A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[austinpop]

6 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

That would certainly work just fine, or as stated in a previous post, nothing wrong with using a spade lug either.

 

The only other issue I ran into besides needing to grind down the inner diameter of the ring was the physical thickness of the crimp spot, it's actually just a bit too thick and gets in the way of the Meanwell's DC plug body fully seating at the input of the LPS-1. 

 

I solved that by using pliers with greater leverage to squeeze the crimp spot as flat as I could (flattening it after I had made the crimp). That fits, although I'm thinking I'll take it off the system again today and bend the ring terminal 90 degrees relative to the crimp spot, if that works out I'll post a picture.

 

In the meantime I bought a little space/clearance by putting an iFi DC Purifier inline, it looks like this:

 

 

What gauge wire is it? And can you supply a link to the ring terminal you bought? Just wondering how you matched up the gauge of the wire and terminals.

 

Nice idea! 

[austinpop]

13 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

Ok, but it is still worth to separate grounding points to limit the possibilities for a good old ground loop or cut possible leakage paths. Experiment a bit where it matters most.

 

 

FYI...

 

I tried grounding the Meanwells to both sides of the IT  - see above pic. I didn’t find s difference... both sounded better than no grounding.

 

I’m not sure exactly what happens with the ground plane across the IT.

 

I eventually settled with plugging the ground into the AP5, since it was more convenient.

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

What gauge wire is it? And can you supply a link to the ring terminal you bought? Just wondering how you matched up the gauge of the wire and terminals.

 

It's a stranded 14 gauge run of the mill tin plated copper wire, very flexible with silicone outer jacket/insulation. I came to my senses and decided not to go nuts and use expensive wire such as Furutech Alpha 14 (yet).

 

The ring terminals are the Connex house brand of PartsconneXion in Toronto. I wasn't able to match the gauge perfectly and it turned out to factor just a bit on the fitment, the crimp spot is sized for 12 gauge wire and it makes the whole thing just a little larger/fatter than it needs to be.  I squashed it further after making the high pressure crimp, using a sturdy pliers and brute force, the other option would have been to file it down.

 

The crucial thing in the end with those ring terminals (for me) is that they are made of a very soft flexible OCC copper, so bending them at a 90 degree angle isn't hard. If they were brass that wouldn't work, they would break.

 

Or maybe the ConneX spades are actually the way to go, no way to be sure without asking them to be measured I guess, but those too are OCC copper and so will bend to a certain extent, and are sized for 14 gauge wire.

 

The ConneX right-angled spades have a 6mm fork opening and so would also work, but those are brass, so they will not really bend at all before breaking and are heavier than copper maybe putting a little more weight/strain on the DC socket. The wire is affixed with a set screw however, maybe the ticket for anyone without a proper crimper (or soldering iron).

 

 

[Cornan]

50 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

 

FYI...

 

I tried grounding the Meanwells to both sides of the IT  - see above pic. I didn’t find s difference... both sounded better than no grounding.

 

I’m not sure exactly what happens with the ground plane across the IT.

 

I eventually settled with plugging the ground into the AP5, since it was more convenient.

 

With grounding it's good to experiment a bit to see if other grounding points sounds better or not. Sometimes it can even sound better without it. I just removed the DC- output grounding to the Gophert powering my ISO Regen which was connected to a star-earth receptacle on my PSD. It increased SQ!

If you still have the Aucharm's around try grounding a DC- output to it. IME Entreq Minimus sounds way better than connected to the ground receptacle of the powerstrip.

[sandyk]

On ‎19‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 5:14 PM, afrancois said:

I glued the sheets on top of the LPS-1 for example and it perfectly dissipates the heat the LPS-1 generates. I even have cooling fins resting on top of them.

 

Did you check the internal temperature of the LPS-1 before , and after doing this ?

There is no way that the heatsinks will work as effectively when sitting on top of 3M material which is NOT designed for this purpose.

[Johnseye]

51 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Did you check the internal temperature of the LPS-1 before , and after doing this ?

There is no way that the heatsinks will work as effectively when sitting on top of 3M material which is NOT designed for this purpose.

 

Any heat generated is so miniscule it won't make a difference. I've been feeling the devices after being in for a long time and there's no difference. Of course if you want to know for sure take the tamp. 

 

I just bought 2 more sheets and have been covering the insides of more equipment. It continues to help. 

[sandyk]

20 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

Any heat generated is so miniscule it won't make a difference. I've been feeling the devices after being in for a long time and there's no difference. Of course if you want to know for sure take the tamp. 

 

I just bought 2 more sheets and have been covering the insides of more equipment. It continues to help. 

 

The idea of the 3M material is to reduce/eliminate radiation from the I.C.s etc. that they are installed on, into other sensitive areas.  It should not be needed  to cover the insides of equipment using a metal case.

Where there are toroidal transformers etc. you can also use a piece of copper clad PCB that is connected to the chassis, between the transformer and sensitive devices such as Input PCBs of DACs etc.

[Johnseye]

56 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

The idea of the 3M material is to reduce/eliminate radiation from the I.C.s etc. that they are installed on, into other sensitive areas.  It should not be needed  to cover the insides of equipment using a metal case.

Where there are toroidal transformers etc. you can also use a piece of copper clad PCB that is connected to the chassis, between the transformer and sensitive devices such as Input PCBs of DACs etc.

 

Based on what I've read that isn't accurate. The  3M sheets absorb EMI and RF. A metal case won't shield everything from the outside and it won't shield EMI or RF bouncing around the inside. 

 

I don't know anything about copper clad PCB.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

Based on what I've read that isn't accurate. The  3M sheets absorb EMI and RF. A metal case won't shield everything from the outside and it won't shield EMI or RF bouncing around the inside. 

 

A metal case will prevent the ingress of most of the RF/EMI , and is all that is normally needed.

Neither will you find too many manufacturers, even with expensive gear, doing what you are doing .

Unless you are living near high powered FM ,TV or high powered Radar transmitters, you will only get minor gains at best from doing this.

It's best to shield the individual devices such as I.C.s directly with the 3M product to prevent RF /EMI bouncing around inside, and more effective as it is directly on the I.C. itself . It will also be far less expensive.

 

 

[Johnseye]

Individual chips, at least a minimum should be shielded.  It isn't limited to high powered transmitters.  Here's some reading on the subject.

 

Were you referring to integrated circuits and not interconnects?  Electromagnetic Interference and Digital Circuits: An Initial Study of Clock Networks goes into some detail about integrated circuits.  This is actually some pretty interesting stuff.  Solid evidence and pertinent to digital audio applications.

 

Understanding and Eliminating EMI in Microcontroller Applications goes into some detail.

 

This PowerPoint discusses RFI in audio, but it's a ppt so doesn't flow like a paper.

 

And another paper.  From that paper:

 

"Conductive enclosures can be used to shield sensitive circuits from the effects of these external fields. These materials present an impedance mismatch to the incident interference, because the impedance of the shield is lower than the wave impedance of the incident field. The effectiveness of the conductive shield depends on two things: First is the loss due to the reflection of the incident wave off the shielding material. Second is the loss due to the absorption of the transmitted wave within the shielding material. The amount of reflection loss depends upon the type of interference and its wave impedance. The amount of absorption loss, however, is independent of the type of interference. It is the same for near- and far-field radiation, as well as for electric or magnetic fields."

 

So, how effective are the chassis of our equipment in shielding outside noise?  What material is it made of?  How effective are they at keeping that noise in?  Is covering integrated circuits enough or are there other other places EMI/RF can cause an issue?  Can you cover every IC with the 3M shield?

 

More from that paper:

 

"Thus for high-frequency interference signals, lightweight, easily worked high conductivity materials such as copper or aluminum can provide adequate shielding. At low frequencies however, both reflection and absorption loss to magnetic fields is low. It is thus very difficult to shield circuits from low-frequency magnetic fields. In these applications, high-permeability materials that exhibit low-reluctance provide the best protection. These low-reluctance materials provide a magnetic shunt path that diverts the magnetic field away from the protected circuit. Examples of high-permeability materials are steel and mu-metal. To summarize the characteristics of metallic materials commonly used for shielded purposes: Use high conductivity metals for HF interference, and high permeability metals for LF interference. A properly shielded enclosure is very effective at preventing external interference from disrupting its contents as well as confining any internally-generated interference. However, in the real world, openings in the shield are often required to accommodate adjustment knobs, switches, connectors, or to provide ventilation. Unfortunately, these openings may compromise shielding effectiveness by providing paths for high-frequency interference to enter the instrument."

 

But best of all, I can without a doubt hear a difference.  That to me is really all that's necessary, but there appears to be some proven science behind it.

[sandyk]

27 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

Were you referring to integrated circuits and not interconnects?

 

 I was talking about Integrated circuits, where you can cut a small piece of the 3M material and place it over the I.C. itself.

Just first make sure that the I.C. isn't quite warm when in use before doing this. Some "Jumbo" type I.C.s as used in Set Top Boxes etc. already have aluminium heatsinks attached to them which are quite thick, and will also help to reduce radiated RF/EMI.

27 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

....Thus for high-frequency interference signals, lightweight, easily worked high conductivity materials such as copper or aluminum can provide adequate shielding.....

  That is also why I recommended using a piece of copper clad PCB, and many cases are made from aluminium which is light weight.

You will find that internally generated RF/EMI from I.C.s is of a very high frequency due to very fast switching pulses in the I.C. itself,  and it's nearby copper traces such as the power supply connections. Proper design will have bypass capacitors at the appropriate locations to prevent most of the radiation from these traces.

With cases that use anodised aluminium, or even cases with painted steel, you need to make sure that there is a good electrical contact between top , bottom and the sides of the cases.

 You may need to scrape away any anodising/paint etc. around the screw holes to ensure a good contact between sections.

You can use a DMM  to verify that there is a good electrical contact between sections. 

Yes, I am well aware of the suggestions made in the "another paper". 

BTW, much of the material you quoted applies mainly to equipment OTHER than normal consumer grade equipment as used for Audio and Video.

[Johnseye]

11 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 I was talking about Integrated circuits, where you can cut a small piece of the 3M material and place it over the I.C. itself.

Just first make sure that the I.C. isn't quite warm when in use before doing this. Some "Jumbo" type I.C.s as used in Set Top Boxes etc. already have aluminium heatsinks attached to them which are quite thick, and will also help to reduce radiated RF/EMI.

  That is also why I recommended using a piece of copper clad PCB, and many cases are made from aluminium which is light weight.

You will find that internally generated RF/EMI from I.C.s is of a very high frequency due to very fast switching pulses in the I.C. itself,  and it's nearby copper traces such as the power supply connections. Proper design will have bypass capacitors at the appropriate locations to prevent most of the radiation from these traces.

With cases that use anodised aluminium, or even cases with painted steel, you need to make sure that there is a good electrical contact between top , bottom and the sides of the cases.

 You may need to scrape away any anodising/paint etc. around the screw holes to ensure a good contact between sections.

You can use a DMM  to verify that there is a good electrical contact between sections. 

Yes, I am well aware of the suggestions made in the "another paper". 

BTW, much of the material you quoted applies mainly to equipment OTHER than normal consumer grade equipment as used for Audio and Video.

 

Right, not many companies put the effort in for consumer grade. 

 

Good input. Cheers. 

[austinpop]

6 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

I squashed it further after making the high pressure crimp, using a sturdy pliers and brute force, the other option would have been to file it down.

 

Do you need some kind of crimping tool - I don't have any - or will pliers and brute force get the crimping job done?

[Johnseye]

40 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

  That is also why I recommended using a piece of copper clad PCB, and many cases are made from aluminium which is light weight.

 

Are you suggesting a Faraday shield? 

[sandyk]

22 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

Are you suggesting a Faraday shield? 

 

 No. It simply isn't necessary for Consumer grade gear.

Even replacing diodes in the PSU area , voltage ratings permitting, with Schottky diodes can help reduce RF/EMI as Greg has posted in another area of the forum. His suggestion applies mainly to external +5V non SMPS supplies, but also applies to internal PSUs .

There is also a lot of very good information posted by E.E. John Swenson in this and other Uptone threads, as well as elsewhere, about Earthing of SMPS powered devices etc. These are areas where you can make the biggest improvements at a negligible cost.

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/37034-smps-and-grounding/?page=9

 

[One and a half]

8 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

 

FYI...

 

I tried grounding the Meanwells to both sides of the IT  - see above pic. I didn’t find s difference... both sounded better than no grounding.

 

I’m not sure exactly what happens with the ground plane across the IT.

 

I eventually settled with plugging the ground into the AP5, since it was more convenient.

Looking at this scheme a little closer, the three Meanwell SMPS could use rationalisation. Each one creates crud on the primary, and infection occurs throughout the system, SMPS do that. Quite a few people are seriously considering and have completed voiding their Mutec MC-3+USB warranty and removing the Meanwells in the USB/SPDIF converters in favour of linear power supplies with accelerated SQ improvement.

 

To this end, the three Meanwells can be replaced with one triple output Acopian Linear power supply. Depending on the design, there's one large power transformer, and three separate regulators. As a base, the 5V outputs can be ordered with a 7V rail at 3A or more. This will avoid the star grounding system and remove switching crud from the system in one go. The 0V of each output can be tied to ground at the source with wires, no soldering required. The reason for the triple output is that each output is thermally protected, the other alternative is to have one large supply, but individual fuses need to be installed for each LPS-1. Load compensation is included as standard on the Acopian. 

There is a requirement for an vented enclosure to keep live bits away from accidental touch.

 

The B&K transformer can stay, the Dectet can be replaced with a non suppression power strip like a Tripplite, cause there's something else feeding the system above can't see that. The Dectet has all sorts of electronics in there, for the cost of the Tripplite, it's an exercise worth the trouble. The output 'neutral' on the B&K should be grounded to avoid high earth/ground to neutral voltages. 

 

Food for thought.

 

The other thought was for Uptone to combine the ISO Regen and Regen in the one case, but Alex was none of it.

[Superdad]

8 minutes ago, One and a half said:

The other thought was for Uptone to combine the ISO Regen and Regen in the one case, but Alex was none of it.

 

Sorry, I don't understand.  The ISO REGEN is the all-in-one: Galvanic isolation and überUSB REGEN.  

Is the above a typo and you meant that you asked for some other product function combination?

[One and a half]

3 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Sorry, I don't understand.  The ISO REGEN is the all-in-one: Galvanic isolation and überUSB REGEN.  

Is the above a typo and you meant that you asked for some other product function combination?

ah, that would have been a combo LPS-1 and ISO Regen in the one box, to avoid spaghetti.

[Superdad]

14 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

Interesting in relation to the apparent existence of "medical grade" Meanwell units that are already grounded and thus already block the leakage/don't need this tweak.

 

Sorry, that is not correct.  While medical grade SMPS units have less "touch-current" leakage, that's the low-impedance variety.  As explained, the grounding trick is strictly to shunt high-impedance leakage.

 

The "medical" Mean Well models of course do not connect AC ground to DC zero-volt out--they have just a 2-wire C8 inlet.  Therefore they are not doing anything to shunt the high-impedance leakage.  

See John's treatise on the subject from today:

 

We have come across a couple of current production SMPS units that happen to have AC ground common to the DC output.  But the manufacturer never specifies this (and it varies from model to model).

 

 

14 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

Also puzzling to me is why these Meanwell units have an IEC input with a 3rd pin but it doesn't actually connect to anything, why do they even include a 3-pin IEC if the ground pin is not even connected?

 

Why indeed.  I am still waiting for an answer from Mean Well engineers.  Interesting to be considered a Class 1 supply without the primary side grounded.  What is odd is that the 40 watt model from the same GST series does use the C14 AC inlet's ground pin.

[Superdad]

10 minutes ago, One and a half said:

ah, that would have been a combo LPS-1 and ISO Regen in the one box, to avoid spaghetti.

 

But positioning the ISO REGEN right at the input of the DAC--especially with the included USPCB A>B Adapter--is key to preserving signal integrity and impedance match.  So aside from excess heat and other potential emissions, sticking a long cable on the box is a sonic step backwards.  

Yes the ISO REGEN needs a power supply cable to it, but otherwise it, with the USPCB add no spaghetti other than themselves to the chain.  No second USB cable to buy.

[beautiful music]

On 10/28/2017 at 7:49 AM, MikeyFresh said:

 

I shared that concern and decided to make a slightly different version of this without any actual adaptors, even though my Meanwell is not right before a rendu. So a little more like the Groundhog approach.

 

My parts arrived today:

 

 

I used a high pressure crimp on a ring terminal with 14 gauge stranded wire. The ring terminal had to be slightly modified using a Dremel tool as the inner diameter of the ring was a bit too tight to fit around the Meanwell's DC plug. 

 

 

This tweak has a positive effect on my system, very similar to as described above by @austinpop in phase 1 of his experiment, primarily I noted improvement in dynamic contrast and low-level detail, and a noticeably larger airier stereo image when grounding the Meanwell this way.

 

Big thanks to @JohnSwenson!

Can you post please from where did you bought these stuff?

[One and a half]

27 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

But positioning the ISO REGEN right at the input of the DAC--especially with the included USPCB A>B Adapter--is key to preserving signal integrity and impedance match.  So aside from excess heat and other potential emissions, sticking a long cable on the box is a sonic step backwards.  

Yes the ISO REGEN needs a power supply cable to it, but otherwise it, with the USPCB add no spaghetti other than themselves to the chain.  No second USB cable to buy.

This post sounds like an advert, or infomercial. 

[ElviaCaprice]

40 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

But positioning the ISO REGEN right at the input of the DAC--especially with the included USPCB A>B Adapter--is key to preserving signal integrity and impedance match.  So aside from excess heat and other potential emissions, sticking a long cable on the box is a sonic step backwards.  

Yes the ISO REGEN needs a power supply cable to it, but otherwise it, with the USPCB add no spaghetti other than themselves to the chain.  No second USB cable to buy.

I agree about the USPCB.  Works great for my tXUSBexp PCIe card direct to my DAC.

[marce]

4 hours ago, Johnseye said:

Individual chips, at least a minimum should be shielded.  It isn't limited to high powered transmitters.  Here's some reading on the subject.

 

Were you referring to integrated circuits and not interconnects?  Electromagnetic Interference and Digital Circuits: An Initial Study of Clock Networks goes into some detail about integrated circuits.  This is actually some pretty interesting stuff.  Solid evidence and pertinent to digital audio applications.

 

Understanding and Eliminating EMI in Microcontroller Applications goes into some detail.

 

This PowerPoint discusses RFI in audio, but it's a ppt so doesn't flow like a paper.

 

And another paper.  From that paper:

 

"Conductive enclosures can be used to shield sensitive circuits from the effects of these external fields. These materials present an impedance mismatch to the incident interference, because the impedance of the shield is lower than the wave impedance of the incident field. The effectiveness of the conductive shield depends on two things: First is the loss due to the reflection of the incident wave off the shielding material. Second is the loss due to the absorption of the transmitted wave within the shielding material. The amount of reflection loss depends upon the type of interference and its wave impedance. The amount of absorption loss, however, is independent of the type of interference. It is the same for near- and far-field radiation, as well as for electric or magnetic fields."

 

So, how effective are the chassis of our equipment in shielding outside noise?  What material is it made of?  How effective are they at keeping that noise in?  Is covering integrated circuits enough or are there other other places EMI/RF can cause an issue?  Can you cover every IC with the 3M shield?

 

 

More from that paper:

 

"Thus for high-frequency interference signals, lightweight, easily worked high conductivity materials such as copper or aluminum can provide adequate shielding. At low frequencies however, both reflection and absorption loss to magnetic fields is low. It is thus very difficult to shield circuits from low-frequency magnetic fields. In these applications, high-permeability materials that exhibit low-reluctance provide the best protection. These low-reluctance materials provide a magnetic shunt path that diverts the magnetic field away from the protected circuit. Examples of high-permeability materials are steel and mu-metal. To summarize the characteristics of metallic materials commonly used for shielded purposes: Use high conductivity metals for HF interference, and high permeability metals for LF interference. A properly shielded enclosure is very effective at preventing external interference from disrupting its contents as well as confining any internally-generated interference. However, in the real world, openings in the shield are often required to accommodate adjustment knobs, switches, connectors, or to provide ventilation. Unfortunately, these openings may compromise shielding effectiveness by providing paths for high-frequency interference to enter the instrument."

 

But best of all, I can without a doubt hear a difference.  That to me is really all that's necessary, but there appears to be some proven science behind it.

This is standard everyday stuff in electronic product design...

Look at the books and notes by the likes of Keith Armstrong (UK EMC club, Cherrytree consultants) practical guides and notes on both EMC testing and how to avoid EMC problems.

Henry Ott, the main man. 

Ralf Morrison, another good source of theory especially regarding the waves of electricity.

SIgnal Integrity and EMC comparability engineering has been studied extensively for many years, I have collected GBytes of related documentation and books over the years and as we keep increasing the signal rise times and clock frequencies the more problematic layout and system design becomes. The kit required for audio reproduction is pretty common place, how well some of it is made in terms of EMC would take an EMC lab to determine, you need a shielded environment to determine the system noise, not the environments background noise. 

Often do stuff with a requirement for immunity up to and greater than 18GHz and currently working on a hand held medical device with a blue tooth trasmitter (4 board stack, 15mm x 20mm two processors, memory, sensors, RF antenna all in close proximity, plastic shielded case). Its all down to the layout mainly, get that wrong and as the papers pointed out you have multiple antennas (there are numerous papers on antenna structures on PCBs, dipoles for dummies, Henry Ott is a good start. Its down to good design and testing, the problem is EMC testing is expensive, how many small firms do full comparability testing?

[Superdad]

8 hours ago, One and a half said:

This post sounds like an advert, or infomercial. 

 

You asked why we don't put the ISO REGEN in the same case as the UltraCap LPS-1 and I gave you a multipoint explanation.  But aside from the technical reasons, it would not be a good business decision either since people use our power supply for many things.