[AlanU]

Just wanted to share with you a simple project that is quick and produces guaranteed improvement in SQ.

The Mytek products truly do benefit from tossing the IEC cord and to provide DC to the input power female jack.

I just purchased a Mytek Liberty actually for my home stereo but overal SQ is of course shared with headphones as a source to a good headphone amp. The jack is a 2.5mm DC male on the Mytek products. The center pin is 12+V and the outer connection is ground like many universal applications of a DC plug.

My 10,000 MaH Lithium battery pack has a 2.1mm jack so I purchased some connectors with a toggle switch. Some quick soldering and I have approximately 10hrs of play time . The Lithium battery has a wall wart that trickle charges the battery when the battery is not in use.

Removing the IEC plug from the equation has increased my sound stage with much more details. The location of instruments can be found with pin point accuracy. The music flows effortlessly with a new found finesse.

I use a Blue circle power conditioner and high quality power cords made by Audio Sensibility using ohno copper. The DAC sounded great as is but using a DC power source the sound is NOT a marginal step up compared to being plugged in. I'm quite fascinated in the drastic change.

I'm still considering the Sbooster for more convenience of being plugged into 120VAC. However the fact that there is no conversion of AC to DC the battery pack is probably the cleanest power source introducting no noise.

I've seen people using the QC2.0/3.0 usb charger and coupling it with a QC 2.0/3.0 trigger "hack" and using a male usb connector with 2.5mm male DC plug. The issue i have with that is when the trigger is activated it apparently is regulating the voltage with according to an engineer has a switching mechanism.

My solution of going straight with the lithium pack is pure DC.

The components I was using is:

1) 2.5mm DC power plug male with right angle and straight 2.5mm plug (4 feet).
2) in my case a 2.1 (my equipped plug on battery) I used a "switch inline with 2.1mm barrel jack".
3) Lithium 10,000 mah battery pack with trickle charge wall wart (not to be used when DAC is on).

The extension cable with 2 male ends I cut in half. This way I can make another plug (spare cable).

 

[muffin9988]

Cool idea, running off battery solves a lot of power issues in theory

How much play time to you get off the 10,000 mah battery?

 

[AlanU]

The calculation is approx 10hrs.

I've really analyzed my listening time and I may consider a larger Lithium battery pack.

Another hack out there that uses a USB battery charger that is QC2.0/3.0 is a neat hack using a QC 2.0/3.0 but when I discussed this with an engineer he smiled and asked how does that trigger regulate the power? He said it's no comparison pulling DC from a battery as the trigger solution adds some noise to the DC.

My solution is not ideal but I spent 80 bucks CDN vs spending about 500+ dollars for a reasonably priced Sbooster or even other more expensive solutions from Uptone (I'm acutally using the uptone regen with my liberty). Not disrespecting those companies as I may buy one.

At this moment in time I wanted to post my solution with parts.

Total time was no more than 45minutes of prepping and soldering 1 connector to the toggle switch. Earlier in the day I just made a quick wire cable with two male connectors. I later decided to buy a toggle switch and pre made connector for cleaner setup.

I will have to say the sound is much more effortless and even the cheaper liberty has meat on the bones when it comes to vocals. This dac in my home stereo does NOT sound lean at all at a tad "warm" with pleasing easy listening.

The Liberty DAC certainly sounds a lot different than my Burson Virtuoso burr brown dac chipset. If I compared it to my Concero HD to the Liberty it's like comparing a ear piercing bleeding digititis to Liberty's effortless non glare sound signature that is non fatiguing in my system anyways.