'ere Stan......?

[Gazjam]

Whats this I hear about a new Bdac power supply in the works?


..or was someone being sarcy on another forum?

[Marco]

What - another forum?? Surely there isn't such a thing...

Marco.

[Gazjam]

Yeah....

who'da thunk it?

[Gazjam]

I take it from the lack of response Stans either keeping it quiet or the rumour of an upgraded PSU for the Dac is BS.

..still none the wiser, ah well [

[StanleyB]

The falling £ is putting a number of my projects on hold till trading conditions are more favourable. The MK6/4 is selling faster than I can get my production and delivery to the UK sorted out though. I reckon I shall be out of stock by Wednesday till next week...

I shall let you know about the PSU when I have one to post around for beta testing.

Stan

[Covenant]

Being very cheeky here Stanley but if you are looking for volunteers for Beta testing Im your man.....

[StanleyB]

That's a hard one. From what I gather you can't even confirm if the MOD21 is an improvement or not...

[Covenant]

Very true-thats because I decided to operate on my amp with no experience. But by the time you get the new power supply up and running I will be thoroughly familiar with the 6/4.
My amp has been rebuilt with a new board and Audiomagus tweaks (bigger capacitors etc) and will be arriving back home tomorrow.
In all honesty I will probably buy your power supply anyway. I got a linear P.S made for my Squeezebox and experienced a huge improvement.
I seem to remember you saying a while back that with the virtual supply there was very little benefit from changes in this area-what has changed?

[Gazjam]

Interesting (re)discovery....

With the thought of an alternative PSU for the Dac, I dug out my Maplins 12v/13.5v power supply, which hadn't been used since I was running the MK5 version of Stans Dac.

Stan had said that the Virtual DC circuit in the 6/3 negated any benefit from changing the power supply, but being the curious bugger I am, I wanted to try it on the MK6/4.

Stan? Big improvement. I was surprised.
Sounds more "solid" now, especially the bass. Its deeper, yet more solid. Any left/right speaker seperation that was there (not much mind you) is now gone. The sound is completely seamless, coming from the back wall, rather than the speakers.

The Maplin PSU DID let me use my specialist power cord mind you, so perhaps this played a part as well.
I used one of these, which had been sitting redundant formerly used for CD player duties.

http://www.krystal-kables.com/products/about_us.htm

http://www.avreview.co.uk/review/rev.../5/v/1/sp/#400

So.....I dunno.
Was it the cord? Was it the PSU? Cant say for sure.
But the sound is NOTICABLY better Stan, not quite the leap from 6/3 to 6/4 (that was very very pronounced), but its not a subtle improvement either.
"Boogie factor" is much better, wider soundstage and that more solid sound.

In my opinion then, theres scope for a PSU upgrade for the DAC.
Wonder if it will be better than the Maplin/Krystal Kable power cord combo?

[Gazjam]

Very true-thats because I decided to operate on my amp with no experience. But by the time you get the new power supply up and running I will be thoroughly familiar with the 6/4.
My amp has been rebuilt with a new board and Audiomagus tweaks (bigger capacitors etc) and will be arriving back home tomorrow.
In all honesty I will probably buy your power supply anyway. I got a linear P.S made for my Squeezebox and experienced a huge improvement.
I seem to remember you saying a while back that with the virtual supply there was very little benefit from changes in this area-what has changed?

Covenant,
I was thinking about a PSU upgrade for my SB3, but discounted it as the SB3 internals have a switching power supply which makes an external linear one (in theory anyway) not able to improve the sound.

Are you using the analogue outs or the SPDIF into Stans Dac for your SB??

What linear PSU have you got, and is it a real improvement on the standard wall wart??

The PSU issue is the last unresolved question I have regarding my SB so any insight appreciated mate.

Gaz.