Musical Fidelity X-LPS V3 - Power supplies or upgrade

[bbbiker800]

Hi All - I've a Rega RP3/Ortofon 2M Bronze connected to the V3 I got off flea-bay a year or so ago. It sounds fine and an improvement on a cheap/old Graham Slee stage I had. But I'm thinking about an upgrade to the power supply 1st rather than a box swap as a next step. There seems to be a consistent view that a MF X-PSU which although very expensive originally and not really available used - does provide a 'significant upgrade'. So, wondering whether any of you guys have done the same or got someone else's PSU and seem such improvements ???

all views appreciated !

thanks

richard

[Arkless Electronics]

It's extremely unlikely that a different external PSU will give any improvement. I don't know what all of the rest of your system is but you would probably get a greater improvement from upgrades elsewhere.

[struth]

Would be tempted to replace the v3

[bbbiker800]

Thanks Guys; yes the swap out route is in my mind if the no one thinks its a good idea for the PSU route ....

Originally thought about a decent Graham Slee (Era) or going for Croft RIAA though am not that concerned about MC's because I'd keep to MM and when the Bronze needs a new Stylus I'll go for the Black. I have a small vinyl collection of about 250 and don't envisage that getting much bigger any time soon.

But my Amp, speakers are old : Musical Fidelity XA2 and Dynaudio Audiance 52's (and a pair of JR149's that need fixing !! Doh !). Other than that I'm using an Audiolab MDAC/ChromeCast Audio for digital plus old Marantz CD6000 KI for CDP duties.

Its all just more money !!!

[Arkless Electronics]

If you are thinking of replacing the phono stage you are welcome to try the one I make. A demonstrator is available. http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?43030-Arkless-640P-still-available-Ultimate-VFM-phono-stage!&p=726744#post726744
It will easily beat anything in the £200 - £600 range and, including the donor unit you will need to supply, starts at around £235. It's closest rival is probably the Dynavector P75 at £649, with some preferring the Arkless and some the Dynavector...

I will mention myself, before some "helpful" wag does, that yes there was a "scandal" involving my taking far too long in delivering them in the past and that this killed sales dead, but this is well in the past and anyone ordering one now will receive it in timely fashion. Show me a less than rave review of it anywhere.... The product itself is excellent, in both sound quality and reliability, and it would be a shame for it to not find new fans when it genuinely wipes the floor with all rivals anywhere near the price ;)

[PaulStewart]

I think I would disagree with the above comments, albeit my experience is with the XLPS v1. When I changed over to the x-psu, there was a pretty dramatic improvement in sound quality. I have had the same experience with many HiFi components too. Better PSUs can really help, when using a Sim Audio Moon phono stage, I found that replacing the wall wart with a liear PSU from Longdog Audio was a night and day improvement. I understand that Jez's designs have large resivoir capacitors, so that PSUs may me irrelevant to them, but my experience is that if this is the case with his designs, this is the exception not the rule. Many people on this forum and elsewhere, have experienced improvements in SQ with better PSUs.

[Arkless Electronics]

The most important part of any power supply is the regulation etc right next to the active circuitry in the main unit. In any unit of any type in which this has been dealt with properly it is very unlikely that changing the external PSU will have much effect, if any at all.

Obviously not all kit is designed equally well, and at the cheap end of the market cost cutting can sometimes spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar, as the saying goes.... In these cases a better external PSU can help to some extent. Simple and cheap internal improvements to the regulation etc in the main unit will be vastly more effective but this is not something the end user can do of course.

If the external PSU is a switch mode supply (most wall warts are these days but not all by any means) this can produce high frequency noise and "pollution" which can cause some detrimental effects to sound quality. In these cases a linear supply can give some improvement.

It is not necessarily the case though that all switch mode supplies are bad. They vary considerably in the actual amount of interference they produce and one may make 10 x more than another! Just as important, the equipment being powered can be more or less susceptible to this interference by a factor of 10 or more...

Best practice in removing the interference by filtering and screening etc can often render a switch mode supply indistinguishable from a linear one in sound quality.
By the time the extra money and design effort has been put into making a switch mode rival a linear I would just use a linear myself though ;)

Unless of course there was some overarching reason to use a switch mode... the main one would usually be if it's the only way to deliver a product at a certain price point. It is usually this and the lower weight in transport costs that attracts their frequent use these days.

They have even been used in some very expensive equipment from Chord and Linn, to name two which spring to mind.... Probably many others since I've no doubt.