order for a second LPS-1, hoping to get it mid-December to upgrade the power to my second microRendu, which is already improving my speaker system but deserves the cleanest power when it starts to feed just-ordered Schiit Yggrdasil DAC and Hegel H360 amp.

[MikeyFresh]

After hundreds of hours of continuous "on" time, I feel like there has been some amount of burn-in improvement to the sound of the microRendu as powered by the LPS-1.

 

Not an Earth-shaking difference, this unit sounded great ice cold right out of the box, but I do think a new level of refinement was achieved after many hours of LPS-1 runtime.

 

So thats my listening impression, the sound has graduated from stellar to out of this world good.

 

And at the risk of being flamed, a picture of my overkill heat sinking arrangement on the LPS-1:

 

 

Now running barely warm to the touch, as is the microRendu driven with 7 volts.

[mozes]

Hi Mikey does this bamboo (not sure) stand help in improving the sound if your system? I have a similar ikea bamboo small cutting board that I put under my LPS-1 but I dont have the bamboo foot like yours. So I really like to know your impressions about this setup.

[MikeyFresh]

Hi Mikey does this bamboo (not sure) stand help in improving the sound if your system? I have a similar ikea bamboo small cutting board that I put under my LPS-1 but I dont have the bamboo foot like yours. So I really like to know your impressions about this setup.

 

I'm not certain but perhaps some of the recent improvement I'm hearing is due to getting the LPS-1 up and off of the statically charged carpet.

 

It is an Ikea Aptitlig cutting board on the bottom, the two blocks are Myrtle wood from SW Oregon, a very dense wood, and good for sound generally speaking.

 

In the end I'll probably get Symposium Fat Padz for use under the LPS-1, they are outrageously good for sound quality underneath small power supplies, but kind of expensive too, so for now the wood will do.

 

With either the wood or the Fat Padz, the best result is achieved by coupling the chassis directly to the surface by removing the rubber feet, or just using a piece small enough to fit in between the feet. I haven't done that yet as I like the air flow underneath the unit afforded by the rubber feet, however the heat sinks have dropped the temperature sufficiently to where I can now do that at some point.

 

Sorry if this has veered slightly off topic.

[mozes]

I'm not certain but perhaps some of the recent improvement I'm hearing is due to getting the LPS-1 up and off of the statically charged carpet.

 

It is an Ikea Aptitlig cutting board on the bottom, the two blocks are Myrtle wood from SW Oregon, a very dense wood, and good for sound generally speaking.

 

In the end I'll probably get Symposium Fat Padz for use under the LPS-1, they are outrageously good for sound quality underneath small power supplies, but kind of expensive too, so for now the wood will do.

 

With either the wood or the Fat Padz, the best result is achieved by coupling the chassis directly to the surface by removing the rubber feet, or just using a piece small enough to fit in between the feet. I haven't done that yet as I like the air flow underneath the unit afforded by the rubber feet, however the heat sinks have dropped the temperature sufficiently to where I can now do that at some point.

 

Sorry if this has veered slightly off topic.

 

Thanks Mikey for your detailed and informative answer. It's good you just reminded me that I have a new set of Cardas myrtle blocks that I never even opened, so I will try them under the LPS-1. The heat sink idea is very neat.