I took a bunch of stream-of-consciousness notes over the last few nights.
Fourth/fifth night's impressions:
I'm now the owner of two iPower Elites that are powering my Pro stack. Part of me is thinking, "Why did I just bankroll my iFi stack with $600 of power supplies instead of spending that on new gear (i.e., a better headphone amp)?" Having some buyers remorse when thinking about it.
A little frustrated that the iPower Elite doesn't weigh more. It's solid, but not brick level heavy. When I hooked up the big PS Audio AC-5 power cables to the back, the iPower wants to roll over on its side because of the weight dragging it back. Had to secure the Elites with some brass Mapleshade weights. Definite advantage of the big and heavy Keces P8 power supplies -- they don't get dragged around by heavy power cables.
New iPower addition to power iCan Pro = overwhelming bass at first, then more controlled as the evening went on. No lack of bass here! Mostly listening with Hifiman HE-1000SE headphones with cameo appearances from Senn HD800S, HD6XX and Denon AH-D7200. HE-1000SE sounds best to me right now, and it is my default go-to.
Turned down volume of headphone amp -- everything seems louder now. Details like crazy -- all the background parts in songs are now audible. Three-dimensional quality to music with background parts now being louder and clearer than before. No need to swap in silver headphone cables, Norne Draug 3 (copper) cable sounds great. Cowboy Junkies' "Sweet Jane" in DSD64 is a revelation.
I just want to keep listening to music. Hard to stop going through my music library. Keep asking, "Well, how would this song sound in this setup? How about this one?" Checking out a lot of tunes I haven't visited in a while.
Note: not everything sounds good anymore -- iCan Pro "warmth" still there, but more clarity, tube mode no longer making all bad stuff sound "better." Improved power supply = increased harshness with bad music or am I now hearing the true crappiness of poorly-recorded music that sounded okay before? I can make out lyrics to songs I've never been able to hear before, but is clarity gain>loss of warmth?
Average-to-well-recorded music sounds great. Doing a lot of listening without using tubes. iCan Pro and iDSD Pro both on solid state, with iDSD on DSD1024 upsampling and bit-perfect filter for 44 kHz music. No upsampling for hi-res tunes. Never used to do that, always used upsampling+tubed mode before. An iFi dealer once told me that the iCan Pro is very "clean-sounding," and that I'd have to spend a bit more to better it. I really hear what he meant now.
Is my system now as optimized as the Pro Stack can get? Upgraded iPower Elite power supplies, new iFi Mercury 3.0 cable, reintroduced Nano iGalvanic into system. iDSD Pro can still have external word clock added, maybe just full optimization for iCan Pro.
Not much of a gap between using iDSD internal microSD card and USB connection from Summus streamer, after making improvements to power and upgrading USB cable. Kind of prefer streaming now, actually.
Changes to my system haven't changed the overall character of the Pro stack -- if you like iCan Pro/iDSD Pro or hate them before making upgrades, adding iPower Elite(s) not going to change that. Degree of improvement not equal to getting a new piece of equipment, but cheaper in the short-term to do it this way.
Happy with the changes overall.