In any case should be dac’s power cable be as far away from interconnects as possible. Separating power and data lines improve dac behaviour and there is no need to clean the computer’s VBUS noise. That’s why you need a well-made, well-shielded, well-isolating USB cable, too.Ī dongle dac-amp is exposed to all these noises whereas most designated dacs have the option of a separate power supply. And if both are transferred into the dac via an inferior USB cable, there is additional interference between power and data lines…which exacerbates the problem. A computer’s power supply is not designed with noise reduction in mind and the various computer internals are noisy, for example a hard drive (SSD is quieter).īoth jitter and noisy power contribute to the deterioration of the audio signal. The computer delivers “noisy power” and a poorly timed data stream (“jitter” a dac wants well-timed data stream) caused by EMI and RFI through its VBUS and data line, respectively. Let’s assume for a moment, your dac is powered by your computer’s USB port. It appears that quality improvements are also correlated with price. Sonic improvements depend on the connected audio device. Although these devices appear expensive, their pricing is small compared to a big LPS, and they are a relatively cheap solution for power-line noise. ifi Audio claims to have produced “low noise” SMPS in their $49 iPower and their even “quieter” $99 iPower X. A “Maserati” SPS will be performing better than a “Fiat” LPS. That said, not all LPS are better than an SMPS. Such big LPS are probably only economic for very expensive gear. However, bigger transformers are better than smaller ones (although they may measure the same), and they can be very expensive (and bulky). Basic SPS will deteriorate the audio signal.Īn LPS is typically less noisy as it provides constant signal and voltage power. These are generally cheaper and (be it directly or indirectly) “noisier” than LPS in that they switch on and off very fast, which causes serious noise in the audio band – unless sophisticated filtering is used. The power supplies that come with your phone or notebook computer are SMPS. Both kinds principally work with your audio device. There are two kinds of power supplies, switching more power supplies (SMPS) and linear power supplies (LPS). It will be worse in a city apartment building than in a house in the country. The electricity coming out of your mains contains electromagnetic interference (RMI) and radio-frequency (RFI) interference, the amount of which depends on where you live. A power supply is a transformer that connects the AC grid with the low voltage circuit of a device, let’s say a dac or an amp.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |