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I’ve been reading good reports on various fora of using a 240 to 12V AC transformer from Maplin as a relacement power supply for the Dacmagic. It’s a 36VA tranny in a plastic case with a captive 2 core mains cable and a selection of pluggable DC plugs. It’s Maplin part number L54BR. It costs £15.
I’ve picked up one locally so reports of some listening results very soon.
These two subjects seem to be the most contentious around in the world of audio now. Both centre around sound quality and both somehow seem to bring out the most passionate views, often different to mine.
Theory one, is that it’s possible to get good sound from a computer feeding a DAC. The debate tends to be as much around whether a Mac is better than a PC as a source as which DAC is ideal. The general feeling seems to be that a Mac Book with a DAC costing around a £1k is cable of delivering better sound that a serious or very serious CD Player. I agree a Mac and a DAC is cable of delivering a very good sound – but not a great one. The Mac/DAC to my ears delivers a polished performance with poor dynamics downwards and little soul. A great CD player adds back the soul, and reaches down into the quiet to somehow increase the space between the notes. I’m sure it is possible to get a great sound from a ‘puter but it am sure it’s going to take a bit more effort than just plugging a DAC on to the output of a Mac.
Theory two, is that if a rip is perfect it should sound the same as another perfect rip of the same CD. Seems pretty logical to me but somehow it doesn’t seem to be the case. Listening blind and sighted to different rips which are identical, according to CRC and EAC’s file compare, they seem to sound different. Consistency of results leads me to believe I’m not fooling myself. Now, don’t expect these differences to be huge and obvious. And don’t expect these to hear differences unless you have a revealing system and time. If you have both and are willing to try a few rips then relax and let the tracks play through and observe your reaction to each track from an emotional level. You need to be relaxed and not trying too hard – tension and stress are great ways of hearing less. When last trying this blind Malcolm Steward and I found differences in the rhythm of the track.
My conclusions are the same as usual with serious hi-fi. The more I understand the more I realise I don’t know.
Having a PC in my listening room was convenient as I have often been experimenting with different audio playback apps, sound cards, and all the various drivers like ASIO and Kernel Streaming.
The problem though was the noise of the PC. All that investment in a great hi-fi system and a signal to noise ratio destroyed by computer fans.
The solution came to me last week and it was simple.
OK, I have an advantage: a cable company as a client. Nigel at Chord was kind enough to send me a 5m HDMI Silver Plus cable and two DVI to HDMI adapters.
The experiment was to move the PC outside my listening room and then to use a 5m Chord HDMI and 5m USB cables to monitor and control the PC.
The worry was running a good monitor at 1920 by 1200 over a 5m HDMI cable. Would the image quality be reduced? The image was absolutely fine and so much so that I temporarily tried a 10 m cable which worked just as well.
Definitely a result. Noise removed from my listening room, the hi-fi sounds significantly better. The computer is no harder to use. I’ll use a USB DVD drive near the monitor for normal stuff but walk the few metres to use the Plextor Premium CD drive for serious ripping.
For reasons that will be more obvious at the Munich High End Show in May, I have been listening to rather a lot of vinyl recently. It’s good to get back into the critical listening to turntables, arms and cartridges again after many years of really only listening to records for pleasure.
It’s also good to find that every change is audible just like CD or HD replay.
One of the listening tests was to try out the differing performance of the TT in design, on different supports, to get an idea of the variations in performance customers may get at home.
I had previously good results at home using an Ikea Lack table and so we risked the weather to visit the local Ikea. The Lack tables were hugely expensive at 9.90 Euro so we bought two.
The point of the blog of course is the performance. While I would never argue that the Lack delivered 100% of the dynamics of the specialist rack we were using, it wasn’t too shabby at all. The good part is that, what it didn’t do well – mainly dynamic contrasts – it didn’t fail badly and horribly.
Overall the performance was reduced but in a very even handed way.
So I reckon the conclusion is that; if you are looking for something suitable for your turntable and you are just getting back into vinyl maybe after a few years absence, you can do far worse than an Ikea Lack at £7.82 currently in the UK. At that price it has got to be worth a punt.
I was very lucky a few days ago to listen to a Wadia 170iTansport.
I knew I was going to be able to listen to it for a few hours so I chose a few wav rips of CDs and imported them into iTunes.
I restored my second generation 8Gb Nano so I would have “uncontaminated” storage. It’s now loaded with all the wav rips.
I listened to the digital output of the Wadia connected to the Behringer SRC2496 via a Chord Signature Digital Cable.
Performance using the Behringer was absolutely ideal for dinner parties and background music. There was absolutely no chance of anyone being dstracted by any emotion from the music. The best results were with the Behringer upsampling to 24Bit 88.2k before doing it’s D to A conversion.
I was a bit concerned that the results I heard were so far from what I have read in some magazines’ reviews so I connected the same digital cable to the Naim HDX as a source and using the same rips all the passion and feeling of the music was restored.
Well, what does that mean? I guess it says that the 170iTransport works in some systems and not in others.
The 225VA transformer has been terminated with a suitable mains lead and power in plug for the Cambridge. It”s been plugged in and blown a one and a two amp fuse with its switch on surge so it’s running with a 3amp fuse.
This by the way is not the way to do something for long-term use. This is just as a quick test to see if it’s worth experimenting further and if the results are good the tranny will be mounted in a decent case suitably fused. This is not the type of experiment I suggest for anyone outside of a lab. The mains is dangerous.
The listening results today are different to those at Malcolm’s last evening. There it was pretty conclusive that the new supply confused the balance and lost some integration. It wasn’t bad at all, just not quite as well balanced as the original supply. Shows that Cambridge put some time and effort into the whole package.
Today and in my system the results aren’t quite so clear cut. There are elements of the same as last night but at the same time the system with the experimental tranny has more drive, is a bit more dramatic on the dynamics front and makes my foot tap more.
It’s really very track dependant: a couple of Paul Simon tracks definitely favoured the larger supply, a Springsteen just showed off the slight forwardness the supply delivered and sounded harsh. Another Springsteen – I’m on Fire – worked.
Would I recommend trying a supply if it were available on some try before buy deal – yes – but only if it were a no strings try before buy deal. I’m sure that with the, very justified, success of the Cambridge DacMagic there will quite a few companies offering upgrade power supplies.
Finally it might be worth noting that the cost of the transformer delivered was around £35 so it might easily be a £100++ power supply if sold online and all neatly packaged. Quite a investment for a budget DAC even if it’s a great budget DAC.
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