Stuck a Linear Power Supply on My Switch - Blimey! 😱

[What_Are_You_To_Me]

That is a great post, thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge. I have the following network chain:

→ 1Gb Virgin Media modem
→ Asus AXE1600 router
→ Cat6a ethernet cable
→ EE1
→ Chord C-Stream cable
→ EE8 (powered by an MCRU LPS, Puritan Mains Cable & Supra Lo Rad MKII block & Mains Lead)
→ Chord C-Stream cable
→ Roon Nucleus
→ Chord Signature Streaming cable
→ EE1
→ Chord Sarum T Streaming cable
→ NDX2

Clearly massive overkill; but I can’t help myself! From adding the above items over time, my experience is that the biggest impact on sound quality comes from the final leg of the journey (i.e. the quality of the cable you plug into your streamer). I was lucky and got a Sarum T cable at a bargain price and the difference in sound was immediate and jaw dropping! The EE1’s have also improved things but to a far lesser extent. They have also proved very useful by letting me locate the EE8 further away from my system (at the cost of another expensive cable!).

[Simon-in-Suffolk]

I am sure you get most of it
After all over 90% of this is not about actual networking at all, and networking is hardly if ever discussed on this forum, that is where actual complexity might lie. . It’s mostly about conducted or phase noise from appliances through cables coupling with sensitive audio electronics and that can be understood by most in the hifi audiophile fraternity… after all that is good old analogue electrical principles.

[frenchrooster]

I understood that one

[JimDog]

@NigelB

I do agree that sometimes ‘different’ can be seen (heard) as ‘better’. I may have been guilty of this in the past.

And in future, surely!

[sean86]

@Simon-in-Suffolk

It’s mostly about conducted or phase noise from appliances through cables coupling with sensitive audio electronics and that can be understood by most in the hifi audiophile fraternity

Yes, that is all about RFI.

[garyi]

@Blackmorec

For best results, a network should form a cascade of improvements to the physical layer such that the data stream is improved as the file passes along the network.

How is the data stream improved through each “cascade”?

“When it comes to the network, we can very much trust our ears.”

If I don’t hear any difference what so ever, should I trust my ears, as its apparently jaw dropping?

[Argyle_Mikey]

@Blackmorec

Data comes into the house via either coaxial or twisted pair copper or fibre optic cable.

Forgive my pedantry, Blackmore - but some of us stream via 4G or 5G.

[Simon-in-Suffolk]

Indeed and a few in more hilly rural areas even have RF microwave point point network setups… I was looking at one setup in the English Welsh borders a few months back… very impressive.
But turning on the pedant flag, as we know data flows bidirectionally for TCP traffic, and the primary backhauls from the distribution networks and the internet tiering interconnects are all fibre …… through a chain of routers and inspection devices in some relatively electrically noisy locations.

[Blackmorec]

So, two questions:
How does the ‘cascade’ improve the network?
What if I don’t hear any difference?

A network is in part a series of hardware modules and firmware that convert the data stream into various physical forms in order to facilitate its movement from one location to another. Networks are built on various sets of standards, so called layers.
There’s the application layer, presentation layer, session layer, transport layer, network layer, data link layer and the physical layer. To be transported, a data file must be transformed into electromagnetic signals. The specifications that govern these transformations are encompassed in the physical layer. The Physical layer is the first layer in the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model, which is a conceptual framework that standardises the functions of a communication system. The Physical layer deals with the physical transmission of data bits over a communication channel and defines the electrical, mechanical, and procedural aspects of transmitting raw data between network devices. It primarily focuses on converting digital data into a format suitable for transmission and ensuring reliable and efficient communication at the physical level.The physical layer is basically the underlying physical structure of the bit stream. It’s the voltages, the optical pulse forms, the radio wave frequencies and power, timing, noise levels etc. etc. What I found is that the more perfect (closer to the ideal spec) the physical layer that reaches the DAC is, the better the resulting music sounds. From an IT perspective, as long as the physical layer meets a minimum requirement for data transmission and integrity, everything is fine. Its only when that bitstream is converted to an analog music signal, converted to sound pressure waves by speakers, converted to fluid pressure waves and nerve impulses by the ears and interpreted by the brain that the absolute quality of the physical layer becomes pertinent and for an audiophile, important.

So how can the physical layer be improved? Each module of the network handles and/or transforms the data stream and each module performs to a certain physical layer quality level; its noise level, degree of filtering, its ability to generate ‘perfect’ voltage polarity switching, its ability to accurately time bits and transmissions, the amount of EMI/RFI it produces or picks up, the degree to which vibration and resonance affect its output, its ability to isolate from external noise etc. etc. So each module on the internet produces an output with a certain physical performance spec. Typically ‘audiophile’ devices designed specifically for audio will produce an output with a far more refined physical specification. For example, a regular IT consumer-grade SMPS will not pay much attention to noise or the ability to produce an accurate square wave polarity switch, beyond complying with the minimum physical layer requirements, whereas a top grade LPS is designed to produce DC with exactly those abilities/refinements. Similarly an audiophile switch will isolate, filter and accurately time the bit stream to a much higher degree than the ‘designed to be as good as necessary and as cheap as possible’ consumer grade switch. So each module on the network is producing an output with a certain physical specification. The higher quality the module the better its output. But the network comprises a series of modules, so if the LPS on your modem produces a super-clean output that then encounters a noisy SMPS on your bridge, the LPS will have little effect, as the noise it removed is re-added at the bridge. It is therefore critically important that the bitstream encounters increasingly better physical specs as it travels along a network. Again as an example, there’s no point producing a bit stream from a switch with 10ppm accurate timing if you then send it into a server with 100ppm timing accuracy. The bit stream is only as good as the last module on the network.
The other discovery I made is that better in = better out, so the better the input to ANY module on the network, the better its output. If you arrange your network as a series of physical layer improvements, the output from say your router will be improved at every following module e.g an improvement at the modem will compound as it travels along the network, producing an improved input and output at all following modules.

So here’s the thing. If you make an ‘improvement’ to something on your network and you hear no difference, it either wasn’t an improvement ie didn’t produce an output with a more accurate/superior physical layer or it was in the wrong place on your network i.e was followed by a module with inferior physical layer specification that ‘cancelled’ the improvement you made. For an improvement to be ‘jaw dropping’, its has to result in a bit stream with a considerably more refined physical layer reaching the DAC.

I hope the above clearly answers the 2 questions.

[ElMarko]

@Simon-in-Suffolk

I think I get irritated by fanciful cause and effect justifications by some, but that is probably more an issue with me - anyway as long as no one takes any of this stuff seriously and treat it all as a bit of a joke, game or amusing past time, no harm done.

This is how I take these discussions. Most of the “observations” fall into the confirmation bias realm and amount to people looking for reasons to add some shiny bits to their systems. And of course there’s nothing wrong with that.

[garyi]

I fear this is not an argument space that is healthy.

[NigelB]

Can we get back on topic please.

[Blackmorec]

Quite possibly true. Thing is, I’ve been lucky enough to have done the component upgrade journey repeatedly for over 45 years, which took me to some pretty wild places including 6 monoblock power amplifiers, active crossovers with super power supples, 6 level racks and the like but never in all those journeys did i find a path as productive and fulfilling as the most recent journey I took with the network and its surrounding ecosystem. I was literally piling one major upgrade on top of another, all during the covid period. Of course I worried that I was delusional and exaggerating the level of improvements I was getting but I was having SO much fun listening to what my system had become….far more fun than in the preceding 45 years. Then when covid was over I went to my first major hi-fi show in years and realised without any doubt that my journey and findings were real.
Then 1 year ago I completely lost my hearing in 1 ear, so the keys to paradise were no more and I sold my entire system, so all that’s left to do, hi-fi wise is to share what I learned to a few lucky people who actually try to reproduce what i did an find that cleaning up the digital stream to a very high degree is indeed where huge helpings of musical joy and involvement reside.

[Geko]

PJL, I’m about to go into reverse on what I said about the Chord Ground Array on my router. I’m not sure what it is I’ve done, it could be a burn in thing or the fact that I changed the order of plugs in the router but somethings happened.

I had a session last night that lasted into the early hours of this morning and I can definitely hear a positive improvement. It’s like there’s been another layer of ‘hash’ removed. Images have opened up further but have become even more located in space. The lower frequency extremes are more comfortable with better bass shape whilst high frequencies are super smooth and so real. Removal of the device and everything drops back a notch, it’s a little more ragged and a little less real. I can also listen and even higher levels and for me that’s a sure sign that something is better - a lesson I took away from listening to a friends Statement system was how loud you have the volume and it still sounded comfortable.

Anyway, I retract what I said early and have ordered one. I know they’re not cheap but neither is a linear power supply and this is the sort of effect it’s had on my system.

[frenchrooster]

What is not healthy is your constant intrusion on similar topics , since so long time now, to mock the efficiency of switches, Ethernet cables and linear ps as upgrades of the network.

[anon9602469]

@Blackmorec

never in all those journeys did i find a path as productive and fulfilling as the most recent journey I took with the network and its surrounding ecosystem.

@Blackmorec

cleaning up the digital stream to a very high degree is indeed where huge helpings of musical joy and involvement reside.

My findings as well. I’m convinced that in the context of my system the various noise reduction measures I’ve implemented have brought about musical improvements that would have been impossible to obtain any other way.

[anon9602469]

@Geko

I know they’re not cheap but neither is a linear power supply and this is the sort of effect it’s had on my system.

Your observations are very similar to mine. Expect a few ups and downs during settling in. After that it all just keeps getting better and better. My two still seem to be getting better after a few weeks. Running in is lengthy it seems.

Very similar as you say to a LPS, but without the potential pitfalls, ie.loss of dynamics and speed. Plus the fact that LPSs will eventually need servicing and are far less efficient. Another reason in my view to limit the use of LPS’s in my system. Being retired now I can’t afford to keep forking out on this sort of thing. So my approach now is to stick with SMPS’s and implement noise reduction.

[anon9602469]

@garyi

I fear this is not an argument space that is healthy

How so? Why ask the questions then? The impression you give is that you think it’s all just nonesense since you don’t hear these things yourself. That’s fair enough - but why keep pressing home the point? Can’t you allow others their views and experiences without trying to trash them?

[anon9602469]

@ElMarko

Most of the “observations” fall into the confirmation bias realm and amount to people looking for reasons to add some shiny bits to their systems

Have you visited them all, talked to them and listened to their systems? How could you know otherwise? Or am I missing something?

[DiggyGun]

@Geko

PJL, I’m about to go into reverse on what I said about the Chord Ground Array on my router.

@anon9602469 and @Geko

This hobby of ours is interesting, but so variable.

What works on one system doesn’t always work on another’s system.

I heard no difference at all with the Chord GroundARAY that I tried. Similarly, the stock SMPS sounded better that the Farad Super3 LPS and the iFI SMPS’s that tried also.

I must admit that I enjoying trying these different things after reading about other posters experiences with them.

To me, if it theres an improvement, good and keep it. If no improvement, return and no harm done.

Keep on posting on what you do as they are good reads.

DG…