I thought that was the reason why they add supercaps on their DAC boards
Given they are not at the power input but I assume they were before the analog stages that seem to depend on transient response the most.See folks. That's the problem.
"Batteries" "Linear" SMPS" "SuperCapBuffer" ...and a million different types, implementations of and applications for them.
Nobody I've seen in this forum is able to outline the essence of the subject.
As long as the "relevant" quality parameters - I doubt it's clear what they really are, otherwise we wouldn't have these endless discussions - are not outlined and understood all these discussions will never stop and you keep buying and piling up useless electronics.
And folks. "Noise" . What is noise? There are all kind of noises out there.
Just talking about "noise" is useless. cdsgames at least made it clear that they focused on different types of noise.
There are so many qualified engineers around. And nobody gets the subject nailed. And that's going on since years. SAD.
Enjoy.
"Batteries" "Linear" SMPS" "SuperCapBuffer" ...and a million different types, implementations of and applications for them.
Nobody I've seen in this forum is able to outline the essence of the subject.
As long as the "relevant" quality parameters - I doubt it's clear what they really are, otherwise we wouldn't have these endless discussions - are not outlined and understood all these discussions will never stop and you keep buying and piling up useless electronics.
And folks. "Noise" . What is noise? There are all kind of noises out there.
Just talking about "noise" is useless. cdsgames at least made it clear that they focused on different types of noise.
There are so many qualified engineers around. And nobody gets the subject nailed. And that's going on since years. SAD.
Enjoy.
Unsurprising. Nailing thee subject just for Katana would require one person to obtain representative samples of the power supplies people like to use and then measure them, and correlate the measurements with listening tests.
Actually, someone already did that for preamp and line level analog audio power supplies: Linear Audio | your tech audio resource ...A lot of good it does... NOT! A couple of the best power supplies they found are no longer available, and none included things like large value parallel film caps, super cap power supplies, LiPO4 supplies, etc.
Quite a bit of money, not to mention time and effort required to evaluate the lot. You want to do it? We would all appreciate it if you do, but probably not appreciate it enough to pay you for you work (hope that's okay with you).
I thought that was the reason why they add supercaps on their DAC boards
I don't think these supercapped AVDD pins were what I'd call a scientific approach. I think that's rather been a fishing exercise and simply
sounded great on paper during these rather early Allo days.
For sure Allo intended to stabilize the HAT power rail and make it fast.
They couldn't rely on quality external powering and still wanted happy customers.
We shouldn't forget . The Boss1.2 IMO is still pretty high in the ranks of the PCM51xx HAT league. Allo does have a story. With or without supercap !?!?
However. Most of us know that different external supplies and separate supplies still made and make a difference. The magnitude of impact is changing with improving device quality though.
Just to mention it.
What most people still do not realize is to have a closer look at the grounding scheme of their "entire" device network. Not the best PS in the world
can fight a poor overall grounding scheme!
Enjoy.
@Markw4
I think you simply misunderstood what I'm talking about.
I wasn't talking about another listening test from a wannabe audio evangelist on youtube.
And I also wasn't talking about another "scientific" review from audioscienereview.com
All that doesn't really help what I was talking about. That just helps shrinking your wallet and piling up equipment without knowing what you're actually doing.
I think you simply misunderstood what I'm talking about.
I wasn't talking about another listening test from a wannabe audio evangelist on youtube.
And I also wasn't talking about another "scientific" review from audioscienereview.com
All that doesn't really help what I was talking about. That just helps shrinking your wallet and piling up equipment without knowing what you're actually doing.
Agreed. Some people use galvanic isolation, such as at the USB to I2S board. For listening here, balanced interconnects are used in places, and otherwise a new old stock Monster HTPS 7000 MKII power conditioner is very useful for controlling ground issues between devices. No longer made, but they are available from time to time on ebay. Highly recommended.
Could be. If so, sorry about that. You certainly seem to have misunderstood what I was talking about too, perhaps intentionally, given the examples you mentioned.
LPS uses massive capacitor banks everywhere on PCB and supercap on output . The only device that rather reduces transients response are LDOs (we use one on LPS none on Katana) and we placed is strategically somewhere in the middle. Our active filters (some modified CM) have very low impedance and no transient resistance .
Katana has 7000uF of capacitance on board and a very good feedback circuit. In the end , unless you have 0A to 3A transient , most of electrons should be on PCB iteslf (decoupling caps and reservoir caps sprinkled over PCB ) and they should take care of most transients
At last , yes noise. Soundcheck has the right understandiung as noise is composed of many different types. Still , when most DIY use low noise (usually differential) PSUs , everybody reports that sound is improved no matter how many LDOs pcb has
Yes we have concentrated on noise, but eliminating noises of all types. When IFI is used , most people report increase in SQ. This is a smps that has about 3mV of ground noise from 0-20Khz (even though the differential noise is about 1.5 to 5uV 0-20Khz as tested by us)
So I think that most devices will benefit from reducing all noises to uV level . Transients are no doubt important and we understood this and provided massive capacitance and designed with transient in mind since day 1
At last one more noise is important , what you feed back to AC. We also designed to reduce/eliminate most of noise thats feedback to your AC lines on both Nirvana and LPS
If I have the time , I will post a pic of my LPS in a clear acylic that we are using to detect heat with a thermal camera . You will be able to see the "massive caps"
ps . Internal testing show an increase on THD+N of 1.5db when using our PSUs on Katana. This is a very significant increase.
Katana has 7000uF of capacitance on board and a very good feedback circuit. In the end , unless you have 0A to 3A transient , most of electrons should be on PCB iteslf (decoupling caps and reservoir caps sprinkled over PCB ) and they should take care of most transients
At last , yes noise. Soundcheck has the right understandiung as noise is composed of many different types. Still , when most DIY use low noise (usually differential) PSUs , everybody reports that sound is improved no matter how many LDOs pcb has
Yes we have concentrated on noise, but eliminating noises of all types. When IFI is used , most people report increase in SQ. This is a smps that has about 3mV of ground noise from 0-20Khz (even though the differential noise is about 1.5 to 5uV 0-20Khz as tested by us)
So I think that most devices will benefit from reducing all noises to uV level . Transients are no doubt important and we understood this and provided massive capacitance and designed with transient in mind since day 1
At last one more noise is important , what you feed back to AC. We also designed to reduce/eliminate most of noise thats feedback to your AC lines on both Nirvana and LPS
If I have the time , I will post a pic of my LPS in a clear acylic that we are using to detect heat with a thermal camera . You will be able to see the "massive caps"
ps . Internal testing show an increase on THD+N of 1.5db when using our PSUs on Katana. This is a very significant increase.
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@cdsgames
Wow. That looks solid. And an R-Core. 2 outputs. Low noise....
One more word to the transient behavior.
I know that you've been looking into the transient (buffering) subject. We're discussing it since quite some time. I also expect that you did a great job on that part.
What I was missing was to nail it down by defining parameters that would define the transient quality incl. recovery of a supply.
Which probably is a bit tricky. There are no real standards or benchmarks.
Wow. That looks solid. And an R-Core. 2 outputs. Low noise....
One more word to the transient behavior.
I know that you've been looking into the transient (buffering) subject. We're discussing it since quite some time. I also expect that you did a great job on that part.
What I was missing was to nail it down by defining parameters that would define the transient quality incl. recovery of a supply.
Which probably is a bit tricky. There are no real standards or benchmarks.
iFi is aware of the criticism btw.
They have written up an IMO nice document trying to make people understand what's being talked up. They clearly outline their way of measuring the iPower.
By stating "...this SMPS has about 3mV noise...", you put yourself on a slippery slope. For sure you need to state very clearly how your measurements were done. Otherwise it might turn back on you.
And if that measurement looks complete different from what iFi has done. That "...3mV..." statement has not much - if any - value at all.
They have written up an IMO nice document trying to make people understand what's being talked up. They clearly outline their way of measuring the iPower.
By stating "...this SMPS has about 3mV noise...", you put yourself on a slippery slope. For sure you need to state very clearly how your measurements were done. Otherwise it might turn back on you.
And if that measurement looks complete different from what iFi has done. That "...3mV..." statement has not much - if any - value at all.
Just had another look at the LPS image.
I do not see any more connection options then these two flimsy cables !?!?
Ony key element of powering a HAT tower would be to avoid long low voltage and low quality cable runs. (I run a custom wire @ 3inches max from PS->HAT)
Not to forget. Bypassing poor power sockets such as USB-C/uUSB is another
key element. (I bypass all of them) And that requires custom wiring as well.
What sense does it make to take an extraordinary well done PS and then you loose it on the connectivity part!?!?
Especially these connectivity questions impact the "transient" discussion heavily. Of course it goes on with ground loops, RFI/EMI pickup asf. in this context.
I do recall that Allo had shown us screw terminals in the early days.
I do not see any more connection options then these two flimsy cables !?!?
Ony key element of powering a HAT tower would be to avoid long low voltage and low quality cable runs. (I run a custom wire @ 3inches max from PS->HAT)
Not to forget. Bypassing poor power sockets such as USB-C/uUSB is another
key element. (I bypass all of them) And that requires custom wiring as well.
What sense does it make to take an extraordinary well done PS and then you loose it on the connectivity part!?!?
Especially these connectivity questions impact the "transient" discussion heavily. Of course it goes on with ground loops, RFI/EMI pickup asf. in this context.
I do recall that Allo had shown us screw terminals in the early days.
@cdsgames
Wow. That looks solid. And an R-Core. 2 outputs. Low noise....
One more word to the transient behavior.
I know that you've been looking into the transient (buffering) subject. We're discussing it since quite some time. I also expect that you did a great job on that part.
What I was missing was to nail it down by defining parameters that would define the transient quality incl. recovery of a supply.
Which probably is a bit tricky. There are no real standards or benchmarks.
Yes its impossible to measure , especially since end devices will have different requirements . In case of modern DACs , transients are , frankly , very tiny. I don't think its a concern.
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