[Triode User]

I posted this previously... It might help you.

And I recollect it prompted this response from RW.

Your explanation is just plain wrong. Do you think I do not know what I am doing?

 

[SteveHulk]

And I recollect it prompted this response from RW.

As I replied to him at the time, I am describing the behaviour of ideal power supplies in general.

I have no idea why he said what he did. Describing an ideal power supply as a constant voltage current source is indisputably correct.

This is the starting point for any thinking about why the replacement of the DAVE stock smps with power supplies that are closer to ideal has the effects on sound quality from the headphone output which have been observed. This effect can be purely in the analogue domain as we are looking at the DAVE headphone amp here. All amplifier manufacturers know this, which is why all good power amps have such freaking massive power supplies.

As far as DAVE digital circuitry is concerned, stability of the voltages on the power rails will also be crucial.

I know this from extensive experience of overclocking cpus in the various PCs that I have built.

Overclocking a cpu generally involves overvolting it. This is to compensate for the fact that the voltage from the cpu voltage regulator modules (VRM) will sag when the cpu gets loaded and then overshoot when the loading comes off. The better and seriously more expensive motherboards had superior VRMs - closer to the ideal psu described above - so they were easier to overclock.

It was a ticklish business setting these voltages so that they were high enough to sustain the overclock but not so high that that voltage overshoot would crash the pc when the loading came off the cpu.

I reiterate: holding its output voltage absolutely steady irrespective of the current that the load device is drawing is the defining characteristic of a good power supply.

 

[MvRBE10]

As I replied to him at the time, I am describing the behaviour of ideal power supplies in general.

I have no idea why he said what he did. Describing an ideal power supply as a constant voltage current source is indisputably correct.

This is the starting point for any thinking about why the replacement of the DAVE stock smps with power supplies that are closer to ideal has the effects on sound quality from the headphone output which have been observed. This effect can be purely in the analogue domain as we are looking at the DAVE headphone amp here. All amplifier manufacturers know this, which is why all good power amps have such freaking massive power supplies.

As far as DAVE digital circuitry is concerned, stability of the voltages on the power rails will also be crucial.

I know this from extensive experience of overclocking cpus in the various PCs that I have built.

Overclocking a cpu generally involves overvolting it. This is to compensate for the fact that the voltage from the cpu voltage regulator modules (VRM) will sag when the cpu gets loaded and then overshoot when the loading comes off. The better and seriously more expensive motherboards had superior VRMs - closer to the ideal psu described above - so they were easier to overclock.

It was a ticklish business setting these voltages so that they were high enough to sustain the overclock but not so high that that voltage overshoot would crash the pc when the loading came off the cpu.

I reiterate: holding its output voltage absolutely steady irrespective of the current that the load device is drawing is the defining characteristic of a good power supply.

After a long journey of learning and observing i also see different approuches on improving sound on eg. Dac’s, one side i see the kind of old school lps’s that are very well build with top of the bill materials that improve sound quality compared to original. And the approuch of modern rf and hf filtering and other innovations in lps’s seeking for neutral sound with a balance of maintaining the musicality of a rig. And ofcourse all kinds of designs in between. Its up to the listener and owners what they preffer as with everything in audio.

There is i think an absolute wrong and right but that only applies at a certain rig or setup. Everything in between is up to each his own ears and synergy of the setup. Love this hobby!

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

I post very infrequently these days (though I still keep up to date and appreciate the contributions). Anyway, I like to contribute when I come across something that surprises me and I gage to be worth sharing.

My source component is the Innuos Statement, which feeds the M Scaler and ultimately the Dave. I recently upgraded the source to Statement 'Next Gen' status. And clearly it is quite a noticeable SQ upgrade. (This can be verified on YouTube btw.) When I sent my Stement back to Portugal I was using an SR 'Orange' fuse and when it arrived back at my house with the upgrade complete it had a stock fuse installed. The reason being, they had blown my SR Orange fuse. . So I put 230 hours on it with the stock fuse in situ and there was clearly an upgrade in SQ, despite this retrograde step with the fuse. Now here's the thing: I then installed an SR 'PURPLE' fuse and Jesus Christ!! The jump in SQ was bigger than the albeit significant Next-Gen upgrade from Innuos. Just about everything I value in good hifi changed for the better and not by a small margin either.

I guess the lesson learned here for me was that whilst £190 for single fuse is a crazy price to pay for a fuse, when I put it up against a £3,900 upgrade of the component this particular fuse can hold its own in the level of improvement it can bring. I have used SR Blue and SR Orange but the SR Purple jumps higher by a large margin. Against stock fuses it is like going from a beat box to a hifi system. The bass has clarity and weight, the imaging and sound-stage becomes an entity of its own. The layering, dynamics, musicality etc .........and this is in a system that I have spent more than £100,000 on. Go figure. Fuses are the biggest bottleneck in every Hifi system regardless of components and power products imo.

Thanks for listening

 

[griff500]

An interesting response from Hans to a question on his channel:

"It is ignorant to publish frequency domain measurements made from a DAC that has extremely high resolution in the time domain. If you do that, you completely missed developments made in digital audio over the last 10 years."

Does that seem a reasonable statement to make? I have insufficient technical knowledge to assess it and no desire to learn.

 

[Triode User]

I post very infrequently these days (though I still keep up to date and appreciate the contributions). Anyway, I like to contribute when I come across something that surprises me and I gage to be worth sharing.

My source component is the Innuos Statement, which feeds the M Scaler and ultimately the Dave. I recently upgraded the source to Statement 'Next Gen' status. And clearly it is quite a noticeable SQ upgrade. (This can be verified on YouTube btw.) When I sent my Stement back to Portugal I was using an SR 'Orange' fuse and when it arrived back at my house with the upgrade complete it had a stock fuse installed. The reason being, they had blown my SR Orange fuse. . So I put 230 hours on it with the stock fuse in situ and there was clearly an upgrade in SQ, despite this retrograde step with the fuse. Now here's the thing: I then installed an SR 'PURPLE' fuse and Jesus Christ!! The jump in SQ was bigger than the albeit significant Next-Gen upgrade from Innuos. Just about everything I value in good hifi changed for the better and not by a small margin either.

I guess the lesson learned here for me was that whilst £190 for single fuse is a crazy price to pay for a fuse, when I put it up against a £3,900 upgrade of the component this particular fuse can hold its own in the level of improvement it can bring. I have used SR Blue and SR Orange but the SR Purple jumps higher by a large margin. Against stock fuses it is like going from a beat box to a hifi system. The bass has clarity and weight, the imaging and sound-stage becomes an entity of its own. The layering, dynamics, musicality etc .........and this is in a system that I have spent more than £100,000 on. Go figure. Fuses are the biggest bottleneck in every Hifi system regardless of components and power products imo.

Thanks for listening

That is interesting and I am pleased for your result.

My experience is that every time I have tried exotic fuses I have heard zero difference in sound (or more accurately not enough that I could reliably put it down to the fuses). This has been with £450 SR fuses and with QSA fuses costing up to £1000 (although also trying their cheaper options as well). I have tried them in the 13A plugs and I have tried them in the mains inlets on the devices. Each time and wherever, zero difference or at least so small that I personally could attribute it to inaccurate audio memory between changing the fuses.

Mind you, I admit I am not a good candidate to try fuses because of a natural inclination not to comprehend how they can make any difference. If it was the bottle neck theory then a 5mm copper rod cut down to fuse length would sound best. One person I know on here has done that and suggest I at least try it.

I was under the impression was that some fuses such as QSA are not dealing with the fuse element as such but are rather dealing with ‘treatments’ to the fuse and this treatment can also be applied to many electrical components.

I say all of this knowing that many swear by the SQ improvements due to fuses but so far I am not one of them. Mind you my experiments have always been with borrowed fuses and I have not paid for them if that makes any difference.

 

[burbster]

I post very infrequently these days (though I still keep up to date and appreciate the contributions). Anyway, I like to contribute when I come across something that surprises me and I gage to be worth sharing.

My source component is the Innuos Statement, which feeds the M Scaler and ultimately the Dave. I recently upgraded the source to Statement 'Next Gen' status. And clearly it is quite a noticeable SQ upgrade. (This can be verified on YouTube btw.) When I sent my Stement back to Portugal I was using an SR 'Orange' fuse and when it arrived back at my house with the upgrade complete it had a stock fuse installed. The reason being, they had blown my SR Orange fuse. . So I put 230 hours on it with the stock fuse in situ and there was clearly an upgrade in SQ, despite this retrograde step with the fuse. Now here's the thing: I then installed an SR 'PURPLE' fuse and Jesus Christ!! The jump in SQ was bigger than the albeit significant Next-Gen upgrade from Innuos. Just about everything I value in good hifi changed for the better and not by a small margin either.

I guess the lesson learned here for me was that whilst £190 for single fuse is a crazy price to pay for a fuse, when I put it up against a £3,900 upgrade of the component this particular fuse can hold its own in the level of improvement it can bring. I have used SR Blue and SR Orange but the SR Purple jumps higher by a large margin. Against stock fuses it is like going from a beat box to a hifi system. The bass has clarity and weight, the imaging and sound-stage becomes an entity of its own. The layering, dynamics, musicality etc .........and this is in a system that I have spent more than £100,000 on. Go figure. Fuses are the biggest bottleneck in every Hifi system regardless of components and power products imo.

Thanks for listening

LOL! Yes had a very similar experience recently, but I must admit I was a little reticent to post about it for fear of ridicule! I changed stock fuse in my amp to purple fuse. Amazed at the difference, and being an electrical engineer, it sort made me question my whole understanding of the subject, we clearly have so little idea of what must actually be happening on a quantum level.

@Triode User I have also (where it is safe to do so) replaced a number of fuses with copper bar, as this was a much cheaper option!! Definitely worth a try!!

Has anyone upgraded the fuse in their Dave DC4? That will be my next experiment.

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

This was the internal fuse on the Innuos product TU. I am confident if you tried an SR purple fuse in your Innuos product you would notice a difference even before it is run-in. I am really surprised you have not noticed a difference in the past but I have not listened to any of the other brands, so can't comment. Hifi can be puzzling at times.

 

[Triode User]

This was the internal fuse on the Innuos product TU. I am confident if you tried an SR purple fuse in your Innuos product you would notice a difference even before it is run-in. I am really surprised you have not noticed a difference in the past but I have not listened to any of the other brands, so can't comment. Hifi can be puzzling at times.

Although the Statement power supply is close to some versions of Sean Jacobs power supplies so one might anticipate a similar experience with them with the Dave etc?

The person who loaned the QSA fuses to me used to have SR fuses and is now in the process of changing all of them to QSA because of the improved SQ he hears throughout his systems. At one stage I had 8 or 9 QSA loan fuses in my system and no matter where I put then I was pushed to hear any difference. But like I said, I was expecting that result and so it is always possible that my brain was overriding what my ears were actually hearing. I accept that point.

 

[TheAttorney]

If it was the bottle neck theory then a 5mm copper rod cut down to fuse length would sound best. One person I know on here has done that and suggest I at least try it.

I've tried the copper rod approach in UK Mains plugs (never in the component's internal fuse holder, because that would be dangerous).
And I had mixed feelings with the results. Much better was a silver wire soldered across the terminals. However...

A number of people, such as romaz, have stated that their favourite fuses sound better than a direct connection. This suggests that the secret sauce in such fuses is providing some kind of filtering or conditioning effect. I haven't directly done such a comparison, but based on my subjective reaction to various direct link and audiophile fuse changes over time, I would guess that an SR Orange would possibly beat a direct connection, and an SR Purple would probably do so.

I'm surprised that you didn't notice much difference - because I sometimes find fuses easier to differentiate than, for example, DACs.

Back to DAVE, which doesn't have an internal fuse (I guess instead there's a sacrificial component in DAVE that will require a trip back to the manufacturer if it blows).
Anyway, I have DAVE powered via a Shunyata Alpha V1 power cord which came complete with the reasonably priced AMR Gold fuse. It was a reasonable upgrade over my previous power cord, but it didn't blow my socks off - until I bypassed the AMR fuse, which subjectively made a bigger impact than the much more expensive power cord upgrade.

Which just goes to show that DAVE is not immune to fuses even though it doesn't have one .

As always, YMMV.

PS. How did you manage to get a number of QSA fuses on loan?

 

[MvRBE10]

When i at one point changed all fuses for these purple ones coming fron stock fuses i just noticed a sort of gently opening up of the music/stage could be a feeling but it became slightly more engaging. Went back day after and did the same again and after reinstalling it gave that same vibe again. If its worth it thats uo to the listener ofcoarse but in the grand sceme of things i let them in. They say as with all equipment need some burn in time. Will try the back and forth again future when the occasion arrises.

Had kind of the same experience week ago with rca cables replaced my tellurium q diamond black for a custom made tube kind of rca with two silver wires inside, no shielding and kle harmony rca plugs on the outside. It enlightend the dave more open more musical. And cost a fraction of the telluriums. Bizar learning curve every time.

 

[odarg64]

With MQA on my setup, things go deeper and blacker. No compromise on Stealth and Susvara. No external needed, stock smps intact.

 

[Triode User]

PS. How did you manage to get a number of QSA fuses on loan?

If one is nice with people and they trust you then it is amazing what can be offered. This was a private individual just being nice to me.

 

[Reactcore]

Back to DAVE, which doesn't have an internal fuse

In my opinion why fuses can bring SQ changes is that they add resistance in the power feed making the voltage to the OP stage a tiny bit less immune to modulated currents..

Btw i just received the last components to build my supercap precharger.. so i will start making and testing my circuit before adding it to my Dave

 

[SteveHulk]

In my opinion why fuses can bring SQ changes is that they add resistance in the power feed making the voltage to the OP stage a tiny bit less immune to modulated currents..

That is very true.

When John Sampson from JS Audio rodded the power supplies on my twin Musical Fidelity A370 mk II power amps the first thing that went was the stock "slo-blo" resistors in the mains feed. These resistors were there to enable the amps to be turned on in a normal domestic setting without tripping the fuses in the fusebox.

They strangle the power supplies.

All devices, including the DAVE, will suffer the ill-effects from such components in the power train.

The Main system in my house is on an exclusive separate leg of heavy-duty mains wiring direct from the fusebox.

The downside is that now I have to have the Main system on a 60A fuse, and then I can only turn on one side of each amp at a time. I have to wait about 30s between each switch on to allow the 60A fuse to cool down a bit otherwise it'll trip and I have to reset and start over.

That's four switch ons just to get the amps going

Sounds like a pain but when I have somebody to listen to the system for the first time it's fun watching them freak out as I go through this procedure

Then it's even more fun watching the movie U571 when those depth charges start going off...

One day I'll install the m scaler and the DAVE with all the mods to the Main system and then we'll see what's what.