Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Captain Ned
The Egg wrote:You want to replace it with EXACTLY the same voltage and amperage.
ludi wrote:Unless the factory power supply is doing something definitely objectionable, like introducing high frequency noise into the system, an alternate supply won't make any difference. There appear to be several DC-to-DC conversion circuits inside the chassis, along with a good deal of filtering.
However, the 12V/2A supply is probably capable of supplying adequate power to operate reliably.
Arvald wrote:Not one for audio equipment but coming from using a Raspberry Pi making sure that the wall wort is providing the full power required can be a big deal, especially under draw.
+1 for making sure you have a decent power source, especially if it is suspect to you already.
chµck wrote:Technically, a higher voltage psu will allow the DAC to preform better.
chµck wrote:I was going to suggest a linear regulated psu from Jameco, but they don't have one in 15V.
You can build your own high(ish) quality DC psu for not that much (Maybe $40 including shipping and the case).
here's a basic schematic:
(image)
just brew it! wrote:chµck wrote:Technically, a higher voltage psu will allow the DAC to preform better.
No. Over-volting a DAC isn't going to accomplish anything useful other than maybe damaging it (if its power circuitry isn't designed to handle the higher input voltage). It's not like we are trying to overclock a CPU here; more voltage doesn't help. If it did, the vendor would've speced a higher voltage wall-wart in the first place.
just brew it! wrote:chµck wrote:I was going to suggest a linear regulated psu from Jameco, but they don't have one in 15V.
You can build your own high(ish) quality DC psu for not that much (Maybe $40 including shipping and the case).
here's a basic schematic:
(image)
Unless the existing wall-wart and/or power regulation circuitry in the DAC suck pretty badly, all this will do is waste power. Linear supplies are very inefficient, and the operating frequencies of modern switchmode wall-warts are far beyond the audible frequency range anyhow.
chµck wrote:you're right, i was aiming this comment at him using a 12v psu instead of the included 15v one.
SecretSquirrel wrote:Looking at the picture of the power supply, it appears that it may be a simply transformer wall-wort, not a switch mode supply.
SecretSquirrel wrote:Whether you can hear the difference of a new suuply or not probably depends on your ears and how much you want to justify the purchase. A bench quality supply will certainly give you cleaner power but it will cost nearly as much as you paid for the DAC and be bigger. A $15 replacement laptop supply? Probably not.
How much do you want to spend money?
kumori wrote:SecretSquirrel wrote:Whether you can hear the difference of a new suuply or not probably depends on your ears and how much you want to justify the purchase. A bench quality supply will certainly give you cleaner power but it will cost nearly as much as you paid for the DAC and be bigger. A $15 replacement laptop supply? Probably not.
How much do you want to spend money?
I was thinking of spending around $15, but I'm not willing to take the plunge into $150 PSU. At this price point I feel like if I want to spend $150 I should just put it toward upgrading my audio equipment generally. Maybe if I had a $1500 Benchmark DAC.
SecretSquirrel wrote:I tried to find a picture that showed the part number of the internal regulator -- to no avail. I can say with about 99% certainty that there is not a switching regulator inside the case. The only inductors visible on the board are not a switching inductors. They look more like a ferrite bead filters, probably to keep high frequency digital noise from feeding back into the raw power rails.
cynan wrote:Connect the negative terminal to the wire feeding the inside contact of your barrel connector that plugs into the DAC, and the positive terminal to wire feeding the outside contact of the barrel connector and you're done.
just brew it! wrote:cynan wrote:Connect the negative terminal to the wire feeding the inside contact of your barrel connector that plugs into the DAC, and the positive terminal to wire feeding the outside contact of the barrel connector and you're done.
Are you sure about that? On most "wall wart" power supplies the outside contact is negative (though there are exceptions).
ludi wrote:Big inductors are characteristic of high-current supplies, and even then, modern SMT packages may not show an inductor in the form you're accustomed to seeing. FWIW the device on the heatsink is TO-220 but with a five-pin interface -- slightly better view angles here. Could be something like this, with L1 from the "typical application" schematic replaced with more aggressive RC output filtering to save money.
SecretSquirrel wrote:I thought it was pretty well designed too. If the analog layouts are done with care, I would expect the limiting factor to actually be the DACs - assuming that isn't a knock off Burr Brown op-amp.