Last post about this I promise. As an aspiring audiophile, I'm constantly wow at how amazingly dumb I am as a consumer. The latest culprit? A $200 WAudio W4800.
This beauty conditions the power, and makes the noise reduced! Amazing! I plugged it in, I couldn't believe my ears! Everything sounded better. Where has it been my entire life!
Bass is deeper, notes are better, the music is alive!
But my engineering brain is telling me this is all BULL ... SHIT ...
So I did a quick test, and I realized, I was comparing this W4800 to the power coming out of my UPS! Which obviously would be adding tons of noise into it (it literally has a ton of circuitry and an extra USB outlet, a load of crappy computer noise).
My UPS is power limited to 400W, which is why my computer cannot perform at max (850W power supply) and lots of problems come from that PSU (like if I plug my USB into my monitor, it turns off for some reason)
So I stripped the UPS from my entire network, and connected everything back to the wall, using a normal 15A 120V multiplug.
BLEW... MY... MIND. The music felt deeper, dynamics were increased, bass is back, sound stage was apparent, noise felt massively reduced, the background felt dark and mysterious, huge changes. My amp could draw a full 500W again without any UPS circuitry nonsense.
Then I plugged the WAudio W4800 back in, and the sound actually was a tad worse at parts, but never better.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
This beauty conditions the power, and makes the noise reduced! Amazing! I plugged it in, I couldn't believe my ears! Everything sounded better. Where has it been my entire life!
Bass is deeper, notes are better, the music is alive!
But my engineering brain is telling me this is all BULL ... SHIT ...
So I did a quick test, and I realized, I was comparing this W4800 to the power coming out of my UPS! Which obviously would be adding tons of noise into it (it literally has a ton of circuitry and an extra USB outlet, a load of crappy computer noise).
My UPS is power limited to 400W, which is why my computer cannot perform at max (850W power supply) and lots of problems come from that PSU (like if I plug my USB into my monitor, it turns off for some reason)
So I stripped the UPS from my entire network, and connected everything back to the wall, using a normal 15A 120V multiplug.
BLEW... MY... MIND. The music felt deeper, dynamics were increased, bass is back, sound stage was apparent, noise felt massively reduced, the background felt dark and mysterious, huge changes. My amp could draw a full 500W again without any UPS circuitry nonsense.
Then I plugged the WAudio W4800 back in, and the sound actually was a tad worse at parts, but never better.
Why do we do this to ourselves?