[Atriya]

Has anyone compared the iFi iPower Elite against the Sbooster BOTW (with or without Ultra upgrade)? Thx.

I'm interested in this, and general observations of anyone using the Elite with the Qutest. I'm wondering if it might be a modest upgrade over my Allo Shanti.

 

[iFi audio]

I'm interested in this, and general observations of anyone using the Elite with the Qutest. I'm wondering if it might be a modest upgrade over my Allo Shanti.

Just to state the obvious, we're also very interested in any comparisons that include our iPower Elite and linear PSUs

 

[drummerdimitri]

I've tried 4xNimH batteries in series and found it to be slightly superior to the stock PSU and was wondering what aftermarket power supply could get me as close to that experience as possible.

Currently eyeing a Farad3 as it seems to be one of the best power supplies out there but would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Edit: Nevermind, the difference I thought I was hearing was my brain playing tricks on me. Stock PSU is as good of a SQ as you will ever get with the Qutest. Rob was right all along no surprise here.

 

[jeremya]

The Farad Super3 is excellent and handily outdid the LPS1.2 and the stock SMPS.

 

[jjazzy]

I've tried 4xNimH batteries in series and found it to be slightly superior to the stock PSU and was wondering what aftermarket power supply could get me as close to that experience as possible.

Currently eyeing a Farad3 as it seems to be one of the best power supplies out there but would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Edit: Nevermind, the difference I thought I was hearing was my brain playing tricks on me. Stock PSU is as good of a SQ as you will ever get with the Qutest. Rob was right all along no surprise here.

the only thing is, Farad charges a ridiculous price, yes ridiculous.

I understand a decent LPS cost money, but a decent device like that can be made for 250/300 euro, not 500. But it is like apple phones, they charge a fortune, so now other brands like samsung and sony do it as well. It seems like, the moment it says Hifi, it must cost 3 months salary otherwise it can't be good.

 

[jjazzy]

I Got a Chord Qutest, and enjoy it a lot.
It is realy an amazing DAC.
Tried a powerbank as ps for the 5v, and liked the better resolution, but the Music was missing some attack, and dynamics.
But since it made a difference compared to the stock supply, I wanted to make a better ps. I already had a good expirience with MPAudio ps, and ordered a

SLS-HPULN PS With double lt 3045 regulation, and an Audio grade transformer. Using an enclosure from an Old pc. DC wire is Gotham in a 360 layout. To my ears, this is just as big a step forward Soundwise, as the Qutest was In the first place. (coming from an Arcam Irdac) Very high resolution, lots of attack, but No rough edges, If that makes sense. English is not my native language. Now back to happy listening. There is still room for powercable, and a better fuse.

Do they have manuals how to build there PSU's or do they only sell half-products?

 

[jjazzy]

I see that Allo Shanti seems similar to Ciunas supercap psu.Any member having this?

I have the allo shanti, comparing to the sbooster on the chore, I REALLY don’t get why sbooster is so populair, with the qutest I really did not like it, bass to much present and bleeding into the midrange and I was using the white filter!
The shanti sounded airy, clean, musical, without the bass in your face effect.

But everywhere I read reviews they are looking down on thr Shanti, like it is crap and ‘oh well it works’ kind of comments.

 

[Jon L]

But everywhere I read reviews they are looking down on thr Shanti, like it is crap and ‘oh well it works’ kind of comments.

Shanti is a GREAT LPS for Chord.

 

[jjazzy]

Shanti is a GREAT LPS for Chord.

It definately is!!

 

[jjazzy]

I have realised that it is actually quite difficult to do a meaningful comparison of so many psu at the same time so I am splitting it into a series of smaller shoot outs and hope to get to an eventual winner that way. The first of these is with the Allo Shanti, SBooster with Ultra Mk2 upgrade (and my DIY supercap psu included just for fun).

The selection was partly decided by my friend who owns the Allo wanting it back for his own system to power his two Mutec MC-3+ reclockers. He had really brought it to me because he was not impressed with the captive DC output leads and he had asked me if I would change them for a pair of GX16 so he was free to use other dc cables.

On the face of that the swop should have been simple but Shanto appear to have fixed the dc leads to the pc board with something that is not normal solder. It almost looks like a rivet. Anyway, it required a full dismantling of the Shanti, unbolting the transformer to enable removal of the pc board so that I could drill out whatever it was fixing the factory wire to the boards. It was a pain but only added about an hour. I could have cut the factory dc wires to a short length and soldered them to the GX16 sockets but I like to work on the basis that if a job is worth doing it is worth doing well. This is the Allo with a matching end plate to the original so I was not drilling the original one which was retained for reinstalling if the Shanti is ever sold.



Anyway, to the listening which was done by my friend (Nigel) and me. The Qutest was connected to a Music First Baby Ref V2 pre amp feeding my Pass Labs XA60.8 power amps with Spendor SP200 speakers. First we listened to the Allo Shanti with it’s removed captive dc leads now reattached with a GX16 plug into the new GX16 sockets on the Shanti. I have got used to hearing my Qutest with my SBooster and to me the Shanti seemed to give a harsher and more forward presentation to the treble. Everything was a bit more 'in your face' than I was used to with the SBooster.

Then we swopped over to some MCRU leads recently purchased by Nigel which he specified to be made up with Neotech wire, carbon infused sheathing and an Oyaide DC barrel plug. These cost £80 each for a 1m length.

I must say I was surprised by the extent of the clearly audible difference in sound quality with the upgraded dc cables. The track we were listening to (Confians by Mino Cinelu) has a clear percussive line which can at times stray the wrong side of prominence and mask the other instruments. With the Shanti factory supplied captive lead the sound was indeed straying in that direction but with the Neotech dc lead everything became rather less frenetic and much more pleasant to listen to.

Now that Nigel’s Shanti has the GX16 dc output sockets it was easy to try some more dc cables. I have a Ghent Audio Neotech wired cable with JSSG360 shielding which we plugged in. I have always struggled to see how the JSSG360 shielding could make any difference at all and so it was that there was no audible difference compared to the MCRU version of the Neotech cables.

Next we tried a Sean Jacobs cable that came with my DC4 and usefully had GX16 connectors. This is also wired with Neotech but uses a tight twist of the cables. I personally thought this gave a slight improvement and in future this is how I will build my own dc cables.

We then connected the Qutest to the SBooster with Ultra MkII upgrade. This was better than the Allo Shanti even with the Shanti's upgraded cables and reinforced Nigel’s and my previous conclusion that whilst the Allo Shanti is good value for money the SBooster is the better buy if the budget allows. Everything was a bit calmer and easier to relax into. There was still plenty of detail, indeed probably more real detail than with the Shanti but it was provided in a more subtle way rather than being shouted.

The DIY supercap psu was really only included for Nigel and my amusement because only he and I together with a couple of other friends have one. We both thought that it was much better than the Shanti (with and without upgraded cables) and nearer to the SBooster

Lastly, we swopped to a Sean Jacobs DC4 (with the Sean Jacobs cable) which unsurprisingly trumped the SBooster in all areas but then it does cost about six times as much.

At the end of this little session the conclusion was that the Allo Shanti is good value for money and can certainly be recommended for the budget conscious but for us it was some way behind the SBooster + Ultra Mk2 when powering the Qutest. This gap was narrowed when the Shanti was pimped to give it better DC cables but this is not an easy install and in any case still left the Shanti trailing behind the SBooster.

So, for Nigel and me this was a win for the SBooster plus Ultra Mk2 (the Sean Jacobs and the DIY supercap psu were hors concours).

Round 2 will follow.

My opinion was exactly the opposite, I listen to jazz a lot, everytime I used the sbooster, details were missing, like it was to thick sounding, chairs moving or people caughing in a live audiance recording were pushed away, micro details.

With the Shanti (and I moved back and forth) that never got lost. With the sbooster it seemed like, bass was constantly louder (like the old loudness knob effect) but worse, it smeared the aireness and sparkle of the music (don’t confuse that with noise of a bad psu, I am talking about real details of instruments)

So maybe it depends what you are listening to, you choose one or the other, I listen to 90% jazz, and I like to hear all the details.

To me, and no pon intended, I read in more reviews, because allo shanti is not in the 600 euro or above range, it is looked down upon. I already know for sure, with just a little nicer package and some small cable tweaks, if sold for €1199 it would be praised in to the heavens.

When I bought the sbooster I was expecting a lot, but boy was I dissapointed. I even tried 4 days of continues playing music, before having my first listen.

 

[DecentLevi]

Over the years owning a custom made supercapacitor DC LPS, I stumbled upon the idea of coupling it with something called iFi DC iPurifier 2. This can be useful as multi-stage DC filtering, especially if you're like me and use the same LPS for two devices. I swear by one that goes in between the DC LPS and an iFi RCA coax iPurifier 2 (which also has a quality RCA digital toslink optical converter) for an even better sound, and I also have another of these that actually improves the sound of the DC power signal into my USB hub that doesn't even go to my audio signal; in both cases it adds a nice robustness to the bass and improves soundstage and spatial elements. I actually have three units, and I did find one spot that it was less than preferable.

You'll probably need some sort of adapter such as 2.5 mm barrel to USB micro or the likes, but one way to further make up for this extra connection is to wrap a tiny amount around the connectors and connections of something called Silver Faraday fabric tape which is cheap and can be found on Amazon or AliExpress.

 

[jjazzy]

Over the years owning a custom made supercapacitor DC LPS, I stumbled upon the idea of coupling it with something called iFi DC iPurifier 2. This can be useful as multi-stage DC filtering, especially if you're like me and use the same LPS for two devices. I swear by one that goes in between the DC LPS and an iFi RCA coax iPurifier 2 (which also has a quality RCA digital toslink optical converter) for an even better sound, and I also have another of these that actually improves the sound of the DC power signal into my USB hub that doesn't even go to my audio signal; in both cases it adds a nice robustness to the bass and improves soundstage and spatial elements. I actually have three units, and I did find one spot that it was less than preferable.

You'll probably need some sort of adapter such as 2.5 mm barrel to USB micro or the likes, but one way to further make up for this extra connection is to wrap a tiny amount around the connectors and connections of something called Silver Faraday fabric tape which is cheap and can be found on Amazon or AliExpress.

I use ifi stream connected with usb and ifi stream has decent lps as well, ifi stream get’s his sound trough NAA so no wired connection. Ifi stream already is a real clean source.

What I did not like, was the bass that was added by sbooster, the same way I hated the violectric v590.

I am a fan if neutral dynamic sound, that’s why I have hifiman headphones, martin logan ESL electrostatic speakers, burson 3gtx.

Adding the shanti was a upgrade to me, from the stock, but the sbooster wasn’t.

What I still don’t understand, after so many years, why everyone loves the focus on bass so much? Instead of a clean air around instruments, hearing the clearest details. Like in a real orchestra, or jazz band.

In real live if you have to much bass, either the amp is configured wrong, or the space/room they are playing is chosen to small.

 

[DecentLevi]

For me when I wrote robust bass I mean bass quality and pleasing texture rather than volume thereof.

 

[jjazzy]

For me when I wrote robust bass I mean bass quality and pleasing texture rather than volume thereof.

I know what you meant, but I tested around 12 songs I listen to a lot, and to me it feels like bass is to much, and bleeding into the mids (which I did not have with the stock and allo shanti)

It might well be, that’s the way it should sound best, but I am very sensitive to bass, hurts my ears. That’s why I like hifiman, but not Audeze.

The same with violectric and it’s sister brands, way to much overwhelming smoothness, pushing away all the air and sparkle, I love with jazz.

Ofcourse, I won’t say the sbooster is a bad device, certainly not! But not for my taste I guess

 

[jjazzy]

I'm interested in this, and general observations of anyone using the Elite with the Qutest. I'm wondering if it might be a modest upgrade over my Allo Shanti.

I Did, The Allo Shanti sounds amazing, The Elite sounds very good as well (but both influence the sound a little, both are very good, but it is what you are looking for. The Allo Shanti gives a almost holographic stage, clean and musical and the Elite a little warmer.

What to me was a BIG dissapointment, and I say this with a big understatement was the SBooster, to me the bass was pushed in my face and holographic stage was gone (compared to Elite and Allo Shanti). Obviously I have a different taste than average, because a lot of people love the combo sbooster and qutest.

best you can do is order somewhere, where you can sent it back, or a shop where you can test.