NAS Super-Low Noise Linear Power Supply

[Stryder5]

Sometimes I think my sense of humour is misplaced.

[Bigman80]

Sometimes I think my sense of humour is misplaced.

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[Stratmangler]

Good point, mate. I'll look into that

Marco.

I wouldn't worry too much about the aerial thing in your case - I spotted that the cable you'd linked to is only 0.5m in length, and that's not going make much of an aerial.
All they can test for with that length is that the pairs pin out in the correct order, and that there's continuity on the shield. The testers they use to certify cable are calibrated to work from 1m and up.

[Marco]

Yeah, mate, I was thinking pretty much the same thing earlier. Different if I were using much longer lengths.

Marco.

[Marco]

Oh fuck, how can this be happening...??

I think I've just unearthed another 'amazing discovery'! More on that tomorrow. Tonight, many forms of music will be listened to until the wee small hours...

L8trs, muchachos.

Marco.

[Rothchild]

Looking good Marco, and way better than that nasty wall wart you showed me!

Great work Duncan, what's the final spec on this box - how much current will it deliver?

[Marco]

Well, I was up rather late listening to music and enjoying the very surprising sonic improvements this linear PSU has brought to the party...

The most noticeable aspect of those improvements is the presence of greater overall solidity to the sound, grounded in weightier, more muscular low-frequency extension, which provides music with the firmest foundation on which to create a very convincing and natural rendition of voices and instruments. The extra 'heft' now available really does succeed in fleshing out the sound of drums and bass guitar in particular, increasing the fun factor and lifelike nature of the music accordingly.

However, equally significant is the fundamental removal of a gritty, grainy quality and 'false sheen', which previously was superimposing itself on the music, occasionally making it a little fatiguing to listen to, particularly when the recording quality was not the best - and I hear this effect (a type of mid-forward 'glare') all the time, to greater or lesser degrees, with digital music sources that aren't yet fully 'sorted', in order to compete with the best analogue varieties.

With the addition of the linear PSU, that 'glare' and gritty, grainy quality has now all but gone (I don't believe such can ever be fully eradicated, as I consider it inherent in the nature of digital replay), but it no longer draws attention to itself in any major way, and consequently music is now reproduced with a greater sense of 'ease', and that added 'effortless quality' really helps you relax into the music, forgetting about the sound, subsequently promoting extended listening sessions, without your ears becoming fatigued after a while, which can often be the case when listening to CDs or other digitally-derived music.

All this equates to a rather more 'analogue' musical presentation from the RPi, but with the clarity, dynamic headroom and sonic alacrity of the best digital sources. and nary a trace of the 'hardness' often associated with digital replay, in comparison with the best of what's possible with analogue. Consequently, the sonic signature of the RPi is now akin to that of a good turntable, and eminently as satisfying to listen to, especially with recordings able to showcase its remarkable levels of musical insight.

And here's the clincher....

To my ears (and I was analysing this very carefully last night when listening to many different genres of music), adding a linear PSU to the Seagate drives has resulted in a BIGGER overall sonic upgrade than doing so to the RPi itself!

The improvements are simply more fundamental across the board, subsequently elevating the performance of the RPi to an area that, as good as was achieved with the addition of the main linear PSU, simply didn't happen to the same degree. The effect of this particular upgrade is akin to adding a high-quality off-board PSU to a top-notch CD player. Those who've been there and done that will know where I'm coming from. Yes, *that* significant!

So..... Going down the route of adding a quality linear PSU to power my NAS hard-drives has turned out to be a resounding success, but the question is WHY?

The fact is, what I'm hearing appears to be too much of an improvement to have come solely from not spraying high-frequency switching noise over the local electrical supply. Unless that situation *really* was bad before. No, I suspect something else is happening here, out with of simply reducing mains distortion, which is somehow allowing the music contained in the Seagate hard-drives to maintain its sonic integrity to a greater degree, before being transferred to and processed by the RPi itself.

Anyway, I'll leave the 'techies' to argue over that and try and figure it out... Me? I'll just enjoy the best sounding music I've yet heard from the RPi, which performance-wise has now unquestionably entered the 'big league', but without the price tag to match!

I would encourage others here using their RPi in conjunction with music stored on external hard-drives, to go down the route of powering them with a high-quality low-noise linear PSU, as the results of doing so, for me, are quite simply, a no-brainer

Marco.

[Marco]

Looking good Marco, and way better than that nasty wall wart you showed me!

Yeah, isn't it just!

Thanks for helping talk me out of it...

Marco.

[walpurgis]

Not the kind of music source that I use Marco. But it does make sense to have 'clean' power with a bit of reserve in hand wherever possible in my view. So any potential reduction in noise can only be a good thing.

[tubehunter]

Looking good Marco, and way better than that nasty wall wart you showed me!

Great work Duncan, what's the final spec on this box - how much current will it deliver?

Well it's only really limited by the transformer secondaries 2 x 2.6amp therefore around 5 amps, but the manufacturers are usually pretty conservative.

The output pass MOSFETs are high-current 30amp devices.