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Shanti Dual LPS 5V/3A , 5V/1.5A

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Joined 2003
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Allo Shanti first impressions...

I've had a couple of Shanti here for a few days. They've been sitting on my worktable powered to get some run-time until I could spend the time to get one connected.

My initial impressions, even before having listened to one, were very positive:

- Solidly constructed, very substantial unit.

- Aluminum case, which I prefer for audio gear over steel.

- Some level of vibration control built-in with compliant mounting of circuit board to the case while the transformer is bolted.

- Substantial raw DC filtering, with roughly 33000uF on the 3A output.

- Engineered multiple-stage regulation and filtration, remeniscent of what we see on Allo's DAC and digital component boards.

- Grounding post for easy grounding of the case and transformer frame.

- C-L-C AC filtering using a common mode choke (I use a similar one on all of my pure digital power supplies).

The units are somewhat larger than I expected, so before I could install one I needed to determine where best to place it in my downstairs setup where a somewhat modified and tweaked Katana is currently running. While I came up with five options, I took the easy way out and put it in the location that required the least amount of re-arranging (though it is now sitting where I normally place a phono stage, so it won't stay there).

Three of my placement options would allow a very short cable run to the two flying 5V input leads (DAC board/Isolator output side, Microprocessor board) I have on my Katana. The other locations, including the one I'm currently using, need about 2' leads. Since I have to adapt to the connectors I use anyway, I just cut the leads and soldered on a pair of the female mating connectors. When I try it in the closer positions, if I feel there aren't any negative impacts of the closer placement, I'll replace the installed wire leads with shorter ones using somewhat larger-gauge wire.

AND while I will test it with the stock AC cable, right now I have a much shorter and heavier one (not an audiophile cable, but 1/2 of a 12 gauge Wan Lung AC cable that Parasound used to ship with some of their gear). AND I'm using an AMR upgrade fuse (pulled from the power supplies I normally use in this position). Anti-vibration footers and damping weights are from Herbie's Audio Lab.

I installed it with the 3A output powering the DAC board/Isolator output and the 1A output powering the Microprocessor board.

The rest of the setup and Katana mods/tweaks are as described in this thread:

Getting the best out of Allo.com's new Katana DAC...

It's in and playing. With only a couple of days worth of on-time without a load and less than a couple of hours with a load, I don't want to make any detailed comparisons and assessments. BUT my initial impression is that I'm getting sound quality that is not much different than what I got with my standard DIY'd supplies for the Katana. You can see some details of my supplies in post #4 of the thread above, though the supplies I use in this setup are somewhat different in using slightly more expensive transformers and one of MPAudio's MS-HPULN for each 5V supply instead of 1/2 of a MD-HPULN as I did orginially. These two DIY'd 5V supplies have a combined component cost of roughly $700USD. So EVEN if I ultimately prefer my DIY'd supplies over the Shanti, that the Shanti is even close (I won't say better or worse at this point... ask me again in 2-3 weeks of playing time) is a huge win for Allo at 1/4 the cost in a ready-to use format.

Great work Allo!

More after a couple of weeks.

Greg in Mississippi
 

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Hi Greg


I know you have a great PSU that you made .


What impresses me on your setup is the fact that you have snubbers for the transformer . Very few people know about that little trick (used in Shanti)


Yes Shanti has a massive capacitance bank (33k uF ) to smooth the DC after bridge rectifier and to keep all electrons ...local . After the capacitance bank , we installed another CLC to remove the spikes of the diodes (that are already snubbed) and only then we use active filters and one LDO to keep voltage stable.




If Shanti losses to your setup , I will not be desapointed . I think your level of dedication to PSU is one of the highest I have ever seen in the DIY world.


Win or lose to Greg PSU , Shanti is an upgrade of PSU in 99 % of home setups (linear or smps)
 
Congrats,
I suppose the next launch will be USBridge Sig.?

Matt


Is there an approximate timeline for the upgraded USBridge? I was about to grab a standard version from a distributor since they’re out of stock on the Allo site, but if the Sig is coming in the near future I will hold off. Will it have an aluminum enclosure?
 
Hi.

Let me quote the mail regarding Shanti I sent to cdsgames 30minutes after hooking it up.

Hi Ioan.

Just received Shanti and unwrapped it right away.

To get a first impression I quickly hooked it up to my desktop workhorse system - Adam A5x speakers, RPI 3A+ and Katana
and turned the whole stuff on.

Jee. The sound hit me right in the face. What a pressure!! The music feels like a rock solid concrete wall now.
And all that with these long cables and adapters attached. I do think that the extreme high PS quality
balances the potentially negative impact of cables and adapters out to a certain extent.
The layering of instruments gets extraordinary carved out. When somebody plucks contrabass strings each tone gets
it's own appearance... and there's more... Pretty impressive!

For sure many people will have to get used to this kind of performance.

Very well done. Congrats to you and the team. Amazing job.

I'll hook Shanti up to my main system soon - to get a better "audiophile" impression. But first I'll let Shanti break-in for 50h.

Cheers
 
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Earthing...for us was very important.


We have done a lot of research on earthing using USbridge , Revolution Dac.


Simply put , earthing is one more step in removing all noise from a PCB


On Katana (uController) you have a hole next to DC input . If you connect the earth of Shanti to Katana ground (the hole is connected to Gnd), some noise will go away




Please expect all our new products to have very sophisticated earth connections (a lot of taught went into how to connect earth to analog Gnd PCB , of course not direct)





I will check for live wire orientation , but from what I know , its more important in smps less on linear transformer .
 
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On Katana (uController) you have a hole next to DC input . If you connect the earth of Shanti to Katana ground (the hole is connected to Gnd), some noise will go away

Good to know.

I will check for live wire orientation , but from what I know , its more important in smps less on linear transformer .

Thx.

I usually address 3 related areas of concern in the mains cabling/distribution:

1. phase, impact will depend on the way the PS is implemented
2. phase on not just one device, all other devices need to
match the orientation
3. a proper order must be kept (amp closest to walloutlet, DAC furthest)