[Regus]

A subject I feel is badly neglegted when recommending sound cards to new users is the PSU - I have now for the second time upgraded my PSU and again found the improvement more than a little noticeable.

First upgrade was from an absolute bargain basement PSU (case and PSU cost like $35 total) to a moderately decent one that came with a new case totalling at $120.

This changed the sound drasticly, and I mean drasticly as in the old deaf bloke who lives upstairs would be able to tell the difference instantly - the sound changed from thin and poorly defined (and I am not being a pedantic hi-fi geek here

) to a much warmer well defined sound.

The second upgrade I performed 30 minutes ago and was to a 400W Seasonic thingie which if memory serves cost me some $100-120 for the PSU alone.

While this change is less drastic than the first one it is certainly very noticable and has once again warmed up the sound and improved the definition.

As I am writing (and listening) I am not entirely sure I actually prefer this new sound it is a bit too heavy on the bass to my tastes, but I will give it a couple of weeks - no doubt it has technically improved though.

Now I know none of this comes a suprise to the hardcore users around this forum, but I have rarely if ever seen it mentioned when recommending internal soundcards. And seeing as my E-MU 1212m quite frankly sounded worse than my Terratec DMX XFire something or other at a quarter of the price 3+ years earlier when both used the bargain basement PSU. I find this, well... unfortunate

My current setup is
E-MU 1212m -> Blue Dragon IC -> PPA -> Blue Dragon II -> Senn HD 650

And this last PSU upgrade made more of a difference than both the blue dragon cables (which replaced a cheapo jurry rigged interconnect and the stock cable) and replacing an SR-71 with the PPA all at the same time.

 

[saturnine]

I also noticed a difference when swapping power supplies. I used to have a Thermaltake 480W PurePower, and after upgrading to a PCP&C 510 Deluxe, it seemed like the sound was a bit cleaner. Didn't seem quite as drastic as a headphone cable swap, but there was a difference. Makes sense too, as the better PSUs have larger internal caps (usually) and tighter regulation.

 

[legcramp]

are you guys serious lol.. I didn't notice anything going from an antec Smartpower 430watt to a true-power II 550watter

but I did notice my rails going from 11.7 to 12.0 hehe

 

[li0n]

I have me an antec truepower 380W, i should be fine hopefully

 

[Tachikoma]

400W seasonic thingy... any chance that you're refering to the S12-430? I've been eyeing that PSU for a while.

 

[MikoLayer]

perhaps I could use some upgrade?

My rig is equipped with a sparkle/fotron 250w (FSP250-GTV60), but these things are rather highly regarded last time I checked.

Then again, I am running a Palermo @2.5ghz, 9800pro, 1 ODD and 3 7200 PATA HDDs. Max Watt rating isnt everything, but maybe I am pushing it a bit. Whats a good cheap audiophile friendly PSU with a single 80mm fan (I got a bunch of Yate Loon's lying around)?

 

[Regus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aZn_plyR are you guys serious lol.. I didn't notice anything going from an antec Smartpower 430watt to a true-power II 550watter but I did notice my rails going from 11.7 to 12.0 hehe

Might have something to do with your Audigy... not exactly a world renouned source - probably about on par with my former Terratec, and with that card the cheap PSU sounded just fine - could be the lower end cards are designed to operate better with bad power if such a thing is possible...

But yes we are very serious and I have no doubt you would be able to tell a very very clear difference between my first two PSUs with an E-MU 1212m - there was nothing subtle about it.

 

[Chri5peed]

The computer I order tomorrow will have this:

Tagan 2force 480W, Dual Fan, 4xSATA, ATX/EPS, SLI, 20/24pin...about 130 of your dollars.

 

[Regus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tachikoma 400W seasonic thingy... any chance that you're refering to the S12-430? I've been eyeing that PSU for a while.

Well mine is an SS-400BF Super Tornado, and from what I can read the one you are looking at is the new - and presumably improved - replacement for that line.

 

[irchel]

i have something like that:

http://www.enermax.com/english/produ...y1.asp?PrID=22

albeit that's the successor. Should be ok, isn't it? Sounds pretty good with my E-MU 0404.

Could imagine that the Seasonic thingy is even better.

 

[EhJayKim]

There is probably more about PSU's here than most care to know about, but here is one thread from hardforum that might be worth a read if you are looking at a PSU.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1000883

There is a whole section on Power supplies too.

 

[Comrade Penguin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Regus Might have something to do with your Audigy... not exactly a world renouned source - probably about on par with my former Terratec, and with that card the cheap PSU sounded just fine - could be the lower end cards are designed to operate better with bad power if such a thing is possible...

Very much so. In the same way that low end Hi-Fi sn't effected too much about what it sits on or being plugged into a a cheapo multi-way. Such electronics are designed to be less sensitive to these kind of conditions as it is expected those are what it will be used with. A good soundcard will be designed to be used with a good PSU as it will be expected to be put in a high quality system in the same way the High-End Hi-fi requires proper stands and PSUs out of the box to really shine.

At any rate a good PSU is worth investing in for reasons quite apart from sound. It will allow the other components to perform better and for longer.

 

[sgrossklass]

While a good-quality PSU always tends to be a good idea, power filtering seems to be a bit of a weak point on the 1212m. AFAIK something like a Lynx L22 will have quite a bit more effort put into this aspect, and it should have at a noticeably higher price. High-end audio is a lot about power supply it seems. One problem about (semi-)current systems with slightly older PSUs with only a single +12V rail is that the same +12V usually supplied to the sound card (the trusty old XFire seems to use a stabilized +5V off a 7805 presumably fed with +12V; the Aureon Sky/Space cards and the Prodigy relatives also use such voltage regulators, which are known as pretty decent noise generators themselves but applied correctly seem to give better results in difficult environments) will be used/polluted quite heavily by the CPU core voltage regulator. PSUs according to the newer ATX12V 2.0 spec have two +12V rails, with one of them dedicated to CPU supply only. Sound stuff running off the other +12V and -12V would be a lot happier there. The 1212m uses one or two stage R-C power filtering only (don't remember the details), which seems to be insufficient with bad PSUs. Ideally one would add more of these with matching choke inductances in between to improve PSRR when hot-rodding such a card.

 

[dulath]

Being a recovering Overclocker (I've switched to Audiophilia

), I understand the importance of a good PSU. I've got a Antec 480W TrueBlue.

 

[gsteinb88]

Indeed, power supplies are normally the most overlooked componant in a computer system, but it is one of the most important. I am not surprised at all that it improved sound quality, as an underpowered sound card would probably perform pretty poorly. Thank god for my OCZ 520W powerstream SLI.
-g