The ultimate Power Supply Units for music servers (and other devices for cleaner power source)

[Chopin75]

36 minutes ago, 80levan said:

The hub may ruin the point of using a Corning. I'd go for a USB disruptor or idefender then power it with dxpwr power regulator and then some. 

YEs, I just remember I have the idefender so I can feed LPS into it to handshake the DAC. (dumb DAC). I would try lowest 3.3V first. Hopefully that is adequate. 

[80levan]

I already did the 3.3v trick. No bueno. Haha. Huhu.

[Chopin75]

3 minutes ago, 80levan said:

I already did the 3.3v trick. No bueno. Haha. Huhu.

This also proves that the tiny copper in the Corning is really too weak to do much contamination, as it can't really communicate with the downstream DAC. The Regen Vbus block would do the final trick 

[Superdad]

On 6/30/2019 at 7:51 AM, Chopin75 said:

The actual audio signal is still galvanically isolated but you can argue that the 5Vbus can cause interferences, though only at the distal and proximal end of the wire, which can be blocked with  Regen USPCB connector by blocking Vbus.

 

28 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

This also proves that the tiny copper in the Corning is really too weak to do much contamination, as it can't really communicate with the downstream DAC. The Regen Vbus block would do the final trick.

 

Sorry, but this really is not true.  USB is D+ and D- plus ground.  The Corning connects PC ground to its distal end for its circuitry and that is the path for leakage.  Blocking of the 5VBUS+ does not break that path.  Therefore no galvanic isolation is provided by the Corning cable.  You have continuity from the PC ground to the DAC ground.

 

The primary benefit of the Corning cable (aside from its ability to greatly extend USB length) is that its thin wire introduces a few ohms of resistance to the ground line—and that sounds good.  We discovered this shortly after we introduced the very first USB REGEN back in 2015.  We wrote about it then and incorporated similar ground line resistance into what became the “amber” USB REGEN (which then sold over 4,000).  It is all chronicled (including discussion of the Corning) at this blog post way back then: https://uptoneaudio.com/blogs/news/20068483-usb-regen-updated-amazing-bass-all-unshipped-orders-will-be-the-latest

 

Of course the ISO REGEN—with its true galvanic isolation (plus other enhancements)—eliminates the need for those extra resistors.

[[email protected]]

8 hours ago, R1200CL said:

@[email protected]

Maybe Alexey can du some funny things with his boxes ?

 

But reading John’s post, doesn’t give me much hope. 

Quote

 

Can someone invent a way to parallel two UltraCaps ?

 

It must be possible adding some circuits after them...

 

 

Why not?

It is easy to improve LPS1.2 specs with my boards

take few LT3045A (1A) boards
wire outputs for parallel as described here

feed individually (inputs not paralleled)

LPS1.2(1)-LT3045A(1)\____ load

LPS1.2(2)-LT3045A(2)/
 

P.S. Not tested but should work, will do some test and update
P.P.S may be @JohnSwenson or @Superdad can comment on this trivial solution?

 

[Chopin75]

On 7/2/2019 at 1:34 AM, Superdad said:

 

 

Sorry, but this really is not true.  USB is D+ and D- plus ground.  The Corning connects PC ground to its distal end for its circuitry and that is the path for leakage.  Blocking of the 5VBUS+ does not break that path.  Therefore no galvanic isolation is provided by the Corning cable.  You have continuity from the PC ground to the DAC ground.

 

The primary benefit of the Corning cable (aside from its ability to greatly extend USB length) is that its thin wire introduces a few ohms of resistance to the ground line—and that sounds good.  We discovered this shortly after we introduced the very first USB REGEN back in 2015.  We wrote about it then and incorporated similar ground line resistance into what became the “amber” USB REGEN (which then sold over 4,000).  It is all chronicled (including discussion of the Corning) at this blog post way back then: https://uptoneaudio.com/blogs/news/20068483-usb-regen-updated-amazing-bass-all-unshipped-orders-will-be-the-latest

 

Of course the ISO REGEN—with its true galvanic isolation (plus other enhancements)—eliminates the need for those extra resistors.

You may be right it is not a true galvanic isolation technically but the main signal component is only contaminated at both ends during conversion from optical to electric and vice versa. The optical part (where the audio signal is) is immune to EMI/RF etc. However I did try using the Regen adaptor that blocks the 5Vbus and it made a huge difference. I found this out by accident when I forgot to block the Vbus (after using a DAC that required it) and then suddenly I realized something was wrong. And finally I realize the issue of not blocking VBUs and when I did the sound became much better with more analogue and natural sound..

 

Please refrain from promoting your own products quoting the numbers sold or the comments will be deleted. 

[80levan]

Nice discovery. Sounds like the Corning and USPCB combo is a portable bus-powered opticalrendu. And with less reclocking and less ICs to further corrupt the signal.

[Jud]

7 hours ago, 80levan said:

Nice discovery. Sounds like the Corning and USPCB combo is a portable bus-powered opticalrendu. And with less reclocking and less ICs to further corrupt the signal.

Reclocking doesn’t “corrupt.” It may reduce noise by giving the DAC input circuitry an easier signal to deal with, though that hasn’t been proved.

[gstew]

On 7/1/2019 at 5:30 PM, Nenon said:

 

You may want to look at those posts... assuming you are talking about LPS-1.2... if not, sorry about the spam. 

 

 

 

 

 

I use this technique to parallel 2 LPS-1/1.2s for several applications in my setups... one is as my reference 5V supply un-modified RPi or SDTrans384 SD card player power source for I2S streaming... another is as the 6V power into Alexey's RPi Mezzanine boards for my reference RPi setups where I have modified the RPis to remove the on-board DC-DC converter chip and feed 5V, 3.3V, and 1.8V to the RPi from Alexey's boards.

 

Where I've done this I used dual 3||LT3045 boards I got from Stammheim on DIYAudio. He no longer sells bare boards (it is a challenging SMD build and he had to do a lot of support), but he now sells them ready-made at www.mpaudio.net. His SD-HPULN PS would work well for this as it only accepts DC inputs. The only modification I'd make to the board would be to replace the adjustment pots with good fixed .1% thin film SMD resistors for the best voltage matching both at first and over time.

 

This is a good DIY solution for increasing the current available from Uptone LPS-1/1.2s and in the applications above (which will sorta work with a single LPS-1/1.2) the additional current headroom shows up as improved dynamics.  

 

I suspect John thought my post was a request for him to do something like this or modify the LPS-1.2 to do this. That was not my intent John... I already have a good DIY solution. Sorry for the confusion!

 

On 7/2/2019 at 2:31 AM, [email protected] said:

 

Why not?

It is easy to improve LPS1.2 specs with my boards

take few LT3045A (1A) boards
wire outputs for parallel as described here

feed individually (inputs not paralleled)

LPS1.2(1)-LT3045A(1)\____ load

LPS1.2(2)-LT3045A(2)/
 

P.S. Not tested but should work, will do some test and update
P.P.S may be @JohnSwenson or @Superdad can comment on this trivial solution?

 

 

Alexey's boards at LDOVR.com should work well for this application too. If you want to do this  with his products, I'd suggest using 2 of his LT3045-1A5 Ultra Low Noise LDO Voltage Regulator boards (3||LT3045 each), again using .1% thin film resistors for good voltage output matching.

 

I have just about as many of LDOVR.com's great products around as I have MPAudio.net's. Using them in concert with the great Uptone Audio LPS-1/1.2''s transformed many of my DIY efforts!

 

Greg in Mississippi

 

[Chopin75]

13 hours ago, Jud said:

Reclocking doesn’t “corrupt.” It may reduce noise by giving the DAC input circuitry an easier signal to deal with, though that hasn’t been proved.

Reclocking is only beneficial if the source is corrupted with jitter etc and that the upstream has an inferior clock (e.g poor streamer clock), The reclocking afterwards, if worse than the clock of the source will "corrupt" the chain. (except if you use a crapy USB cable or whatever cable after the source and so by the time it reaches the DAC it has become crap and so it needs reclocking, but still it won't be as good as the source's clock. If the source has a superb clock and the path to the DAC is very short reclocking may not be needed.  Though this may be a simplistic view, because it also depends on what clocking the DAC uses, if it DAC is the master clock or not ..so I am not sure if there is one correct answer. 

Ideally a clock that runs from the DAC to the source or vice versa (depending on where the master clock is) would  be best. Or may have an external master clock that controls the source and DAC.  I think the Brooklyn DACs have such features where they have external master clock to control the DAC and possibly the source perhaps).

So I would only try reclocking if really needed. Sorry I am now going off topic.  

The commercial world seems to sell lots of gadgets that are often redundant or not needed if the source is really improved (and that includes a great clean Power supply!) . There are also problems created to make more money. Usb is a crappy way to deliver audio but has become the norm. They kind of abandoned Toslink or other optical cables. SO we are now left to get many gadgets just to get the USB more tolerable. It becomes totally silly. 

But I still use USB and that is because: 1, I do DSD/DXD that requires USB interphase., and also I do multi-channel, as the Coax, Toslink AES won't be able to transmit such data. 

I am not saying USB is totally junk, but it can become great for music but at a greater cost than needed... 

What I am really saying is that, if the source is really inefficient,  reclocking can give limited help, it is counterproductive. Get a better clock in the source itself!

 

Sorry for rambling on off topic (maybe I need to delete my own post!)

 

[sandyk]

31 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

but still it won't be as good as the source's clock.

 

That depends on the quality of the source, which may have even come from streaming.

 I don't have too much to disagree with in your last paragraph though.

[Chopin75]

2 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

That depends on the quality of the source, which may have even come from streaming.

 I don't have too much to disagree with in your last paragraph though.

Exactly my point, if I did not make too clear. The source is of utmost importance:

3 most important considerations in Audio gear: Source, source, source

or to define them  in 3 components as:

1. Recording quality

2. Power supply/power source from the receptacle out of the wall.

3. The device/services (e.g internet streaming) OS, h/w involved in playing the music.

 

(Ok, sometimes the device has attached internal power supply so there may be overlap of 2 & 3)

[Nenon]

What if the source is Tidal/Qobuz? 

[Chopin75]

5 minutes ago, Nenon said:

What if the source is Tidal/Qobuz? 

I don't know, I don't do internet streaming but that would take into account of how they play the music e.g how does Qobuz play the music, and how do they transmit the music (compressed data or full 24 bit etc) so I guess it could be a combination of 1 + 2 I mentioned.

I suppose even the internet service matters, of it is efficient in transferring the data, are the optical cables they use of high quality ??

(for e.g. my comcast give shxty looking TV services, you can see jitter on the screen, though occasionally when I listen to internet radio it sounds fine, I guess there is much less data)

If you stream large files like DSD (if that is possible ?) then there will be other issues of difficulty sending huge files, with signal loss etc I would presume ??  I don't think tidal/Qobuz do DSD anyway, Their upper limit is 24/192 correct ?

 

[80levan]

I was committed to my windows laptop +  windows 2012 + audio optimizer + fidelizer pro and was sharing my experience in some threads but was dismissed as an 'old school way' because network streaming is the way to go. Well I tried the Hifiberry Digi+ pro and even the Allo USBridge + Corning but both has an inferior sound. I tried all combinations on the USBRIDGE including a switch running on a 12v power bank and decoupling the modem after device handshake and using cat 8 cables. The sound is still inferior to my surprise. Also, more importantly to this conversation, playing the music files from the laptop on a flash drive that is sharing the USB hub with an Ethernet port sounds more inferior. The best combo I've achieved is having the USB flash drive on the USBRIDGE, run a playlist then unhook the USBridge from the switch. But in the end, the laptop still has the best sound. Wider, better timing and more linear.

 

So after much time and money spent, I'm swearing off a device that gets it's music files through an Ethernet cable or use anything Ethernet at all. I'm swearing off the ultraRendus and such.  Im still mildly curious on the Matrix Element X if I were to play files off it and decouple the Ethernet port on playback.

[Nenon]

43 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

I don't know, I don't do internet streaming but that would take into account of how they play the music e.g how does Qobuz play the music, and how do they transmit the music (compressed data or full 24 bit etc) so I guess it could be a combination of 1 + 2 I mentioned.

I suppose even the internet service matters, of it is efficient in transferring the data, are the optical cables they use of high quality ??

(for e.g. my comcast give shxty looking TV services, you can see jitter on the screen, though occasionally when I listen to internet radio it sounds fine, I guess there is much less data)

If you stream large files like DSD (if that is possible ?) then there will be other issues of difficulty sending huge files, with signal loss etc I would presume ??  I don't think tidal/Qobuz do DSD anyway, Their upper limit is 24/192 correct ?

 

 

I was just pointing out that you don't always have access to the source to fix it. I guess in those cases good recklocking of the signal helps. I don't stream, because the quality can't compare to my local files, but I have noticed that as I improve my network and server streaming Qobuz sounds better and better. Maybe one day streaming quality would get close enough that convenience would win :). 

But that seems to be offtopic. 

 

BTW, on the topic of power supplies, I just noticed some good power supplies for sale in the "Buy & Sell" forum - JS-2, HDPlex 400W, and a Sean Jacobs LPS. We have quite a few choices like never before. 

[Chopin75]

30 minutes ago, 80levan said:

I was committed to my windows laptop +  windows 2012 + audio optimizer + fidelizer pro and was sharing my experience in some threads but was dismissed as an 'old school way' because network streaming is the way to go. Well I tried the Hifiberry Digi+ pro and even the Allo USBridge + Corning but both has an inferior sound. I tried all combinations on the USBRIDGE including a switch running on a 12v power bank and decoupling the modem after device handshake and using cat 8 cables. The sound is still inferior to my surprise. Also, more importantly to this conversation, playing the music files from the laptop on a flash drive that is sharing the USB hub with an Ethernet port sounds more inferior. The best combo I've achieved is having the USB flash drive on the USBRIDGE, run a playlist then unhook the USBridge from the switch. But in the end, the laptop still has the best sound. Wider, better timing and more linear.

 

So after much time and money spent, I'm swearing off a device that gets it's music files through an Ethernet cable or use anything Ethernet at all. I'm swearing off the ultraRendus and such.  Im still mildly curious on the Matrix Element X if I were to play files off it and decouple the Ethernet port on playback.

Simplicity is the key for me. Now with additional devices, we are introducing potential dirty current into the chain, and more variables are added. External devices may have pros but the con of bringing additional jitter, RF/EMR etc all can degrade SQ. I presume you have already used good LPS for these devices, but results are still inferior?  

 

[Chopin75]

26 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

I was just pointing out that you don't always have access to the source to fix it. I guess in those cases good recklocking of the signal helps. I don't stream, because the quality can't compare to my local files, but I have noticed that as I improve my network and server streaming Qobuz sounds better and better. Maybe one day streaming quality would get close enough that convenience would win :). 

But that seems to be offtopic. 

 

BTW, on the topic of power supplies, I just noticed some good power supplies for sale in the "Buy & Sell" forum - JS-2, HDPlex 400W, and a Sean Jacobs LPS. We have quite a few choices like never before. 

I don't know much about streaming/NAA/Roon but I presume the streamed data will eventually reach some server or PC (the endpoint?) and that box would be where you need to have a nice LPS and clean power source e.g. from a good power conditioner.  (some do regenerative power), it may not be as essential as a device that actually plays the music files but would be next most important I gather. 

Further you can have a USB audio bridge that also has nice LPS as well etc... 

[80levan]

40 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

Simplicity is the key for me. Now with additional devices, we are introducing potential dirty current into the chain, and more variables are added. External devices may have pros but the con of bringing additional jitter, RF/EMR etc all can degrade SQ. I presume you have already used good LPS for these devices, but results are still inferior?  

 

I tried variations of powering the USBRIDGE with the lps 1.2 and moving that lps 1.2 to power the corning on the rear end via idefender. Best result to my surprise is giving good power to the USBridge clean power on the clean board and no extra help needed in the Corning.

[R1200CL]

18 hours ago, gstew said:

 

I use this technique to parallel 2 LPS-1/1.2s for several applications in my setups... one is as my reference 5V supply un-modified RPi or SDTrans384 SD card player power source for I2S streaming... another is as the 6V power into Alexey's RPi Mezzanine boards for my reference RPi setups where I have modified the RPis to remove the on-board DC-DC converter chip and feed 5V, 3.3V, and 1.8V to the RPi from Alexey's boards.

 

Where I've done this I used dual 3||LT3045 boards I got from Stammheim on DIYAudio. He no longer sells bare boards (it is a challenging SMD build and he had to do a lot of support), but he now sells them ready-made at www.mpaudio.net. His SD-HPULN PS would work well for this as it only accepts DC inputs. The only modification I'd make to the board would be to replace the adjustment pots with good fixed .1% thin film SMD resistors for the best voltage matching both at first and over time.

 

This is a good DIY solution for increasing the current available from Uptone LPS-1/1.2s and in the applications above (which will sorta work with a single LPS-1/1.2) the additional current headroom shows up as improved dynamics.  

 

I suspect John thought my post was a request for him to do something like this or modify the LPS-1.2 to do this. That was not my intent John... I already have a good DIY solution. Sorry for the confusion!

 

 

Alexey's boards at LDOVR.com should work well for this application too. If you want to do this  with his products, I'd suggest using 2 of his LT3045-1A5 Ultra Low Noise LDO Voltage Regulator boards (3||LT3045 each), again using .1% thin film resistors for good voltage output matching.

 

I have just about as many of LDOVR.com's great products around as I have MPAudio.net's. Using them in concert with the great Uptone Audio LPS-1/1.2''s transformed many of my DIY efforts!

 

Greg in Mississippi

 

 

I would be very surprised if not @Superdad and John hasn’t figured this out long time ago them self. 

 

I’m quite sure Uptone at some point will do something regarding using the UltraCap technology one way or another to be able to feed the “required”  1.5 A into a opticalRendu. 

 

To me, the simplest solution is to inject Vbus power from a second LPS-1.2. So I’m hoping for a new USPCB with such an option available.

 

[Summit]

21 hours ago, Jud said:

Reclocking doesn’t “corrupt.” It may reduce noise by giving the DAC input circuitry an easier signal to deal with, though that hasn’t been proved.

 

Reclocking can be negative, if not done well with good clock, clean power, buffering etc, and make more harm than good.  

[sandyk]

18 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

 

I would be very surprised if not @Superdad and John hasn’t figured this out long time ago them self. 

 

I’m quite sure Uptone at some point will do something regarding using the UltraCap technology one way or another to be able to feed the “required”  1.5 A into a opticalRendu. 

 

To me, the simplest solution is to inject Vbus power from a second LPS-1.2. So I’m hoping for a new USPCB with such an option available. 

 

 

It may be the simplest solution for some, but it's still an expensive option.

 

[R1200CL]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

It may be the simplest solution for some, but it's still an expensive option.

 

 Yes, you would need to have at least one LPS-1.2 from before. Otherwise the JS-2 may, or may not be the best option for an OpticalRendu. Then you can also power other items in addition. 
(Still an expensive solution). 

Looking forward to Chris review part two, where he has indicated he will compare different PS used with the OpticalRendu. 

Since almost everyone was reporting better SQ with

the previous Rendus, it’s a bit agains my religion to use a normal LPS on my opticalRendu. 

That said, my opticalRendu has now been stable for more than a week running on 9V in combination withe a modified SU-1. (Draws 100mA Vbus).

So I may not need a new PS. 

[charlesphoto]

HELP!

 

Trying to decide on a new power supply for my microRendu 1.4 currently being powered by an LPS-1 with an Lt3045 board afterward. Narrowed it down to the new Sonore UltraSupply (alas no feedback yet), the Ultracap 1.2, or a JS-2 (esp if I can find a deal like the used one on offer yesterday!)

 

Or  I have my eye on a used Sonore Signature Series Power Supply with an UltraRendu bundle, which would place that PS at about the same price as the Ultra or LPS 1.2 though I'd also have to buy the UltraRendu (albeit at a good price) and sell off the mR 1.4 for a loss. 

 

Can anyone compare the Signature PS with the LPS-1,  LPS-1.2 or new Ultra? Or others?  Anything else I should consider in the $3-600 range?

[davide256]

49 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

HELP!

 

Trying to decide on a new power supply for my microRendu 1.4 currently being powered by an LPS-1 with an Lt3045 board afterward. Narrowed it down to the new Sonore UltraSupply (alas no feedback yet), the Ultracap 1.2, or a JS-2 (esp if I can find a deal like the used one on offer yesterday!)

 

Or  I have my eye on a used Sonore Signature Series Power Supply with an UltraRendu bundle, which would place that PS at about the same price as the Ultra or LPS 1.2 though I'd also have to buy the UltraRendu (albeit at a good price) and sell off the mR 1.4 for a loss. 

 

Can anyone compare the Signature PS with the LPS-1,  LPS-1.2 or new Ultra? Or others?  Anything else I should consider in the $3-600 range?

I suggest whatever path you choose for a next power supply allows you settings in the range of 7-12 v so that changing endpoint device in  the future still allows you to to use/compare with your power supply investment