Well put, Simon. Dan DāAgostino has delivered a Mea Culpa in the last few years, having been guilty for leading the charge into better measurements, but worse fidelity to reality. He has admitted that 1) measurements do not and cannot capture everything and 2) the ācureā is often worse than the disease when it comes to NFB and other distortion-reduction tactics.
Heās made a few video interviews wherein heās stated these particulars.
Will be interesting to add another data point to the set we have already.
What does dark bear have?
Etheregen / linear ps and Cisco 2960 before.
I went to a Linn Audio demo in Saratogo, California last Summer held by the Linn CEO Gilad Tiefenbrun, I was and still am completely overawed by the Linn system, and what did he use as a switch? A simple cisco switch.
He was not going to put a Phoenixnet on it in a demo.
Which is what the Chord Co. claim for their devices.
Does this imply that proceeding to progressively eliminate more noise could reach a point beyond which this results in poorer performance?
Jim wanted to say that be it Linn, Naim, or DCSā¦etc, when they present their stuff in Audio Shows, they have no interest to show people that their components need expensive power cords or switches to shine.
No I donāt think so necessarily, however it does depend on what you are measuring in performance. If you are assessing the performance of a system in terms of how enjoyable and engaging it is to listen to then removing noise below a certain level may have no difference on the appeal of a system and/or may detract from the subjective performance of it.
So you guys should also not waste your hard-earned cash on some boutique, exotic switches, cables for your components to shine.
To further muddy the waters (if thatās possible), I also reverted to the stock SMPS after trying two different LPSs on my EE8.
But in the spirit of adventure, I then put a 1st gen iFi power adapter on the EE8 & found that was better still. Odd, because Iād been distinctly unwowed by the iFi units when I bought a couple a few years ago ā but for a different system in a different house.
Funny old game. Now wondering what a new-gen iFi Power X might bring to the noise-shaping tableā¦
Itās certainly not a requirement no. Whether or not itās a waste of money depends on how much improvement you perceive from doing it.
Yes, I quite like the word āperceiveā.
Thatās the whole point, isnāt it? In the end thatās all anything in audio comes down to - what we hear. Ever since I got into this crazy hi-fi world as a young lad of 10 years old, around 1970, all Iāve ever done is use my ears to judge whether I prefer this or that. They are getting older now of course, but have nevertheless served me well over the past half century or so!
Exactly, and all perception is based on initial emotional processing of the senses. So, yes, itās all perception, and all of us are individualsā¦ āYes, we are all individuals!ā And that particular Monty Python sketch perhaps describes it pretty wellā¦
Itās really good, as usual for power supplies it depends on the match with the specific device for sure but this one is hard to beat in terms of vfm. Obviously no room to play with power cords.
This definitely feels like a personal preference area. I will try the stock PSU vs the linear one I have and report back what my impressions are. The other thing that occurs to me, and I think this is true for any wifi/internet related product, is that the device is only as good as your network and signal. Much like mains power I guess; but without wanting to ignite another debate!
I have several iPower Xās and have found that the iPower 2ās come dangerously close for nearly half the cost. On some devices, I truly canāt tell the difference (i.e.e both give a superb uplift for the outlay).
May I suggest the following small edit:
The device is only as good as the extent to which it improves your existing networkās physical layer. If it improves it a lot, youāll hear a big increase in SQ. If itās only a small improvement, thatās what youāll hear.
Indeed, if thereās no improvement in that it makes the physical layer worse, then what youāll hear reduced sound quality
Alternatively, optimizing your network should negate or minimize the need to add devices in an attempt to improve your networkās physical layer.