New Linear Power supply upgrade for DMP A-6

Yes it does, but not in a bad way. The Canton speakers used and my current Yamaha NS1000m are sealed bass and work well in smallish rooms.

 

Sound stage, can not be measured, but it certainly does exist.
"Yes, but explain to me why humans can fairly easily hear the improved effect using femto clocks."
If you change a single carburettor for a pair of side draft webers or remap an ECU, the effect at idle watching the engine, in all likely hood, will be unnoticeable. The effect when driving the car, in all probability, will be noticeable. Small changes can effect overall performance in very real ways.
For a thread on PSU upgrades, this has taken a meandering walk round many contentious hifi myths and theories.

 

There can only be an audible difference if the components regulation/filtration is extremely poorly engineered, you can quite clearly see that is not the case with the A-6.
Keith

 

That statement pretty much applies to any electronic device and subscribes to to the theory that all well designed devices should sound the same.
I personally do not agree with that and find very audible differences between different DAC's and Amps, even those using similar topology and chips.
As one well regarded designer said on his company site, "what you are really listening to with an amplifier, is the power supply", as a complete amateur, I wouldn't attempt to argue with that statement.

 

Everyone hears differences when they compare without any controls.
The evidence is always in the measurements if you understand them.
I would urge everyone to make an effort to understand it will save you a great deal of money on ‘upgrades’.
Keith

 

The best measuring instruments are and remain the ears!

 

Obviously not, but in terms of this particular thread it is understanding that if the component in question is well designed in terms of its power regulation/filtration then it can’t possibly be improved by a external power supply.
Keith

 

"Man's will is his heaven" quote Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
Meaning, if you want to hear a difference you will, if you don't, you won't.

 

For me, measurements are overrated. It is not necessarilly the same if you produce just one frequency or real music. Different signals at the same time can influence each other.

In case of a power supply I would agree that it can be measured for perfection. But has it? Is there a measurement of the linearity of the regular powersupply?

If it produces a "flat line" - it is perfect, if not, well, than it can be improved. Of course it must produce the flat line when in use, under load.

 

You have to understand that we do not listen to a power supply in isolation we ‘listen’ to the output of the component, everything is there in the measurements.
If a component was so badly engineered that there was audible power supply noise that would be evident from the measurements.
In the case of the A-6 it will not be improved by adding a linear power supply.
Keith

 

If you believe in measuring, you need to measure the power supply. It is part of the construction and important.

It is not true, that "everything" is in the "measurements", thats pretty obvious: think of sampling frequency. You have only N samples. You can also only measure the output for a certain input. And if the input is a constant frequency, it is not music. And if your low frequencies have an influence on the high frequencies thats not good either. Or you introduce a high frequency overlay due to the digital part when it is under load. Or the output from one channel spills over to the second channel. That all is not represented by that simple frequency response graph.

I like the concept of comparing the output of 2 different setups by doing a difference. Amir did it for a powercable and found out, the difference is practically null. He tested it with real music, so I think this is relevant and meaningful and proves, that the powercable does not matter.

Before I change the powersupply, which will not happen anytime soon, I will use my old analog oscilloscope to check if that is necessary.

I think spomebody must have done this already, at least the vendor of that 3rdparty power supplies. So if sombody has some graphs of the powerfsupply, that would be helpful.

 

Everything is measurable, intermodulation distortion, multi tone distortion, obviously a properly designed power supply is essential, as is the digital/analogue conversion output stage etc etc, but as I mentioned we do not listen to a power supply in isolation ,components are measured at their output if there was a problem with the A-6s power supply that would be evident in its measurements.
As you can clearly see everything around 50-60Hz is -150dB
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/eversolo-dmp-a6-streamer-review.44198/

Keith

 

This would be only relevant if the switching powersupply in the A6 would indeed work with such a low frequency. Usually they do not, to the contrary. (This is why some powersupplies produce a very disturbing high frequency sound, esspecially when they are older - you can hear the wire moving in the coils).

In the review Amir wrote: "noise is good but not state of the art". Maybe this is RF noise produced by the switching supply? He also wrote "Filter attenuation is not as good as I like to see" - that can also be a sideffect, if there is a noise overlay in the power, or am I wrong?
A linear powersupply can produce a 50hz noise, but not high frequency noise. So it can improve things, unless the original powersupply is already perfect - for what there is not yet proove.

And there are still the other possible problems I mentioned. They cannot be measured by just looking at a frequency without taking into account real input.
I aggree that that addon may be snake oil - but I also understand the persuit of perfection.

 

The mains frequency is 50-60Hz, noise is way below the threshold of audibility, RF noise! any noise has to be audible , I am afraid you have just bought into ‘audiophile’ nonsense .
You don’t need to take my word for it of course just buy two A-6 units replace the power supply in one and compare them unsighted and level matched.
That is what I did, many years ago.
Keith

 

I still talking to everyone if you want to believe do the blind test if you passed you are good and this upgrade do the sense if not loose the money

 

A few months ago, my noise reduction journey started with the Linear Power Supply upgrade for the Eversolo DMP-A6.
It was such an improvement that since then I've added:
- iFi SilentPower Supanova power cables (active noise cancellation) for the preamp and DAC.
- Cardas Clear USB cable
- Cardas Parsec RCA cables
- Find the quietest outlet with Entech
- iFi SilentPower iPower2 quiet power supply for the network switch
- Netgear GS108E v3 switch

My latest noise reduction improvement is the NAD C298 amplifier (similar to the NAD M23), 185 wpc stereo (260 watts peak/soft clipping) or 620 watts mono bridged (1000 watts peak mono), .005% THD, > 120 db SNR, >110 db channel separation crosstalk, > 800 damping factor for tight bass, only 25 lbs.

The NAD C298's specs even beat my DAC (Denafrips Pontus II 12th-1) and preamp (Parasound 2100).

 

Your last and best noise reduction improvement would be very easy - be solely quiet.

 

Interesting reading some of the comments here, especially from those who appear to have little or no knowledge of electronics.

All power supplies produce some noise. Even batteries (yes batteries). It's called thermal noise and is generated by the movement of electrons in the circuit. There's no practical way to avoid it.
Switch-mode power supplies operate at frequencies above the audible range of humans (typically in the hundreds of kHz region, and yes after rectification back to d.c. some of this noise makes its way through the filtering in the power supply.
So called "linear" power supplies are in fact a form of "switch-mode" in so far as the rectified a.c. (now are varying d.c. pulses prior to smoothing). Under load the d.c. from these power supplies is typically not completely free from noise. There may be some residual ripple albeit small in amplitude at twice the mains frequency in a full wave rectified supply. So a 50Hz single phase mains supply when full wave rectified produces ripple at 100Hz; and a 60Hz mains supply 120Hz. If analysing a "linear" PSU these would most likely be the predominate "noise" frequency components along with thermal noise and any other noise generated by linear voltage regulators and current limiting circuitry. Most hi-fi products operating from the mains a.c. supply use full wave rectification in "linear" and switch-mode PSUs (and yes I appreciate there are exceptions), so any 50Hz or 60Hz components to the noise produced is not part of the PSU converting a.c. to d.c. rather from poor magnetic and electrostatic isolation of the input supply or the transformer. Where parts are placed within the device and where cabling is routed does make a difference. I've fixed literally hundred of DIY audio projects where the common complaint is "I just can't get rid of the hum". 99% of the time the problems were attributed to poor layout of cabling and where the transformer had been physically placed or orientated within the device. Some were unintentional ground loops and incorrect sheilding terminations.

Any competently designed circuit will have more than an adequate PSRR (power supply rejection ratio) but that also means a good board layout for the circuitry of the device being powered to achieve this not just the design of the circuit or choice of components on paper. Most electronics novices and laypersons often overlook the importance of circuit topology in designs. Even the best designed circuit on paper using the best possible choice of components will perform poorly in a bad board layout. What I'm alluding to here is there may be either limitations or virtues in the design of the DMP-A6 which may render changing the PSU from the factory standard to a custom "linear" unit a pointless exercise.

 

Good points made in your post, but if your post is aimed at the layperson, such as myself, then what I understand is that implementation is everything. The final product is a compromise between, let’s call it, “theoretical” goodness and “practical” limitations.

The LPSU is not going to be an automatic magic bullet.

 

I love this - it’s like being back at school, but in the best possible way!