justhavingfun
500+ Head-Fier
It is rare for me to be home by myself. But recently, I was home alone with several hours to spare. It was perfect time for me to some equipment reviews, different power supply to the amps. We pay lots of money to have better power supplies to our amps so naturally I was curious whether this makes much sense to me or not. First of all, I am not a reviewer, audiophile, nor have any critical ears to discern the smallest differences among the equipments but what I can consider myself as fellow head-fier who loves good music with decent sounding equipments. Over the years I have listen to many different audio equipments and have always wondered about the quality power supplies. I knew it would make some difference but at which point makes no difference to my ears. This was my goal today to review different power supplies to given amps. This is just my opinion and nothig more.
Headphones used: Senn HD600 and ER4S
Headphone amps: LaRocco PPA and Shellbrook Ascent Signature (choose these amps primarily they share same power supply and hook ups)
Power supplies: generic laptop power supply (came with LaRocco PPA when I bought mine), Elpac PS, TREAD, STEPS
Music: various from classical to modern pops
I tried to purchase ready-made diy TREAD and STEPS for several months but couldn't found one. So the only way for me to compare these power supplies is to make them myself. I built computers, some speakers, and furnitures like but never built anything like power supplies for the headphone amps. With lots of reading, some helpful hints from fellow head-fiers and several orders from Digikey, Mouser, and Tangentsoft I was able to built TREAD and STEPS power supplies. Here are some photos of the equipments.
After several hours of switching and listening, the results were fairly typical of what I expected. Going from generic PS to Elpac PS made many music passages from fairly unclear, muddy sound to more distinctively clear, separated wider sound stage. In this scenario, LaRocco PPA made more difference than Ascent Signature amp. Going from Elpac to TREAD didn't showed as dramatic difference but difference was clearly there with everthing sounded more three dimentional. I suspect this difference was only evident during quick A/B comparison. I doubt I can quickly pick which is which on two different occasion between Elpac and TREAD. Now hear comes the STEPS, I had a very difficult time discern the difference between TREAD and STEPS on my LaRocco PPA and Ascent Signature. If I have to decide which amps benefit more from better power supplies, I would have to say it was PPA, with each step up power supplies, this amp made the nice improvement over the previous ones. After this experiment, if I only have the TREAD for my given amps, I would be perfectly content with the result and will not loose the sleep because I wanted the STEPS. If you only experimented with the generic power supplies on your desktop amps, it might be worthwhile to obtain at least TREAD. It is cheap and relatively easy to make one (even I made one so it can't be that tough). I am stating the obvious one but better power supplies do make the sound much better but upto the certain point in my ears. Of course, this is only my opinion and YMMV. Thanks for reading.
Headphones used: Senn HD600 and ER4S
Headphone amps: LaRocco PPA and Shellbrook Ascent Signature (choose these amps primarily they share same power supply and hook ups)
Power supplies: generic laptop power supply (came with LaRocco PPA when I bought mine), Elpac PS, TREAD, STEPS
Music: various from classical to modern pops
I tried to purchase ready-made diy TREAD and STEPS for several months but couldn't found one. So the only way for me to compare these power supplies is to make them myself. I built computers, some speakers, and furnitures like but never built anything like power supplies for the headphone amps. With lots of reading, some helpful hints from fellow head-fiers and several orders from Digikey, Mouser, and Tangentsoft I was able to built TREAD and STEPS power supplies. Here are some photos of the equipments.
After several hours of switching and listening, the results were fairly typical of what I expected. Going from generic PS to Elpac PS made many music passages from fairly unclear, muddy sound to more distinctively clear, separated wider sound stage. In this scenario, LaRocco PPA made more difference than Ascent Signature amp. Going from Elpac to TREAD didn't showed as dramatic difference but difference was clearly there with everthing sounded more three dimentional. I suspect this difference was only evident during quick A/B comparison. I doubt I can quickly pick which is which on two different occasion between Elpac and TREAD. Now hear comes the STEPS, I had a very difficult time discern the difference between TREAD and STEPS on my LaRocco PPA and Ascent Signature. If I have to decide which amps benefit more from better power supplies, I would have to say it was PPA, with each step up power supplies, this amp made the nice improvement over the previous ones. After this experiment, if I only have the TREAD for my given amps, I would be perfectly content with the result and will not loose the sleep because I wanted the STEPS. If you only experimented with the generic power supplies on your desktop amps, it might be worthwhile to obtain at least TREAD. It is cheap and relatively easy to make one (even I made one so it can't be that tough). I am stating the obvious one but better power supplies do make the sound much better but upto the certain point in my ears. Of course, this is only my opinion and YMMV. Thanks for reading.
