LPSU choices, new contender.....

[sandyk]

16 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

how many dB down is Johnson noise?  Sandy - show your Qualification Certificate and you can handle that one...

 

 

 I refuse to play your silly games.

 For the members who are genuinely interested, the attached shows why the type of resistors used in Input attenuators does matter.

 Goldmund is not the only manufacturer to take advantage of more recent lower noise resistors, with DACT doing the same, and not just for ease of manufacture and cost reasons.

http://www.goldpt.com/attenuator_types.html

[Ralf11]

I am not asking about resistors.  The manf. of my pre-amp carefully matches all components.

 

I am asking about the two types of battery noise identified above.

 

YOU are the one with the silly games - in fact, much worse than merely silly as you are denigrating the backgrounds of anyone who disagrees with you.

[Jud]

42 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

how many dB down is Johnson noise?

 

My Johnson goes pretty low.

[sandyk]

7 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Oh I know. But the other fellow was talking specifically about battery supplies, so I thought I ought to talk about that as well.

 

A high quality battery supply (LiPo etc.) is normally better at preserving a neutral sounding presentation,
 but the main problem is that the voltage reduces slowly with use, and then may vary considerably under different load conditions, even generating audible noise.
Most devices however, require a stable input voltage for the highest consistent performance.
 The only way around this is to use voltage regulation. Unfortunately, the type of voltage regulator used ,
 and the necessary capacitors used with it for stability reasons mainly, usually imparts some kind of audible footprint.

 This is more important with the Analogue area than the Digital areas that Marce mainly  plays around in where you can  use well established HF bypass techniques etc.

[Ralf11]

23 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

My Johnson goes pretty low.

 

is it noisy?

 

LiPo is not the only battery type, and for non-portable use a large capacity battery can be used

[marce]

10 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

A high quality battery supply (LiPo etc.) is normally better at preserving a neutral sounding presentation,
 but the main problem is that the voltage reduces slowly with use, and then may vary considerably under different load conditions, even generating audible noise.
Most devices however, require a stable input voltage for the highest consistent performance.
 The only way around this is to use voltage regulation. Unfortunately, the type of voltage regulator used ,
 and the necessary capacitors used with it for stability reasons mainly, usually imparts some kind of audible footprint.

 This is more important with the Analogue area than the Digital areas that Marce mainly  plays around in where you can  use well established HF bypass techniques etc.

If you read my posts I don't do just digital, I do a mixture, analogue/digital, microwave. As siad doing a card now with multiple ADC/DAC with lots of analogue circuitry. I do more mixed designs than I do purely digital designs. I do a lot of instrumentation level analogue layout...

[marce]

I do worry about capacitors not directly in the signal path having an effect on the analogue output, if I did a board where that happened it would be considered a failure...

[sandyk]

10 minutes ago, marce said:

I do worry about capacitors not directly in the signal path having an effect on the analogue output, if I did a board where that happened it would be considered a failure... 

 But what are you using in  your own Audio system, not instrumentation etc.?

[marce]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 But what are you using in  your own Audio system, not instrumentation etc.?

It is a generalisation, how do capacitors in the PSU have an effect on the resultant analogue output, and if they do it will be measurable...

[Tomslin]

16 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

A high quality battery supply (LiPo etc.) is normally better at preserving a neutral sounding presentation,
 but the main problem is that the voltage reduces slowly with use, and then may vary considerably under different load conditions, even generating audible noise.
Most devices however, require a stable input voltage for the highest consistent performance.
 The only way around this is to use voltage regulation. Unfortunately, the type of voltage regulator used ,
 and the necessary capacitors used with it for stability reasons mainly, usually imparts some kind of audible footprint.

 This is more important with the Analogue area than the Digital areas that Marce mainly  plays around in where you can  use well established HF bypass techniques etc.

I use my battery power supplys for max about a two, three hours at a time. I don't need longer listening sessions without break. I'm fully satisfied with that, and it had not been different if I had use AC mains power supplies. During such listening sessions I don’t experiences any weakness in terms of power fluctations or falling voltages.

I am fully agree with yours statement that “a high quality battery supply (LiPo etc.) is normally better at preserving a neutral sounding presentation”. I noticed that already several years ago when I started using batteries. My setup sounds otherwise very neutral and it is also this neutral sound signature that I mainly strive for. At the beginning with my battery journey I use simple NiMH batteries for hand tools. Not sounding so good, but anyway more neutral than many others linear power supplys I had tried. Later I moved on to much better battery types, and the current I use is LTO.

Regarding generated noise I can only say that the most of it disappeared when I changed battery types from LFP (LiFePO4) to LTO. But even more noise became reduced when I skip to use voltage regulators, you may believe it or not, it is actually true. Those LTO batteries I use now have a capacity of 40Ah, and internal resistance about 1mΩ. Short terms capacity to leave approx. 400A, and 40A over time is really not a serious problem. Those devices I use them for are USB card, NET Cards and CF to SATA adapters, mostly JCAT. And none of this devices have more current demands than max any single ampere, so when people talk about problems with fluctations at the power feed I take it quite easily. And the internal stability demands to each devices will also the internal regulators take care of. Thank you Marcin for theirs excellent design.

When I so tried to use Ultracaps connected directly before the device, the SQ become undoubtedly better. Just here lies probably the biggest improvement. The tips I get from the TirNaHiFi site I linked to earlier. Very big thanks to jkeny and some others there for this.

I will for sure continue to experiment with this in the future, and especially with the Ultracaps. For me is only the best possible sound quality the most important. I will gladly leave some I usually say “old truths” only for to achieve this goal, or at least come to close as possible. And I definitively not see it as an impossible task, actually not even hard. People who want to believe the opposite are welcome to do so, no problem for me 😊

[Ralf11]

I'm sorry, but I couldn't figure out what you meant by "when I skip to use voltage regulators" - did you mean when you stopped using voltage regulators? 

[Tomslin]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

I'm sorry, but I couldn't figure out what you meant by "when I skip to use voltage regulators" - did you mean when you stopped using voltage regulators? 

Yes, exactly.

[Ralf11]

thx, that makes sense

[marce]

There will be voltage regulators on the cards, you wont be bypassing those I presume!

Depending on the digital circuit the instantaneous current requirements when the circuitry switches can be up to 100A, even small circuitry have high current demand when switching, that,s why the whole power delivery system is critical. Even more so on digital/analogue designs. The most important components in the power delivery system are those very small (0402 preferable) decoupling capacitors right next to the power pins and how they are tracked to the pins and power planes.

Whatever front end power you use must be within the requirements of the circuit its feeding and avoid voltage droop at all costs.

[Tomslin]

4 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

thx, that makes sense

sorry for that, I'm not perfect at English 🙁

[Ralf11]

no problem - it's a world-wide web

[Tomslin]

18 minutes ago, marce said:

There will be voltage regulators on the cards, you wont be bypassing those I presume!

Depending on the digital circuit the instantaneous current requirements when the circuitry switches can be up to 100A, even small circuitry have high current demand when switching, that,s why the whole power delivery system is critical. Even more so on digital/analogue designs. The most important components in the power delivery system are those very small (0402 preferable) decoupling capacitors right next to the power pins and how they are tracked to the pins and power planes.

Whatever front end power you use must be within the requirements of the circuit its feeding and avoid voltage droop at all costs.

Yes, I agree to this. I am quite convinced that the LTO cells I use and Supercaps can meet these requirements.

To bypassing any voltage regulators directly on the cards are probably not completely impossible, and possibly improve them if I should do something like that. But I have no intend to do it. Moreover the JCAT cards are already close to perfect in that aspects.

 

 

[jabbr]

2 hours ago, Tomslin said:

Yes, I agree to this. I am quite convinced that the LTO cells I use and Supercaps can meet these requirements.

 

To bypassing any voltage regulators directly on the cards are probably not completely impossible, and possibly improve them if I should do something like that. But I have no intend to do it. Moreover the JCAT cards are already close to perfect in that aspects.

 

 

 

Ah but the latency of that card is trashed by the Solarflare, haven’t you measured that!?

[sandyk]

9 hours ago, marce said:

It is a generalisation, how do capacitors in the PSU have an effect on the resultant analogue output, and if they do it will be measurable...

 I was asking what actual equipment you are using in your own Audio system.

Still using something like a SBT ,without even a decent Linear PSU such as designed by John Swenson and used by numerous DIY Audio members ?

 

[jabbr]

20 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 I was asking what actual equipment you are using in your own Audio system.

Still using something like a SBT ,without even a decent Linear PSU such as designed by John Swenson and used by numerous DIY Audio members ?

 

 

Careful ... one could call your non networked system primitive if you want to go down that road. Are you using a real upsampling server or still listening to CDs?

 

Id be very careful about getting high and mighty with whatever other people listen to. 

[sandyk]

4 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

Careful ... one could call your non networked system primitive if you want to go down that road. Are you using a real upsampling server or still listening to CDs? 

 

Id be very careful about getting high and mighty with whatever other people listen to. 

When will some of you understand that not everybody needs Muzac piped through the house with millions of tracks accessible by using an iPhone or whatever.

Many members simply want high quality Audio, including high res LPCM and DSD  sourced from a Computer without the need to drag out actual CDs or LPs etc.

 

[kumakuma]

6 minutes ago, sandyk said:

When will some of you understand that not everybody needs Muzac piped through the house with millions of tracks accessible by using an iPhone or whatever.

 

That isn't the main reason why many members here have networked systems.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

That isn't the main reason why many members here have networked systems.

 

I never said it was. The shot was aimed at me, and I simply made it clear that I (along with many other members) only need easily accessible high quality audio without the need to use physical media. The fact that in my case at least, it ALSO sounds way better than simply playing physical media is an added bonus !

 

 Neither do I accept that just because you are a highly qualified E.E. that designs multi layer PCBs etc. means that your own home Audio system will necessarily sound as good as, or better than that of many other non electronically qualified members. 

[Jud]

19 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Neither do I accept that just because you are a highly qualified E.E. that designs multi layer PCBs etc. means that your own home Audio system will necessarily sound as good as, or better than that of many other non electronically qualified members. 

 

Didn't see him claim it did.

 

I know you've got plenty of LPSU/DIY knowledge. It would be nice for me personally and I'm sure others to get some tips regarding what components one might expect to see in a quality LPSU, if we're thinking of purchasing one.

[sandyk]

35 minutes ago, Jud said:

Didn't see him claim it did.

 

 Jud

 Marc keeps telling us how qualified he is in the area he works in, and I don't dispute his expertise in that area,

however it does not mean that this knowledge automatically transfers added benefits to normal consumer Audio products that were also designed by competent E.E.s to a level often limited by cost factors .

 Marrying the Digital area to the Analogue Audio area is more of a " black art" where very few designers excel, and many use textbook implementations from the Semiconductor Applications Engineers. 

 You only need to look at Rajiv's thread to realise that your typical products from competent E.E. designers are often capable of further marked improvements. 

 

Alex