ISO Regen performance Improvement Cheap!

[fas42]

8 hours ago, Forehaven said:

. 

As I told Larry, "Holy Shit"!  What an improvement, far greater than what I was expecting.  More analogue, resolving and musical now.  Great upgrades guys!

 

It's always amusing to note the expression that something is "more analogue" - which is code for less of the normal digital nasties. Analogue playback just doesn't have the distortion artifacts that digital is always struggling to get under control - and many people just don't appreciate how debilitating and pervasive the signature of less than optimal digital is with typical playback.

[Ralf11]

what are the distortion artifacts that digital is always struggling to get under control??

[mansr]

Just now, Ralf11 said:

what are the distortion artifacts that digital is always struggling to get under control??

Lack of distortion.

[Bricki]

Would someone be able to recommend the best way to implement some LT3045 boards between an sps-500 and sMS-200? 

 

I am an LT3045 newbie so I have a number of questions.... 

 

I have my sps-500 set at 12v because I have a "y" cable that is powering my sonicTransporter i5 that requires 12v. 

 

If I recall correctly, @Cornan said that it's best to drop the voltage from input to output by 3v if using 1 board and with boards in series it's best with 1v per board.

 

Given that my input voltage is 12v then I assume my best result would be to order a 9v board and a 8v board?? Is this correct? And I assume my sMS-200 will be fine at 8v because it's fine at 7v??

 

Also, do the boards come with the screw terminals already soldered on? 

 

Sorry for the dumb questions ??

[sandyk]

9 minutes ago, Bricki said:

Would someone be able to recommend the best way to implement some LT3045 boards between an sps-500 and sMS-200? 

 

I am an LT3045 newbie so I have a number of questions.... 

 

I have my sps-500 set at 12v because I have a "y" cable that is powering my sonicTransporter i5 that requires 12v. 

 

If I recall correctly, @Cornan said that it's best to drop the voltage from input to output by 3v if using 1 board and with boards in series it's best with 1v per board.

 

Given that my input voltage is 12v then I assume my best result would be to order a 9v board and a 8v board?? Is this correct? And I assume my sMS-200 will be fine at 8v because it's fine at 7v??

 

Also, do the boards come with the screw terminals already soldered on? 

 

Sorry for the dumb questions ??

 The short answer is that you can't use a single LT3045 .5A PCB because of the current draw of your sMS-200.

It's specifications are : Power requirement
  Input Voltage : +6.5 ~ 12Vdc
  Power : Max 15W

 This means that with an 8V supply you would need to be able to supply almost 2 Amps.

[Superdad]

57 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 The short answer is that you can't use a single LT3045 .5A PCB because of the current draw of your sMS-200.

It's specifications are : Power requirement
  Input Voltage : +6.5 ~ 12Vdc
  Power : Max 15W

 This means that with an 8V supply you would need to be able to supply almost 2 Amps.

 

While you are right about any 0.5A boards (though 1A PCBs with a pair of LT3045 are available), I can tell you that both the SOtM sMS-200 and sMS-200Ultra run fine from about 1A. We must have a couple hundred UltraCap users powering one of those two renderers with great results.  They are fine as long as they don't hang a big bus-powered USB hard drive off its extra USB port (whilst doing is discouraged--even by SOtM--for best sonics anyway).

[Bricki]

57 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 The short answer is that you can't use a single LT3045 .5A PCB because of the current draw of your sMS-200.

It's specifications are : Power requirement
  Input Voltage : +6.5 ~ 12Vdc
  Power : Max 15W

 This means that with an 8V supply you would need to be able to supply almost 2 Amps.

No worries, thanks Sandyk. 

 

I was looking at these boards which I think are 1 amp... Are these the ones others are using? 

 

http://www.ldovr.com/product-p/lt3045-a.htm

 

Also, the sMS-200 is fine at 1 amp 7v as long as you don't intend to use the functionality for an external usb drive or plug in a dac that requires the 5v for it's own power. So in my particular case it's fine at 7v 1 amp ??. Or at least it's fine at 7v 1.1 amp because I have also powered it from my lps1 ?

[Boomboy]

1 hour ago, Bricki said:

Also, do the boards come with the screw terminals already soldered on? 

 

I had the seller on ebay solder the terminals on for me .. he was happy to do it in the included price ..

[sandyk]

31 minutes ago, Bricki said:

No worries, thanks Sandyk. 

 

I was looking at these boards which I think are 1 amp... Are these the ones others are using? 

 

http://www.ldovr.com/product-p/lt3045-a.htm

 

Also, the sMS-200 is fine at 1 amp 7v as long as you don't intend to use the functionality for an external usb drive or plug in a dac that requires the 5v for it's own power. So in my particular case it's fine at 7v 1 amp ??. Or at least it's fine at 7v 1.1 amp because I have also powered it from my lps1 ?

Personally, I wouldn't run a pair of  small Voltage Regulator I.C.s  with a maximum current of .5A each ,at a continuous current of at least 1A without some additional heatsinking. (especially the first one which is dropping 3 volts  across it)

But that's just me !

[fas42]

5 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

what are the distortion artifacts that digital is always struggling to get under control??

 

Susceptibility to HF interference and noise, and voltages modulation, mainly - this is hard, or inconvenient to measure, so is ignored - much easier to do standardised tests, which reveal ... nothing.

 

Subjectively, this manifests as grey, uninteresting sound, which lacks the sparkle that makes one want to keep listening - boredom sets in quickly; or, an edginess which makes any material with "excessive" treble a nightmare to listen to ... sound familiar ... ?

[jaaptina]

I use two 1A LT3045 boards in series between LPS-1 and ultraRendu. No problems. No heat. But voltages are much closer to each other. 

[Bricki]

28 minutes ago, jaaptina said:

I use two 1A LT3045 boards in series between LPS-1 and ultraRendu. No problems. No heat. But voltages are much closer to each other. 

What output voltages do you have on your boards? What's the input voltage range of the ultrarendu? 

[BigGuy]

17 hours ago, RickyV said:

For anyone’s info who is using these fake sigma 11 power supplies, i use them too, original are from https://www.amb.org/audio/. 

The big capacitor on the right is on the output of the power supply and not in the original amb schematic!! Mine came with Hover caps, i removed both and replace the left one with mundorf ag cap. Try it, it is a nice improvement.

Coincidentally I have one of these S12 power supplies in the chute for a 9V power supply.

Mine also has the NOVER 10,000uf/50VDC so am interested in your mod.

What was your motivation for removing the cap on the output side? 

(Even tho' much higher capacitiance, is it comparable to the "Kornan Kemet Koncept"?)

 

What Mundorf ag cap did you use for the NOVER closest to the heat sinks?

 

When the output cap is removed and not replaced, does anything need to be done with the unused holes/connection points?

 

As a newbie, would like to better understand this mod.  Tnx.

 

 

[RickyV]

Hi @BigGuy, a long time ago i did a electronics education, not higher electronics like  @marce but still. With powersupplies the caps Go before the regulator not a 100% sure why but it may have something to do with the output impedance getting higher with as a result a sell dynamic sound. 

A second reason was the original didn’t have  that cap. The third reason was that i wanted better caps then Hover and i really like the mundorfs AG.

To be fair i have tree of these power supplies in use at the moment and thay are all as preregulator. One with a 22000uF/40V, ESR 9mohm to power a HDplex 300W atx power supply for the motherboard. A little bit big but i had it on the shelf and it has to deliver the highest current.

The second s11, 10000uF/25V, is powering my OS ssd via a 1A lt3045. The third s11 , 10000uF/25V, is powering a SSR01 Sjöström Super Regulator for my jcat femto usb card. Here is where my exprimenting starts, one of the. So i removed the second cap on the s11 but added a cap before the SSR01 wich is electicly the same but with a 1 meter wire in between. If i put the different caps on that spot it sound different. I had the 22000uF in there because of the ESR, it sounded analog but relative slow. Relative slow in comparison to the next cap two Nichicon KW 470uF parallel to two 100uF Elna Silmic II wich sounded really good and fast. Now i have one 2200uF mundorf in there but it is still burning in. Whats puzzleing is that after the jcat usb card the signal gets reclocked with the modded iso regen and you still hear the difference of the cap?? Not subtle.

So a long story but i think SQ improvement of this mod also comes from the better cap.

”When the output cap is removed and not replaced, does anything need to be done with the unused holes/connection points?“  no nothing.

It all depents what are you powering with it, use it as a pre regulator or do you use it as is to power what?

If you use it as is it may be more SQ bump.

Hope this helps because my fingers hurt. ?

[RickyV]

Small warning removing the caps may be not so easy!

I have desoldering station, then it easy.

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, RickyV said:

Whats puzzleing is that after the jcat usb card the signal gets reclocked with the modded iso regen and you still hear the difference of the cap?? Not subtle.

 RickyV

 

Yes, the power supply to both the Iso Regen and the earlier Regen does matter.

In fact, it matters exactly the same to both Analogue and Digital areas.

 If the Power Supply has a lower impedance at say 100KHZ due to using Low ESR electrolytic filter capacitors, compared with in the audible band, the sound will be a little more detailed in the upper HF area. Conversely, if you use filter capacitors with a lower impedance in the audible band (Elna for Audio etc.)  you will have a little added warmth , with perhaps a slight dulling of HF detail.

 The same applies every bit as much to Digital VIDEO as it does to Digital AUDIO..

The trick is to obtain a power supply impedance that is both as Low and Flat as possible over a very wide bandwidth.

 Even then, there may still be some of the " house sound" of the design of the capacitor, especially if a capacitance multiplier is used.

 

Regards

Alex

[Ralf11]

EM noise in a power supply can affect any analog component, and all DACs have an analog section

 

I've never seen anything convincing that noise in a purely digital component will affect SQ - assuming it is adequately isolated from all analog stages (and that could include parasitic leak via transformers).

 

Ultimately, you may need to conduct test to compare 2 items or treatments and see if you can hear a difference on your most demanding source material. 

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I've never seen anything convincing that noise in a purely digital component will affect SQ - assuming it is adequately isolated from all analog stages (and that could include parasitic leak via transformers).

 

In that case I would suggest that you spend more time reading the numerous threads by multiple members in other areas of the forum instead of trying to create a Guinness  Book of Records entry for the most number of posts in the shortest possible time frame in a forum.

 

[fas42]

31 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

The trick is to obtain a power supply impedance that is both as Low and Flat as possible over a very wide bandwidth.

 

Yes!! There is an 'art' in doing this, one has to be very much aware of the parasitic characteristics of the caps for best results - use exactly the 'right' caps, no more than gets the job done, and install them extremely carefully so that you don't lose any of their value, by having the leads too long, say.

[fas42]

27 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I've never seen anything convincing that noise in a purely digital component will affect SQ - assuming it is adequately isolated from all analog stages (and that could include parasitic leak via transformers).

 

The killer is that word, "adequately" - how do you do know when there is enough, "adequate"? Answer: that when you add in even more isolation, that such makes no audible difference ...

[Ralf11]

14 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

In that case I would suggest that you spend more time reading the numerous threads by multiple members in other areas of the forum instead of trying to create a Guinness  Book of Records entry for the most number of posts in the shortest possible time frame in a forum.

 

 

you have me cornfused with your trolling friend - one of your Aussie mafia

[Ralf11]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The killer is that word, "adequately" - how do you do know when there is enough, "adequate"? Answer: that when you add in even more isolation, that such makes no audible difference ...

 

 

If there is not enough EM noise to flip bits on the digital side you are fine (and that is quite a bit of noise).

 

Your point really comes into play where Digital meets Analog or in Analog components.  I certainly agree the DAC needs careful noise isolation.

 

If anybody has either:

[1] engineering explanations, i.e. mechanistic explanations, 

or [2] valid listening tests (say by noise injection)

 

that EM noise in purely digital components is a problem (with the caveats above) then set them forth.

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

you have me cornfused with your trolling friend - one of your Aussie mafia

In case you haven't noticed, this is a Subjective thread, and your continuing insulting remarks have no place in this thread, OR any other thread for that matter.

I don't run my replies by Audiophile Neuroscience before submitting them , and neither does he run his posts by me before they are submitted.

 We both share a common interest in the area of very high quality audio, as do the vast majority of Australian participants in this forum, and unlike many members of this forum (yourself included ?") we are in a position to compare some very high quality equipment in a group situation using NON SIGHTED evaluation of the various components, including software as well occasionally. 

[fas42]

17 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

that EM noise in purely digital components is a problem (with the caveats above) then set them forth.

 

Yes, while we are talking about the purely digital areas, and we have established that there is zero spillover into any analogue areas, by any path whatsoever, at least to a degree that has any audible impact on SQ - then there should no problem.

[Ralf11]

17 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

* * *

If anybody has either:

[1] engineering explanations, i.e. mechanistic explanations, 

or [2] valid listening tests (say by noise injection)

 

that EM noise in purely digital components is a problem (with the caveats above) then set them forth.

 

 

Sandy,  Pls re-read; you seem to have missed item #2.