I hope you find the ER as enjoyable as I have done… give it time to settle.
Damn, damn, damn & damn. I was so hoping you wouldn’t have posted this.
Paul Hynes LPS now ordered.
DB, you’re trouble…
Happy Christmas👍
My aim is always trouble - but helpful trouble!
…I’d better not further report how its opened-out to even better since I posted.
DB.
Surprised how good it is already…very tight and precise, but still relaxing to listen to…foot tapping all evening.
Yes - it does that from the off. The cohesion it brings is excellent IMO.
DB.
You won’t be disappointed it is a superb power supply, but be patient for delivery as it is a small operation not helped by the current situation.
Well for a PS produced in the 70s (Farnell L30DT) I’m amazed how good this is now sounding after three days ‘run-in’.
Probably a bespoke HiFi PS will be what I end-up with, as others have done - but even this ancient PS which comes from the days before Torroidal Transformers were used, has had its three-day warm-up, where on day two it went a bit rough-sounding (very slightly) but late into evening and especially today - wow!
Smooth detailed and masses of space around everything and lots of low-bass threads and fabric of music appearing very clearly and with ease - very immersive.
Mid-band with vocals is now silky-smooth revealing tone-colours and expressiveness and use of singing loudness by the Artist excellently - one feature I really love to hear done well.
And a seamless presentation from bottom LF to top-end HF - things in the high frequencies now just ‘happen’ in the mix ‘there’ with no smearing - lots of space made where before it was cloudier.
…And this is just a PS feeding my ER switch - which has no musical data flowing though it.
The ER feeds the Melco Server DB wich in turn feeds the ND555, so the only data traffic is when the ND555 collects the data for a track from Melco and caches it for replay and updates it as the music selection changes.
So all the ER in my system is doing is providing the digital connectivity to the rest of my house LAN. And all the PS can be doing is lowering certain kinds of noise from being injected into the system and finding its way along all the cables into the ND555.
In any case - whatever is happening I’m very impressed with the ‘free upgrade’!
DB.
I’ve been following this thread with interest, and I also decided on a Paul Hynes PS.
Thanks for the tech details and info @MichaelF amongst others, made my life a little easier.
With lockdown due to start tomorrow thought I’d treat myself as my outgoings the next 4 weeks will be minimal.
Now ordered and due in the end Nov batch.
Look forward to seeing what it will do in my system!
What spec are people ordering for the paul hynes ps ??, was looking at that or the mcru one lvl3 version
Thanks
Mat
Yes that is the one I have. There are more expensive models available for those who need dual rails etc.
I think most go for Paul Hynes or Sean Jacobs because they are well known , with great reputation, and exist in black.
MCRU has more reputation for entry level ps. But they can do top quality too. The option 3 or pinnacle uplifted my ER dramatically, and the ER was already a very nice uplift vs the Cisco, However it’s not well known as Paul Hynes, Uptone JS2 or Sean Jacobs.
So naturally people tend to go more for something with already a very good reputation.
I knew MCRU already because they have done what was considered the best available linear ps for the Unitserve ( Long dog audio ps for Unitserve). My interest for MCRU begun with it.
The second reason is that I need only 1 rail. I have no intention to have cascade ER. Prefer waiting for a better switch, which one day will replace my ER.
It’s a surprisingly big difference, isn’t it?
Glad you’re enjoying it - and for free!
My local climbing gym is now closed for about 3 weeks
I used to train 3-4 times a week.
Usually, I don’t really enjoy “testing stuff”. Of course I like having nice toys, but tinkering cables is not my cup of tea… But I have now some spare time and will attempt some listening tests, in particular those @Darkebear asked about.
My actual setup is :
[Cisco 3560]----(fiber)----[ER+LPS]---------[ND555]
I’ll try the follwing (Copper vs Fiber):
[Cisco 3560]----(copper)----[ER+LPS]---------[ND555]
That is a bummer. Perhaps you can go for a walk outdoors, several miles each time, instead, to maintain some semblance of conditioning. I find it works surprisingly well. Puts you in good stead to eval fiber vs copper. Looking forward to your results.
I go to work, everyday, by bicycle. It takes around 45 minutes and the best part of it is uphill.
What I’ll miss is climbing
Like other sports, that need upper body strength, we can never stop… especially at my age…
I guess I’ll have to replace that with pullups
All HiFi PSUs should look like this! I like a nice moving coil meter, or two! :0)
Indeed!
I don’t usually just get the latest upgrade item as there are so many possible options that you can spend a lot over time finding what you really need.
My days working in labs building electronics many years ago means I have a lot of ‘hobby’ items - like these bench supplies sitting gathering dust in cupboards.
I was very surprised at the improvement - a bit amazed really - and generally nothing much amazes me with respect to HiFi of recent.
I’ve an identical PS that I will now probably refurbish with new Electrolytic Caps as these are now 40 or 50 years old! Then I’ll swap the refurbished item for the present and see what that does.
Eventually I’ll procure a purpose-built PS, but these old Bench supplies are very well constructed with excellent resin-potted low-noise transformers and all-discrete component regulators, because when it was built there were no IC Regs!
The Farnell PS is, in fact, very similar to the old Naim ‘non-DR’ PS regulators in the old Naim 250 Amp. This is not a surprise as there are very few ways to do this with discrete components and allow for high current capability.
…but all that aside - what this shows me is that the digital feed needs a low-noise wide-bandwidth ‘ground’ point feeding into the rest of the HiFi.
The ER itself - in my system - is passing very little data and no music-data, so the audible effect is from the noise sent ‘back-at’ the ER from the HiFi along the Ethernet connections.
Considering the dynamic range of the Analogue output from the ND555 the even taking 90db down from a 1v output is micro volts of noise average but more in HF spikes - it is very difficult to measure (I used to have to do this in my old work long ago) but easy to hear. Noise currents of a magnitude similar to the low-level analogue signal finally output by the DAC process, circulating within the Streamer/DAC box will induce noise elsewhere - any loop of wire or track will allow for it - you cannot perfectly isolate it in any commercially-priced item.
…I’m not saying I know ‘how’ or ‘why’ but I can flush into consciousness many things to be considered.
But if all these noise components find their way back to the ER PS and it is rock-solid quiet then it may give this noise a ‘path’ to be grounded and not be reflected back and forth creating resonances and also provide a ‘ground’ for induced pick-up.
…So one idea I’ve had for a long time is that when people think connecting something electrically must be worse than optical or wireless - and I’ve always heard the opposite to be true, then there may be a good reason for it.
Can’t prove it - will upset a few for sure - but we do not live in a disconnected world and electricity in its various manifestations will do what it can do.
DB.
I think you have hit the nail on the head, as most high end electronics avoid the IC Regulators and use discrete. This is what Naim is suggesting by the 555DR I believe. I suspect that this approach allows the supply to deliver large current demands without a voltage sag–which relates to sonic character as an effortless result.