Another 555PS ?
No, it’s an XPSDR, of 2021 vintage. The 555PS was great but its cost somehow didn’t feel quite right in the context of an NDX2 and SN3. The XPS makes a nice improvement to the bare player and its cost, while not insubstantial, feels more comfortable to me, more in keeping if you like. It’s really the natural partner to the NDX2, and I only had the 555 because it had been used in the previous bigger system. I hope that makes sense.
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Ah I see - Yes, that makes a lot of sense. You’re making full use of the power supply too which doesn’t happen with the NDX2/555PS combination.
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A slighlty used EAR MC-4 just arrived to be used with my StageLine-N and Benz LPS cartridge.
I wanted to have an alternative to my SuperLine-E/SuperCap to explore different flavours in sound and maybe use for a second tonearm in the future.
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Very nice - could we have a photo of the turntable please ? !
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Voilà:
Pictures are from last year, nothing changed so far, I just swap cartridges every now and then between the Dynavector 10x5 Neo II and the Benz LPS.
The Benz is amazing in its detail retrieval, but the Dynavector is more enjoyable to me.
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Yes it has. On the router it really has made for an even bigger improvement than with the iPower2. My default PSU is now back in the QNAP, iPower Elite in the router and the iPower 2 is now being sold off. All fun & games in HiFi land. Thanks 
P.S. The TP-Link AC2100 router never ceases to amaze me, it just keeps on improving…
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Fantastic with Grado-RS1 and Hicap-2
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I’ve just put 2 x 7M runs of Kudos KS-1 on order, due here at Jonners Towers in about a week after running-in by the retailer. Going to replace some Chord RumourX so hoping for a noticeable sonic uplift. 
Thanks very much for the test and the information. I will try an iFi Elite for my router too.
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I’ve made three changes to the vinyl front end on my second system an Audio Technica VM95E replacing the Rega Carbon on my Planar 1, a Graham Slee Era Gold Phono stage and lastly I’ve replaced the plastic sub platter with a metal third party one.
I tried the Graham Slee Era Gold firstly with Rega Carbon the upgrade was very slight but after adding the VM95E and then the metal sub platter everything went up several notches I’m now actually quite amazed at how good a sub £300 record player can sound
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I think it looks nice and understated.
Latest arrival:
Nakamichi 582. Price slashed from original asking price due to damage to the cassette housing cover.
But evidently in perfect working condition. Just played a tape back on it and it sounded excellent. The vendor detailed in the eBay listing what had been done:-
New Pilot Lights/Miniature Lamps Fitted;
The transport was removed, disassembled, inspected, cleaned, old grease removed and re-lubricated, idler tyre refurnished and new belt kit installed;
The motors have been inspected and lubricated - they are now very smooth and quiet;
Transport modes have all been set precisely;
All of the switches and potentiometers have been cleaned and lubricated.
Meter levels were set correctly.
Tape guide height, Play & Record head heights and azimuth were all set precisely.
The Heads look in fantastic condition and frequency response meets original specification with all tape types.
Tape Speed has been set very accurately and the deck has been meticulously set up. Wow & Flutter at 0.043, THD at 0.67%, and Signal to Noise all meet specs.
So should be pretty decent. Next thing to do is to try it in record mode.
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That’s an excellent W&F result - better than original spec, IIRC. It’s a superb deck, the 582 and easy to see how it quickly became a reference machine within the cassette industry.
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Hi Richard. Yes it has an excellent reputation and I’ve always quite fancied adding one to the collection. Shame about the cracked cassette cover, but even with that I thought £400 was pretty reasonable considering its working condition.
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No problem Wilfried. My original intention was to use the Elite on my NAS but it turns out that the plug & the adapters i have here do not quite fit snuggly enough, negating what i was trying to achieve in the first place. Rather than butcher the Elite’s cable and fitting my own plug and (or) sending it back, i thought i’d try it on my router first. That has been a delightful surprise. Streaming from Tidal or Paradise Radio has now shown my NAS a clean pair of heels.
Mmm…now what to do with my NAS device…so it can keep up. I’m thinking of ditching it and going Naim Core with a SDD and re-ripping to WAV and then with the added benefit of a PowerLine in with the rest of the system off the dedicated radial mains.
After a long period of consideration and ‘tossin’ and turning’ I decided to jump the upcoming price increase and just ordered a new 250DR.
With a little luck it could be here in two-ish weeks. 
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Hi Stephen Wonderful that the iFi Power Elite on the router has brought an audible improvement. I ordered one on Friday and will also try it on the router.
Actually, a whole bunch of adapters were supposed to come with the Power Elite:
(3.5 x 1.35 mm; 4.0 x 1.7 mm; 4.8 x 1.7 mm; 5.5 x 2.1 mm) and a hollow plug adapter for polarity reversal (5.5 x 2.5 mm).
I hope one will fit on my router.
Did you not get any adapters or none fit on the NAS? Adapters should also be able to be reordered from the importer or be available in electronics stores if necessary.
No adapters came with my Elite, only with the iPower2 
none of them fitted my NAS ‘properly’. However, with my router no adapter was required, only direct straight in off the Elite supply itself (What a very strange, weird and inverted world we are ALL currently living in).
There are a number of standard sizes of plug and socket used for DC power leads, but some manufacturers intentionally use non-standard plugs to prevent users from selecting one which supplies an incorrect power output which could cause damage.
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