In short, I spent 100 hours researching and trying to figure out what people are saying and I still have a 2.4A stock wallwart.
Paralysis by overanalysis?
When I calculate my 100 hours spent, I am starting to feel bad, because at this point a $1000 amp would have been better, but my whole point was to get a good value amp. I do not blame anyone as I know it's a mixture of conditions causing the whole situation.
What makes you think "a $1,000 Amp" would necessarily and reliably be better than a Zen CAN? Just curious to understand your reasoning, not having a go.
Nevertheless, the idea that my zen stack is redeemable with "just a few easy changes" is making me angry sour.
Well, you kinda got caught out. Sorry. The whole Zen range was intended to be inexpensive and expandable, giving clear upgrade path's within the system, with each Unit also being valid "stand alone".
For example, there was supposed to be a super capacitor PSU in a Zen case, which never happened as product. A Zen DAC+ was also intended, instead of it iFi launched the Zen ONE which is a much worse product than the Zen DAC+ was meant to be, but at least it is premium priced.
Placing the PSU external means it can be made very inexpensive / commodity for a low price to market and performance that is adequate and allows the customer to upgrade later.
Had the supplied PSU been 5V/4A I specified, instead 5V/2.4A supplied, it would have been adequate for a lot of headphones.
As is, with 2,4A the Zen CAN is not able to drive low impedance, low sensitivity headphones and even less so if using the balanced output.
If I was you, I would be a little peeved at iFi for not following the designers recommendations.
Past that, external power supply reviews are a bit of a swamp. There is usually no objective qualification or quantification of performance and sadly the very websites that would be well placed to evaluate
It's not even easy to figure out what to do.
I thought I was very clear?
1) If you have a problem with too limited power from Zen CAN, get a power supply with more current, much more than 4A will not do good. The noise levels of this power supply are fairly inconsequential. If noise leakage from mains will cause trouble will depend on the whole system, ideally mains leakage is lower than even medically certified power supplies provide.
The standard ifi iPower & iPower X are marginal, but better than stock (also in other areas) and the iPower X will have slightly more power available than iPower.
One could use two iFi iPower with a "Y" adapter to parallel two units, to get above the 4A limit. This is safe to do.
The iPower at 49 USD was pushing the value for money equation, it is now discontinued and replaced with with the "iPower 2" which at 69 USD represents very poor value for money.
It likely costs less to make than the original iPower, having switched from USA made parts for the actual switching power part to domestic chinese parts and thus makes a difficult recommendation.
Second hand, later generation iPower's at 50% or more discount should be a safe buy.
Then there is the iPower Elite 5V. At 299 USD and 60VA it's overkill and heavily overpriced on both fair pricing and value for money grounds.
A 3rd Party 4A rated power supply is recommended, from the outset.
For a number of reasons (see this thread end to end) a "cheap generic" Linear power supply will usually be a better choice than a cheap generic SMPS.
2) The Zen DAC (I cannot recommend Zen ONE with good conscience) will benefit from a high quality external power supply, the emphasis here is low noise.
A iFi iPower will be a good fit, going up to iPower X etc. will give zero benefit. Again, a suitable linear PSU is usually recommended over a generic SMPS.
If noise leakage from mains will cause trouble will depend on the whole system.
Ideally mains leakage is lower than even medically certified power supplies provide.
3) The iFi iPower range are among the better SMPS for Audio, because they are designed for audio and have a number of technical parameters that make them a better choice than common SMPS.
Noise, mains leakage, output impedance and short term pulse power are all significantly better than "generic" SMPS.
Certain types of inexpensive linear PSU's offer a different tradeoff of qualities, that make them better suited in some situations. As they are also available for a lot less than iPower sell for now they make a solid recommendation.
Most expensive "audiophile" linear power supplies fail to justify the asking price and often use design features that make them WORSE in practice, than cheaper generic items.
A strong sign that the power supply may be inferior for audio use is the presence of toroidal or R-Core power transformers. These can be designed correctly for audio, most "off the shelf" types however are not designed correctly.
Ask the Vendor if their mains transformer incorporates a "electrostatic screen" that is returned to mains earth. If not, avoid.
There are some reasonably fair priced "Audiophile" power supplies incorporating toroidal transformers that have custom made toroidal transformers with electrostatic screens.
Pretty much any "MIC" Power Supply I encountered do not have them, some very high priced and well reviewed linear PSU's nominally made in the west also miss them.
Price is not a reliable indicator of quality.
Also, Numerical LED or OLED Screen Displays tend to cause excessive noise, avoid anything that has these, a simple "on/off" indicator LED is fine. Buy a multimeter if you MUST be able to read the voltage on demand.
4) Adding (optionally) super capacitor bank's can help further. This is distinctly DIY, or very expensive if buying pre-made "audiophile" options. If DIY I think the Value for money proposition is solid.
The best angle of attack is to buy something that's admittedly "totally unknown quality" from aliexpress. Are you kidding me.
This would be an area where the objective performance focused websites could help by doing actual tests, but when they do they try hard to show that different external power supplies make no difference, because they don't "believe" in that sort of thing.
That said, it is not "totally unknown quality". And no, I'm not kidding. Based on analysing the internal pictures we can say a lot about both component quality and design.
Incidentally since I started the thread, I purchased one of these cheap linear PSU's from aliexpress and was able to test the both current and noise and can confirm the power supply meets it's specifications and I opened it up and the parts match the advertised ones and appear genuine to my eye. At the price this is hard to do better.
Actually, I know ten times as expensive audiophile linear supplies of similar power that do not use Nichicon Audio grade Electrolytic Capacitors and have mains transformers with worse leakage.
Does it sound any good? I don't know.
It was a 24V type meant to power one of these cheap PCM56 DAC's, which I ordered at the same time and which was cancelled because they are sold out. I have nothing else that uses 24V.
So I cannot comment on that.
The power supply got shelved and I bought a second hand Marantz PM-75 made in Japan in 1989 with a TDA1541 DAC instead.
At this point, based on "I don't recommend products" and "other statements" I don't even know if it makes sense to pay $$$ upgrading the power supply or to just sell it on craigslist.
Well, look at it this way.
The designer of the products suggest that the power supply shipped with the Zen CAN is limiting output power and that running the Zen DAC from USB Power can be improved upon. He notes that this "upgradability" was designed in.
He then suggests some Aliexpress Power supplies he found that cost less than 100 USD for a Zen DAC/CAN stack that cost you over 300 USD. It is obvious that he has no financial interest in the sale of these items and lists a number of reasons why he thinks these power supplies make a decent inexpensive choice.
Does it make sense to follow this advise?
Or should you sell your Zen stack on Craigslist loosing probably 150 Bux in the process and then spend another 1,850 Bux to buy a 1,000 Bux Amp and 1,000 Bux DAC? Possibly unheard?
Overall I'm pretty satisfied for what I paid but also I should have paid more for something else.
"I should have paid more for something else."
You think that randomly paying more for something else will reliably give a better result?
Thor
