A Youtuber comment regarding ripples and DACs, etc why it affects them

[GabrielPhoto]

Hi!
I have been more than facinated with claims of improvements by people with PSU upgrades, linear vs switching etc inspite of the evidence presented in ASR.
I saw this video of this Youtuber where there was a question about the ifi power switching ones.

Q: How does this compare to the ifi ipower2 you tested before? This will be for a small DAC that uses 5v 1A or a MiniDSP 2x4hd

Answer from GABSTER (youtuber):
I think this will be better I try to stay away from switching power supply I do not have at the present a way to test ripple past 20Khz there is a chance the ifi may have ripple in the high frequencies being the switching type also they are not that cheap.

Q: But if it ripples passed 20khz then why would it matter since we cant hear it at that point?

Answer from GABSTER (youtuber):
If it was a Analog device yes you are correct but the Dac digital section works on high frequencies as it is a digital device and is extremely sensitive


Does that answer make any sense?

 

[Soniclife]

Hi!
I have been more than facinated with claims of improvements by people with PSU upgrades, linear vs switching etc inspite of the evidence presented in ASR.
I saw this video of this Youtuber where there was a question about the ifi power switching ones.

Q: How does this compare to the ifi ipower2 you tested before? This will be for a small DAC that uses 5v 1A or a MiniDSP 2x4hd

Answer from GABSTER (youtuber):
I think this will be better I try to stay away from switching power supply I do not have at the present a way to test ripple past 20Khz there is a chance the ifi may have ripple in the high frequencies being the switching type also they are not that cheap.

Q: But if it ripples passed 20khz then why would it matter since we cant hear it at that point?

Answer from GABSTER (youtuber):
If it was a Analog device yes you are correct but the Dac digital section works on high frequencies as it is a digital device and is extremely sensitive


Does that answer make any sense?

No.

Measure the output from the dac, it won't change, even above the audible range. This is classic audiophile FUD.

 

[DVDdoug]

The "answer" is WRONG!

Either a linear or switching power supply can be perfectly fine. Switching supplies seem to be "taking over". The transformer can be smaller (operating at higher frequencies) and unlike linear regulation, switching regulation is nearly 100% efficient. The electronics is a LOT more complicated but these days electronics is cheap with the efficient regulation the components don't have to dissipate as much heat & power so overall you can save cost (for similar performance).

- If it's above the audio range it's obviously inaudible.

- It's (hopefully) low-level so it shouldn't cause any "side effects" that are audible.

- High frequencies are easier to filter-out than power-line frequencies. DC is zero Hz and with a high-pass filter, the higher the frequency the more the attenuation.

...USB power CAN sometimes be a problem. It's notoriously noisy and with all of the simultaneous switching frequencies inside a computer, it's often audible as a "whine" if it gets into the analog electronics. It's not usually a problem with DACs but if you have a USB powered audio interface, noise sometimes gets into the high-gain microphone preamps and it can become audible.

Or occasionally, the a coil or transformer in a switching supply can resonant and vibrate mechanically at an audible frequency, even if none of that gets into the DC power. I don't know why that happens.

 

[Greenman]

Answer from GABSTER (youtuber):
I think this will be better I try to stay away from switching power supply I do not have at the present a way to test ripple past 20Khz there is a chance the ifi may have ripple in the high frequencies being the switching type also they are not that cheap.

Seems a strange response to me. Ifi quote 1micro Volt ripple, Gabsters own tests show that to be pretty much correct for the range he does test, so he makes the assumption it might be higher in the bit he can’t measure! Bizzare, of course it could be, as could any of the other linear power supplies he tests. As for price is there a linear supply that costs less than the ifi and measures better?? Certainly none I know of that have any sort of brand.

 

[GabrielPhoto]

Seems a strange response to me. Ifi quote 1micro Volt ripple, Gabsters own tests show that to be pretty much correct for the range he does test, so he makes the assumption it might be higher in the bit he can’t measure! Bizzare, of course it could be, as could any of the other linear power supplies he tests. As for price is there a linear supply that costs less than the ifi and measures better?? Certainly none I know of that have any sort of brand.

Yeah that is what made me curious based on his own previous measurements, it would seem for anyone wanting a well performing clean switching one, the ifi fits the bill but then he starts imagining issues above 20khz for some reason...

 

[amirm]

Does that answer make any sense?

As mentioned no. Good DACs will re-regulate and regenerate the DC voltage internally to be ultra clean.

 

[EERecordist]

Tangential but: yesterday I discovered that the slight hum that was coming from inside my AVR was due to the inverter type stabilizer that I have on the powerline of my house. Switched it into bypass and the hum was gone! Grok tells me that the constant switching of this type of stabilizer to level the voltage creates on the other side noise in the power supply. Grok also recommended some solutions, but I am curious if anyone faced/successfully solved such issue for themselves here? I would like to keep my stabilizer running. Thank you.

Can you describe your inverter type stabilizer?

 

[EERecordist]

View attachment 444186View attachment 444187

It first converts AC into DC and then DC into AC:

I understand. The technical area is power quality engineering.

Do you have Room EQ Wizard software? it is free. You can use it with your microphone input which is about 5mV. Your home line voltage is about 220v. So you will need to understand how to build a voltage divider or use a current probe to not exceed a few millivolts on the input to Room EQ Wizard. With that data, you will see the fundamental of 50Hz, and all the harmonics. IEEE 519 suggests less than 5% total harmonics and less than 3% for the highest harmonic which is usually the 2nd harmonic, 100Hz. It is also possible that higher frequencies are being tuned like a radio receiver inside the AVR.

Depending on the harmonic structure, and posting your harmonic structure to a power quality discussion forum, you can add combinations of an isolation transformer, like a Sola, a powerline filter like an Emerson Isobar, chokes and capacitors, using local good quality equivalents. Research laboratories and hospitals often use those systems. You would only need them, if you need them at all, on your audio equipment. Be sure your audio equipment has a good earth ground, even separate from your power conditioner because some of the internal filtering of the AVR may be to ground. Finding a good ground in a multifamily building may not be easy.