Audio is a strange thing

[powerav]

I’ve always wondered what difference a linear power supply would make so thankfully with the great help of a fellow stereonetter @JumJumInMyTumTumwho answered my wanted call I got the Shanti dual supply as I have a raspberry Pi 4 and a topping e30. I had on order also a new topping e30II after probably foolishly watching YouTube videos saying that it was a noticeable improvement over the e30.

My plan was to wait till the Shanti and E30II arrived together and hook up all at same time but the Shanti came a day earlier so I couldn’t wait so I connected the Shanti to the Rasberry pi with the 3amp side and the other 5V cable to the E30 dac, turned everything on, I played Hotel California from when hell freezes over, the K2 HD Mastering version and WoW the air from the drums, the clear defined plucking of strings, all that magic was there so smooth but heavy and full with bass, unreal, I didn’t want to listen to too much more as I was convinced the new DAC was on its way and surely that would be even better……. Arrived today so eagerly hooked up the E30II, played a playlist from Roon that I made with a vocal heavy presence, Diana Krall in DSD sounded just like I remember with the old DAC without power supply so was feeling meh and thinking so all dacs do sound the same but then came the kicker, Mariah Carey comes up next with the ear piercing “emotions” she hits that high note and ohhh gee not good, the terms, forward, brittle come to mind,  makes want to put old E30 in straight away which I do, play same song and the smoothness returns. I spend the next hour swapping the dacs and comparing songs but in a nutshell with a song like AC/DC For Those About To Rock, the E30 has the classic audiophile terms like smooth, warm, still detailed and super heavy and deep with bass, felt like turning the subs down but the bass was so good. With the E30II the sound was forward, edgy I suppose still very clear and detailed but just a bit too brittle I suppose for me, the E30II with AC/DC was like being at a live concert in a stingy pub and with the E30 it was like listening to them in the studio.

My surprise come form the marketing for the E30II stating that it’s using the new AKM “velvet” chips so I presumed it would’ve been much smoother than the old one but actually it’s the opposite.

I'm not doing a great job of painting a nice picture of the E30II as it will be in the classifieds soon but maybe is a great headphone dac or suit someone that is after that forward sound.

The real hero of this story is the power supply and how much of a noticeable improvement it is.

 

 

[thejt]

maybe give the new DAC some more time but absolutely, power supplies are super important!

[MattyW]

Absolutely.... Look at Audio-GD's top DAC's with regenerative power supplies. About have the DAC is power supply. I've very noticeable improvements with better power filtering in my system, power cables etc also.

[powerav]

I promise never to buy a new dac again

[powerav]

In an all seriousness, this power supply upgrade is almost bringing me to tears, it’s all my old hard rock recordings now that just sound so clear without that harsh top end distortion. 
Case in point. Hardline - Hot Cherie just played and yes while you still get that distorted guitar sound it is just so clear and precise with so much beautiful bottom end 

[Irek]

It reminds me of the story of Cambridge Audio CXN V2 Network Player. Everyone liked the warm pleasant sound and suddenly in 2023 people discovered that the bright and analytical sound of eversolo is "better" . 

[David A]

My next dac will have a well regulated power supply, incl: 10 ultra low noise power supplies for the digital circuits, and 3 completely separate toroidal transformers for the analog stage (80VA ), digital stage (85VA) circuits and logic control (15VA). It's easy to overlook how important the psu is in dacs and cd players.

[ganache]

I am using an Apple Mac Mini to run DSP software for my system.  When I upgraded the power supply to use an external LPS I was amazed at the significant improvement.  I also saw a similar improvement when I switched from the wall wart to an LPS for my PC (using a fan-less motherboard) based streamer.  Yes audio is strange - things you would not expect to be important often are.