See my post on the mad mad crazy cable thread
I advise not to do this, earthing the RCA phono sockets is doing something the equipment is not designed to do. The phono RCA -ve connections on Naim equipment are not connected to earth, they might carry a ground resister, they might not, but whatever you’re adding something that is not Naim approved.
A caution about quality of the iFi iPower units.
I have had 3 out of the 4 fail within a year of buying them new to power Netgear ethernet switches etc., so had to revert to the original OEM power supplies. You may be luckier than I have been.
I bought them from a UK Hifi dealer who was very good about replacing them, then the replacements failed too…
They were good while they worked though.
Take care, BF
Same here! Mine failed out of warranty, did more or less forget about it since I did not notice a difference when I used a Asus charger instead.
That’s unfortunate. I have a few iPowers which I bought to power some non-UK kit that was supplied with European type plugs. I can’t say that they did anything for sound quality, but they still work fine after several years of use.
I recently purchased my 4th. ifi iPower supply. I now have 2 x 5v, 1 x 9v and 1 x 12v. No issues at all with reliability.
What impact they may or may not have on sound quality is another matter of course.
Dave
The iFi power supplies are thought to be very good in terms of noise injected back into the mains but to be lacking in terms of current leakage. If you use them, you might be able to obtain even better results via grounding, see “audiophilestyle dot com slash forums slash topic slash 37034-smps-and-grounding”.
Im in the process of grounding mysystem through earth star ground of a multiway plug like a hydra but have been advised against it for some reason. Cant think why it would be a bad idea as many forums and companies have products to actually do this. Thanks.
The grounding of SMPSs discussed in “audiophilestyle dot com slash forums slash topic slash 37034-smps-and-grounding” has not directly to do with earth star grounding which is the recommended method for connecting the grounds of the power cables used to power Naim systems. For this purpose, I use a CHC (Custom HiFi cables Ltd.) PowerBlack Distribution Block: it is star earthed and the build quality is very good.
Unfortunately my first unit failed too ,within guarantee.
Luckily replacement has worked flawlessly so far.
True they may not be so reliable as stated but when they do they’re a real treat
I had iFi iPower’s fail. I’ve now moved to Friwo MMP15
I first tested a mates Friwo a while back using the LW/AM/SW radio noise test & that proved to be very quiet.
I measured my new Friwo’s DC voltage on & off load, this was very stable with a very small 0.02vDC drop under load. Friwo specs show DC ripple is <=120uV(pp), so overall it looks like a pretty good & stable SMPS.
What about the SQ? Compared to the Cisco SG110D SMPS my impression was subtle but positive. The presentation has more clarity & detail, this seems to bring more musicality in that I can follow a tune better.
After reading your posts and from others, I ordered some ferrite from Digi-Key, Fair-Rite Mix 75 round cores and small NiZn clamps from Wurth Electronics and installed them on the SMPS dc leads on my Fios router and SB Touch. I can honestly say I hear a subtle improvement in SQ. It’s amazing what you can learn here.
I tried an ifi smps . I installed it and found overnight it was running Hot and my Chord Dac felt warmer. Sent it back for a refund.
Excellent, happy you can hear the difference. I looked at my 12vDC & 230vAC sides on a small field service oscilloscope, it was clear to see the DC side ripple was a lot smoother with the ferrite 75’s.
I wrap as many turns of the DC cable around the snap bead as is possible, each turn multiplies up the impedance & also shifts the maximum imp. peak to a slightly lower frequency, both useful with the low switching frequencies of SMPS where ferrite 75 is at its low end limit. .
Thanks for your feedback Mike, I’ve been looking at the Friwo MPP15 as an option, have you ever tried a good LPSU on the Cisco switch and do you think these would offer an appreciable difference in SQ?
Hi Aren, LPSU’s are not necessarily any quieter than a good SMPS, some are, but a well designed SMPS can be better. The Friwo units are quieter (as I’ve measured) than the SMPS’s items that are supplied with products like consumer switches, I do detect a small change in SQ with the Cisco switch, but I’m not really sure if its because of less ripple, switching noise (hash) or more stable voltage.
I am also aware of the justifiable bad reputation that SMPS had in years gone by & some were really bad. Today I believe that reputation has ‘stuck’ despite the improvements that have evolved. Regulations were bought in a number of years ago that controlled the noise problems of the early designs, plus design & performance have improved anyway in that time.
Lets finish by saying I have no wish to try to improve what I have.
I read all the 42 pages of this topic and they are reccommending to star ground the dc barrel of an ifi or similar smps. All the smps should be connected directly to one plug if possible but it must be through the pdu sockets and not directly to a wall ac outlet.
Yes, I have done that on the 5V ifi that I used some time ago to power an Allo DigiOne Signature but didn’t notice perceivable differences in the sound quality of my system and with my ears. I am currently powering the DigiOne Signature through an UpTone Audio JS-2 (RPi side) and through an UpTone Audio LPS-1.2 and use the (ungrounded) 5V ifi to power a Chromecast Audio.
@Henryski, carried over from your posts placed in the Streaming threads
First is to understand star grounding as advocated by Naim (& others) is all to do with a single point (common) SIGNAL negative or -ve as is its called by Naim.
This single point ‘star’ ground is part of that common negative -ve circuit & that is the negative side of the transformer/rectifier/regulator power supply – its not power earth (E).
Naim connect to a single point earth on one source component only, this is the standard with all Naim CD players. They also provide a switch to have the earth floating or to connect earth (which is marked chassis or default) with the streamers if a CD player is not in the circuit. I don’t know if this earth connections are direct or via a resistor.
Your profile shows you have a Yamaha CDP, this is designed to not have an earth connection & its IEC320 plug is 2 pin (L&N) only.
If you want to experiment with an earth into one of the Nait RCA -ve, that’s up to you. I don’t suppose you will do any damage, but I’m not sure it will do what you are trying to fix as I suspect the -ve is earthed internally at the Nait’s RCA connection.
RE: Grounding or earthing ps4 through the usb front panel input … I’m not familiar with this so can’t comment, just be careful.
A completely separate subject to signal ground is power earth, 230v L,N & E, This is not the star earth that Naim talk about. The power cable brands have latched on to this ‘star’ connection word, but strictly speaking its not correct & is probably just playing to the audiophile market.
In the electrical world connecting earth (E) from a single point to numbers of individual components (& also the same for L & N) is called a radial connection.
A radial earth (E) will probably not do anything for SQ as this a safety earth & connects the individual component cases (metal box) to the incoming power earth. The other commonly used way is a link that connects the plug outlets in a daisy chain, the only difference is instead of a single connection point in one terminal, the same connection is x mm long. It probably makes no difference to E (safety earth) one way or the other.
Thanks Mike, this has cleared a lot up regarding star earth.
It seems that it can mean slightly different things to different companies or being misunderstood or interpretated differently. I always understood it as having a common or central point to which other components are connected to at AC earth eventually either through the inner curcuit pcb or and metal casework of an amp, cdp, dac etc. But Naim refer to it through the negative signal aspect only and nothin to do with electrical plug earth.
Hi fi can be so simple and confusing at the same time.
Cheers!
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