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

[justubes]

Would'nt an ocxo providing the required frequency be still better than a low phase 10m ocxo to discipline an average phase noise vcxo?  

 

The required audio clocking frequencies(24m/45m etc.) phase noise  are normally much higher thanfrequencies at 10m

 

I would think an ocxo directly feeding any chip will still come up tops.

[seeteeyou]

1 hour ago, justubes said:

Would'nt an ocxo providing the required frequency be still better than a low phase 10m ocxo to discipline an average phase noise vcxo?  

 

The required audio clocking frequencies(24m/45m etc.) phase noise  are normally much higher thanfrequencies at 10m

 

I would think an ocxo directly feeding any chip will still come up tops.

 

Even if that were true, those of us who already invested in sCLK-EX plus another $3000+ reference clock wouldn't really care about any of that.

 

Once again let's do the math, round trip shipping to and from SOtM. Less than $100 for D-Link switch. $700 and up for sCLK-EX. $3,595 for Mutec REF 10. €700 for Habst 5N Cryo. Add a few hundreds for one rail from Paul Hynes SR7. Of course we'll also need something decent to power that D-Link switch and sCLK-EX.

 

All of a sudden @romaz reported that $659 The Linear Solution OCXO switch (with $55 Connor-Winfield OH4610LF-025.0M) would actually sound as good as everything listed above. We're "only" talking about 25MHz OCXO with ±10ppb here. Even ±3ppb ones (e.g. that OCXO inside Innuos ZENith Statement) wouldn't cost too much to begin with

 

https://www.digikey.com/products/en/crystals-oscillators-resonators/oscillators/172?pv253=118

[seeteeyou]

The Double Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator: When to Use it

http://blog.bliley.com/the-double-oven-controlled-crystal-oscillator-when-to-use-it

 

Ultra-stable OCXO using dual-mode crystal oscillator - IEEE Xplore

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/887400/

 

Now I wonder how much this DOCXO with ±0.2ppb would actually cost, it only goes anywhere from 4MHz to 15MHz so basically only 12MHz would be useful for USB 2.0 (likely that system clock inside tX-USBultra)

 

https://www.vectron.com/products/ocxo/dx-040.htm

[ElviaCaprice]

Let us know when someone can start installing these OCXO clocks to our DIY builds with reliability.  Because until that happens, I'm definitely not going to throw crazy money at some non modular server build which is probably the least important component in the overall system SQ.  Otherwise a simple sCLK-EX server is still a bargain at $1500 to 2k without the master clock setup (plus a modular power supply).

[LTG2010]

My Linear ATX power supply by sean Jacobs arrived today. It needs a few weeks for component burn in but it's already sounding great, large soundstage, great dynamics, silent background, very detailed, neutral, good bass, very pleased, took just under 3 months mainly due to transformer manufacture.

It's a twin transformer design with 9 rails, 3.3v, 5v, 2x12V for the motherboard/CPU, 2x5v for ssd and hdd and 3x9v for SOTM trio.

It comes with a single umbilical connection at power supply and gland that feeds into the server. The wires are colour coded, but bare ended as Sean has an exclusivity agreement with Innuos. Heres my ScLK-ex server.

ATX wiring information is readily available here's a link with some good detail - this is how I did it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX

I used ATX extension cables by Silverstone, 24 pin and 4 pin for the seperate CPU rail, simply cut off the male connectors to expose the wire and group the ground, 3.3v, 5v & 12V wires together and solder these to your seperate power supply feeds. The ground wires are all common on the motherboard so these can be all connected or daisy chained.

Modern motherboards don't need negative -12v voltages (pin 14), you can ignore these. A linear power supply does not have a 3.3V sensing voltage (pin 13) you can snip that off. You can't turn off your linear power supply from the pc so no need for the power on feed (pin 16). Pin 9 (purple) is the stanby voltage and is 5v, so connect this with your 5v feed (red wires).

Pin 8 (usually grey) is the power ok signal. The atx power supply sends a 5v signal to the motherboard once its all powered up and stable. We don't have this on a linear power supply so we need to 'fool' the motherboard into thinking its receiving a power ok signal, otherwise it won't boot. So we also connect this to the 5v feed. The power ok signal should activate between 100ms - 500ms after the supply is switched on, some motherboards might not boot if this criteria is not met. I had no problems with the supermicro X10, if your's does not boot you can easily get around this with a cheap delay relay from ebay, there are other methods also.

I originally made up some ATX connectors with silver plated copper cables and for powering the hard discs, these sounded awfull, very bright and distorted, so I switched to the Silverstone leads that appear to be tinned plated copper. For the SSD and hard disc I used Neotech OFC copper, amazing how a small piece of cable can clean up the sound. If making up your own SATA power connector, the middle pin is +5v and a pin either side of that is ground. Similarly I used Neotech copper for SOTM boards directly soldered to the board behind the external connectors, thus avoiding external connections and jack plugs.

Alec

 

 

[Johnseye]

37 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

My Linear ATX power supply by sean Jacobs arrived today. It needs a few weeks for component burn in but it's already sounding great, large soundstage, great dynamics, silent background, very detailed, neutral, good bass, very pleased, took just under 3 months mainly due to transformer manufacture.

It's a twin transformer design with 9 rails, 3.3v, 5v, 2x12V for the motherboard/CPU, 2x5v for ssd and hdd and 3x9v for SOTM trio.

It comes with a single umbilical connection at power supply and gland that feeds into the server. The wires are colour coded, but bare ended as Sean has an exclusivity agreement with Innuos. Heres my ScLK-ex server.

ATX wiring information is readily available here's a link with some good detail - this is how I did it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX

I used ATX extension cables by Silverstone, 24 pin and 4 pin for the seperate CPU rail, simply cut off the male connectors to expose the wire and group the ground, 3.3v, 5v & 12V wires together and solder these to your seperate power supply feeds. The ground wires are all common on the motherboard so these can be all connected or daisy chained.

Modern motherboards don't need negative -12v voltages (pin 14), you can ignore these. A linear power supply does not have a 3.3V sensing voltage (pin 13) you can snip that off. You can't turn off your linear power supply from the pc so no need for the power on feed (pin 16). Pin 9 (purple) is the stanby voltage and is 5v, so connect this with your 5v feed (red wires).

Pin 8 (usually grey) is the power ok signal. The atx power supply sends a 5v signal to the motherboard once its all powered up and stable. We don't have this on a linear power supply so we need to 'fool' the motherboard into thinking its receiving a power ok signal, otherwise it won't boot. So we also connect this to the 5v feed. The power ok signal should activate between 100ms - 500ms after the supply is switched on, some motherboards might not boot if this criteria is not met. I had no problems with the supermicro X10, if your's does not boot you can easily get around this with a cheap delay relay from ebay, there are other methods also.

I originally made up some ATX connectors with silver plated copper cables and for powering the hard discs, these sounded awfull, very bright and distorted, so I switched to the Silverstone leads that appear to be tinned plated copper. For the SSD and hard disc I used Neotech OFC copper, amazing how a small piece of cable can clean up the sound. If making up your own SATA power connector, the middle pin is +5v and a pin either side of that is ground. Similarly I used Neotech copper for SOTM boards directly soldered to the board behind the external connectors, thus avoiding external connections and jack plugs.

Alec

 

 

 

Excellent!  Very nice.  Fix those picture links so we can get a better look.

 

Wondering how you attached the sCLK tray to the side of the Streacom case.  Did the screw holes line up and did the screws fit?

[LTG2010]

5 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

Excellent!  Very nice.  Fix those picture links so we can get a better look.

 

Wondering how you attached the sCLK tray to the side of the Streacom case.  Did the screw holes line up and did the screws fit?

Can't seem to edit the post anymore there's only 3 pics, 2 of the case and 1 of the server, dont know where those other links popped up from.

2 of the 3 holes on the Sclk- ex lined up with the holes on the Streacom case, I used some screws that were used to hold the USB extension headers on the case as I removed these, they seem to be standard size and matched up.

[ElviaCaprice]

Nice, could do the same with any combination of PS's.  SR7 and couple LPS-1's.  Unfortunately does not fix the poor handling of power in the mobo.  But at least takes away a couple poorly regulated connections

[tims]

On 3/8/2018 at 3:36 PM, LTG2010 said:

I've got a couple of boards and the supply is meant to be flexible to suit a few lower power boards along with SOTM's boards. Currently i'm using a Supermicro X10SBA. The processor is a celeron j1900 and only needs 10 or 12 watts. There's a 24 pin atx connector and a 4pin 12v atx connector, this (4 pin) supplies the processor when in atx mode, this is what I understood when discussing it with Supermicro's tech help.

Sean's designs use a booster module to increase power from 1.5 to 5 amps we only need one for the 5 v rail on this board, since there's a bit more going on at 5v.  With the 2 transformers one will have the 2 x 12v rails, the other one the rest. I think it best to isolate the CPU from the other components. The more rails the cleaner the supply to each board / component.

Currently I'm powering it with just 12v to the board with a meanwell medical grade smps, 9v to the SOTM boards from a sPS500 via the txUSB-exp and 5v to the ssd from an lps1, the hdd powered from the board. (3 supplies)

May at SOTM felt a good supply to the txUSB-exp is filtered and passed on to the sCLK-ex and again filtered & onto the txUSB Hubin, but I think 3 seperate rails will boost their performance. I'll be able to test this out in 2 or 3 weeks.

 

1 hour ago, LTG2010 said:

My Linear ATX power supply by sean Jacobs arrived today. It needs a few weeks for component burn in but it's already sounding great, large soundstage, great dynamics, silent background, very detailed, neutral, good bass, very pleased, took just under 3 months mainly due to transformer manufacture.

It's a twin transformer design with 9 rails, 3.3v, 5v, 2x12V for the motherboard/CPU, 2x5v for ssd and hdd and 3x9v for SOTM trio.

It comes with a single umbilical connection at power supply and gland that feeds into the server. The wires are colour coded, but bare ended as Sean has an exclusivity agreement with Innuos. Heres my ScLK-ex server.

ATX wiring information is readily available here's a link with some good detail - this is how I did it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX

I used ATX extension cables by Silverstone, 24 pin and 4 pin for the seperate CPU rail, simply cut off the male connectors to expose the wire and group the ground, 3.3v, 5v & 12V wires together and solder these to your seperate power supply feeds. The ground wires are all common on the motherboard so these can be all connected or daisy chained.

Modern motherboards don't need negative -12v voltages (pin 14), you can ignore these. A linear power supply does not have a 3.3V sensing voltage (pin 13) you can snip that off. You can't turn off your linear power supply from the pc so no need for the power on feed (pin 16). Pin 9 (purple) is the stanby voltage and is 5v, so connect this with your 5v feed (red wires).

Pin 8 (usually grey) is the power ok signal. The atx power supply sends a 5v signal to the motherboard once its all powered up and stable. We don't have this on a linear power supply so we need to 'fool' the motherboard into thinking its receiving a power ok signal, otherwise it won't boot. So we also connect this to the 5v feed. The power ok signal should activate between 100ms - 500ms after the supply is switched on, some motherboards might not boot if this criteria is not met. I had no problems with the supermicro X10, if your's does not boot you can easily get around this with a cheap delay relay from ebay, there are other methods also.

I originally made up some ATX connectors with silver plated copper cables and for powering the hard discs, these sounded awfull, very bright and distorted, so I switched to the Silverstone leads that appear to be tinned plated copper. For the SSD and hard disc I used Neotech OFC copper, amazing how a small piece of cable can clean up the sound. If making up your own SATA power connector, the middle pin is +5v and a pin either side of that is ground. Similarly I used Neotech copper for SOTM boards directly soldered to the board behind the external connectors, thus avoiding external connections and jack plugs.

Alec

 

 

Back in early March you wrote

 "Currently I'm powering it with just 12v to the board with a meanwell medical grade smps, 9v to the SOTM boards from a sPS500 via the txUSB-exp and 5v to the ssd from an lps1, the hdd powered from the board. (3 supplies)

May at SOTM felt a good supply to the txUSB-exp is filtered and passed on to the sCLK-ex and again filtered & onto the txUSB Hubin, but I think 3 seperate rails will boost their performance. I'll be able to test this out in 2 or 3 weeks."

 

I'd be most interested to read more about this as I've run out of PS outputs from my LPS so possibly using one rail (or not!) to feed my txUSB-exp > sCLK-ex > txUSBhub-ex would help a lot.

Thanks

[LTG2010]

7 hours ago, tims said:

I'd be most interested to read more about this as I've run out of PS outputs from my LPS so possibly using one rail (or not!) to feed my txUSB-exp > sCLK-ex > txUSBhub-ex would help a lot.

You can do it with just one 9V rail supply to txUSBexp. SOTM supply cable/board connectors that connect to sCLK-ex and then onto the USBhub. I used the sPS500 set at 9v with a y-cable from Ghent audio, one connection  to txUSB-exp linked to sCLK-ex and one connection to txUSBhub-in

[tims]

38 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

You can do it with just one 9V rail supply to txUSBexp. SOTM supply cable/board connectors that connect to sCLK-ex and then onto the USBhub. I used the sPS500 set at 9v with a y-cable from Ghent audio, one connection  to txUSB-exp linked to sCLK-ex and one connection to txUSBhub-in

Yes, thanks. 

I don't know what your plans are with your new PS but it would be interesting to compare how a single 9v supply sounds (as you described above) compared to feeding each of the txUSB-exp, sCLK-ex and txUSBhub-in with their own separate power supplies.

[lmitche]

13 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

My Linear ATX power supply by sean Jacobs arrived today. It needs a few weeks for component burn in but it's already sounding great, large soundstage, great dynamics, silent background, very detailed, neutral, good bass, very pleased, took just under 3 months mainly due to transformer manufacture.

It's a twin transformer design with 9 rails, 3.3v, 5v, 2x12V for the motherboard/CPU, 2x5v for ssd and hdd and 3x9v for SOTM trio.

It comes with a single umbilical connection at power supply and gland that feeds into the server. The wires are colour coded, but bare ended as Sean has an exclusivity agreement with Innuos. Heres my ScLK-ex server.

ATX wiring information is readily available here's a link with some good detail - this is how I did it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX

I used ATX extension cables by Silverstone, 24 pin and 4 pin for the seperate CPU rail, simply cut off the male connectors to expose the wire and group the ground, 3.3v, 5v & 12V wires together and solder these to your seperate power supply feeds. The ground wires are all common on the motherboard so these can be all connected or daisy chained.

Modern motherboards don't need negative -12v voltages (pin 14), you can ignore these. A linear power supply does not have a 3.3V sensing voltage (pin 13) you can snip that off. You can't turn off your linear power supply from the pc so no need for the power on feed (pin 16). Pin 9 (purple) is the stanby voltage and is 5v, so connect this with your 5v feed (red wires).

Pin 8 (usually grey) is the power ok signal. The atx power supply sends a 5v signal to the motherboard once its all powered up and stable. We don't have this on a linear power supply so we need to 'fool' the motherboard into thinking its receiving a power ok signal, otherwise it won't boot. So we also connect this to the 5v feed. The power ok signal should activate between 100ms - 500ms after the supply is switched on, some motherboards might not boot if this criteria is not met. I had no problems with the supermicro X10, if your's does not boot you can easily get around this with a cheap delay relay from ebay, there are other methods also.

I originally made up some ATX connectors with silver plated copper cables and for powering the hard discs, these sounded awfull, very bright and distorted, so I switched to the Silverstone leads that appear to be tinned plated copper. For the SSD and hard disc I used Neotech OFC copper, amazing how a small piece of cable can clean up the sound. If making up your own SATA power connector, the middle pin is +5v and a pin either side of that is ground. Similarly I used Neotech copper for SOTM boards directly soldered to the board behind the external connectors, thus avoiding external connections and jack plugs.

Alec

 

 

Alex,

 

Thanks for this great post. I'm am heading in the same direction with lt3045 lpsus as a source for everything but the CPU power. The information you shared here is every helpful in that regard.

 

Much appreciated,

 

Larry

[Johnseye]

4 hours ago, tims said:

Yes, thanks. 

I don't know what your plans are with your new PS but it would be interesting to compare how a single 9v supply sounds (as you described above) compared to feeding each of the txUSB-exp, sCLK-ex and txUSBhub-in with their own separate power supplies.

 

I supply my tX-USBexp, sCLK & tX-USBultra with a single 9v supply chained.  The issue with powering them separately is there can be different supplies involved.  We will be testing with an SR7, SR4 and sPS-500.  Would a single SR7 source sound better than including inferior supplies upstream?  How about downstream?

 

A 9 rail supply eliminates that variability and can provide direct power from the rail to individual components.  Is that superior to chaining the 3 devices?

[Jiffi32]

14 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

My Linear ATX power supply by sean Jacobs arrived today. It needs a few weeks for component burn in but it's already sounding great, large soundstage, great dynamics, silent background, very detailed, neutral, good bass, very pleased, took just under 3 months mainly due to transformer manufacture.

It's a twin transformer design with 9 rails, 3.3v, 5v, 2x12V for the motherboard/CPU, 2x5v for ssd and hdd and 3x9v for SOTM trio.

It comes with a single umbilical connection at power supply and gland that feeds into the server. The wires are colour coded, but bare ended as Sean has an exclusivity agreement with Innuos. Heres my ScLK-ex server.

ATX wiring information is readily available here's a link with some good detail - this is how I did it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX

I used ATX extension cables by Silverstone, 24 pin and 4 pin for the seperate CPU rail, simply cut off the male connectors to expose the wire and group the ground, 3.3v, 5v & 12V wires together and solder these to your seperate power supply feeds. The ground wires are all common on the motherboard so these can be all connected or daisy chained.

Modern motherboards don't need negative -12v voltages (pin 14), you can ignore these. A linear power supply does not have a 3.3V sensing voltage (pin 13) you can snip that off. You can't turn off your linear power supply from the pc so no need for the power on feed (pin 16). Pin 9 (purple) is the stanby voltage and is 5v, so connect this with your 5v feed (red wires).

Pin 8 (usually grey) is the power ok signal. The atx power supply sends a 5v signal to the motherboard once its all powered up and stable. We don't have this on a linear power supply so we need to 'fool' the motherboard into thinking its receiving a power ok signal, otherwise it won't boot. So we also connect this to the 5v feed. The power ok signal should activate between 100ms - 500ms after the supply is switched on, some motherboards might not boot if this criteria is not met. I had no problems with the supermicro X10, if your's does not boot you can easily get around this with a cheap delay relay from ebay, there are other methods also.

I originally made up some ATX connectors with silver plated copper cables and for powering the hard discs, these sounded awfull, very bright and distorted, so I switched to the Silverstone leads that appear to be tinned plated copper. For the SSD and hard disc I used Neotech OFC copper, amazing how a small piece of cable can clean up the sound. If making up your own SATA power connector, the middle pin is +5v and a pin either side of that is ground. Similarly I used Neotech copper for SOTM boards directly soldered to the board behind the external connectors, thus avoiding external connections and jack plugs.

Alec

 

 

Great post! thanks for the info, looking forward to your thoughts after a couple of weeks of burn in.

Curious to know which case you are using for the pc? 

[LTG2010]

5 hours ago, lmitche said:

Thanks for this great post. I'm am heading in the same direction with lt3045 lpsus as a source for everything but the CPU power. The information you shared here is every helpful in that regard.

You're welcome Larry

 

4 hours ago, Jiffi32 said:

Curious to know which case you are using for the pc? 

That's a Streacom FC9

[seeteeyou]

Here's yet another discovery about passive (i.e. anywhere between 5V to 48V will pass right through) PoE, stuff like that and LT3045 should be a match made in heaven

 

http://www.usaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9030#p9030

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Set-Pairs-Power-Over-Ethernet-Passive-POE-Injector-Splitter-Adapter-Cable-Kit/282049940669

 

Only a dollar or so (3.08 RMB to 6.66 RMB)

 

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=553920538613

 

They've got both naked and clothed ones so we should have everything covered

 

https://szxlydz.taobao.com

[Bruce Orr]

On 3/21/2018 at 11:27 AM, austinpop said:

Even though I own a P5 regenerator, I will shy away from making blanket statements. As I have reported, I do find it makes a positive impact in my system. Before I got my dedicated line, it sounded best with everything plugged into the P5. After my dedicated circuit, I found the dynamics improved by plugging my amp directly to the dedicated circuit, while leaving the rest of the digital chain on the P5.

 

I have not personally tried all the approaches - and there are many! This (AC power conditioning) seems to be a space with strong, conflicting opinions by the "experts."

 

Paul at PS Audio swears by the regenerator approach. Caelin over at Shunyata swears by their Denali. Audioquest has their Niagara. Synergistic has their Powercell. Jim Weil at Sound Application has his super-expensive power-factor-correcting conditioners. Then there's the DIY crowd here on CA that swear by the use of repurposed industrial, extremely low capacitance isolation transformers like the Topaz, with clean power strips with no filters. Of course, these things can sometimes hum like a substation in your listening room.

 

It's enough to make your head spin!

 

The one constant that no one usually disputes is a dedicated circuit. I would say if at all possible, start there. Nothing fancy, just 10 gauge Romex, and a decent power outlet. Get an electrician out to take a look. Ask around for referrals for one that has done "audio" dedicated circuits, so they won't just argue with you about how you don't need 10 gauge wire, blah blah. Also, don't rule out the idea of running outdoor-rated wire on the outside in a (PVC) conduit, if internal access is too disruptive.

 

As usual, Roy @romaz has tried more of these options than I have, and you can read his views here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-blu-mk-2-the-official-thread.831343/page-196#post-14103671

 

Rajiv, two questions and thank you in advance for al you contribute to these threads:

 

1). I have been waiting for sometime to get the AWG 6 wire from Jim Weil so I can install two dedicated circuits. Actually, I've been waiting since January and growing impatient (it's the supplier, not Jim, that's the hold up). Are you using this or the AWG 10?  He claims a significant SQ enhancement using the larger 6 gauge.

2) I presume you have a 2-plug socket. Sounds like you are using one to power your amp directly. Are you using the second for your P5?

[ray-dude]

When I (briefly) spoke with Jim this week, he had basically given up on getting more 6 gauge wire (something about a minimum order being in the 6 figures).  At this point, it seems to be unobtanium, but I may have misunderstood him.  You should give him a ping Bruce.

 

I'm having some electrical work done this week for an electric wall charger, so I'm punting and having 2 dedicated lines put in with standard 10 gauge solid core Romex.  If in the future Jim is able to source his 6 gauge wire (or Roy decides to have his house torn down and has some spare sitting around  I'll just have those runs rerun.

 

Once the lines are in place, I'm hoping to be able to audition some of Jim's power conditioners, and perhaps experiment with various combinations using the 2 dedicated lines (various permutations of analog/digital and high/low power draw, etc)  I too have a Chord setup, so Rob's hypothesis that the Chord DAVE power supply is adversely impacting adjacent systems (detailed in the link to Roy's post on head fi) is worth testing in my setup.

 

[auricgoldfinger]

Here are a couple of sources for cryo-treated 10AWG Romex:

 

http://audiosensibility.com/blog/accessories/parts/wire-and-cable/#!/10AWG-Cryo-Treated-Romex-Electrical-Wire-ft/p/24887196/category=5828813

 

https://www.vhaudio.com/wire.html#bulkacwire

 

[d_elm]

43 minutes ago, ray-dude said:

When I (briefly) spoke with Jim this week, he had basically given up on getting more 6 gauge wire (something about a minimum order being in the 6 figures).  At this point, it seems to be unobtanium, but I may have misunderstood him.  You should give him a ping Bruce.

 

I'm having some electrical work done this week for an electric wall charger, so I'm punting and having 2 dedicated lines put in with standard 10 gauge solid core Romex.  If in the future Jim is able to source his 6 gauge wire (or Roy decides to have his house torn down and has some spare sitting around  I'll just have those runs rerun.

 

Once the lines are in place, I'm hoping to be able to audition some of Jim's power conditioners, and perhaps experiment with various combinations using the 2 dedicated lines (various permutations of analog/digital and high/low power draw, etc)  I too have a Chord setup, so Rob's hypothesis that the Chord DAVE power supply is adversely impacting adjacent systems (detailed in the link to Roy's post on head fi) is worth testing in my setup.

 

6-3 Romex is available from the hardware chains, eg homedepot. Are you looking for special copper ?

[Bruce Orr]

1 hour ago, ray-dude said:

When I (briefly) spoke with Jim this week, he had basically given up on getting more 6 gauge wire (something about a minimum order being in the 6 figures).  At this point, it seems to be unobtanium, but I may have misunderstood him.  You should give him a ping Bruce.

 

I'm having some electrical work done this week for an electric wall charger, so I'm punting and having 2 dedicated lines put in with standard 10 gauge solid core Romex.  If in the future Jim is able to source his 6 gauge wire (or Roy decides to have his house torn down and has some spare sitting around  I'll just have those runs rerun.

 

Once the lines are in place, I'm hoping to be able to audition some of Jim's power conditioners, and perhaps experiment with various combinations using the 2 dedicated lines (various permutations of analog/digital and high/low power draw, etc)  I too have a Chord setup, so Rob's hypothesis that the Chord DAVE power supply is adversely impacting adjacent systems (detailed in the link to Roy's post on head fi) is worth testing in my setup.

 

Thanks. I'll send a note to Jim to see if he's ready to admit the AWG 6 - to his specs - ain't gonna happen. I'll let you know one way or the other.  10 solid is the fallback. 

[ray-dude]

1 hour ago, Bruce Orr said:

Thanks. I'll send a note to Jim to see if he's ready to admit the AWG 6 - to his specs - ain't gonna happen. I'll let you know one way or the other.  10 solid is the fallback. 

 

If he can source 2x25' lengths of the 6 AWG cord, I'm in!

[ray-dude]

2 hours ago, d_elm said:

6-3 Romex is available from the hardware chains, eg homedepot. Are you looking for special copper ?

 

Thanks @d_elm.  My understanding (very loose, since we only have been able to speak briefly) is that he recommends a specific 6AWG cable.  I suspect it is solid core (based on posts of others), and the typical 6 AWG (and 8AWG) power cable is stranded.  Jim recommends the 10 AWG Romex, which is also solid core.  I've been poking around, but I haven't (yet) found any solid core options in 6 AWG or 8 AWG.

 

I defer to others who've been able to work with Jim more than I have to clarify one way or the other (I hope to chat again with him this week)

 

[Bruce Orr]

I need 80+ feet!!

 

My feeling talking with Jim was that the 6 AWG is not solid, but he does prefer that in the 10.  I'm not exactly sure what it is that Jim does to customize it. I asked that question in the email I just sent him. If he is customizing it, I asked what he is doing to it, and why he prefers the AWG 10 solid over a "standard" AWG 6

[seeteeyou]

Finally, they've got 8 pieces of LT3045 for two rails. 4 of them for each rail so we're getting 2A from either output

 

https://www.hdplex.com/hdplex-fanless-200w-linear-power-supply-for-pc-audio-and-ce-device.html