Fosi's New Linear Power Supply

[Power Pop 23]

This thread reads so much better now. Love the ignore button.
I have less jitter now.

Yes, I appreciate the option of the 'Ignore' button too.

 

[Ropeburn]

Well, heck -- everybody knows that inaudible ultrasonic noise provides, at best, a drab pastel black background, rather than the purity of primary black.
So, the opportunity here is to see whether inaudible 60 Hz noise gets us closer to that Aristotelian ideal of a primary black background.
Now, the poor folks afflicted with 50 Hz mains will just have to keep dreaming... maybe they can lobby with their local governments to change their mains frequency.

Hey now. 50Hz is much closer to a musical note than 60. You can sample the hum, minimal fine tuning, et voilà, fat Electro bass - literally. It's been used here and there in tracks and I did too.

 

[mhardy6647]

Hey now. 50Hz is much closer to a musical note than 60. You can sample the hum, minimal fine tuning, et voilà, fat Electro bass - literally. It's been used here and there in tracks and I did too.

I... ahem... I was being facetious.


I will note - despite the near-complete lack of relevance of the comment about to follow - that, back when I used to travel more than I wanted to for work... the sound of 50 Hz fluorescent lighting's buzz always caught my attention when I got off the plane and slogged to customs & immigration. When one's used to 60, it just sounds different.

Sorry!

 

[Ropeburn]

I... ahem... I was being facetious.

You poor 60Hzers and your out of tune, unmusical hum...

 

[mhardy6647]

John Cage never wrote a composition titled 60 Hz, though, did he?
Hmm...

 

[Ropeburn]

John Cage never wrote a composition titled 60 Hz, though, did he?
Hmm...

I dunno, Johnny Cage punches faster in the NTSC version. Your overseas PALs have to make do with 50Hz... so I guess overall it evens out.

 

[mhardy6647]

speaking of 60 Hz, and almost surprisingly on-topic in a thread about P/S noise

The above is a widely-circulated bit of audio demo lore that dates back to the 1970s. Interestingly the above-quoted anecdote is the only one I could find on the 2026 internet -- here's the source

Audiogon Discussion Forum

I spent a weekend away listening to these .What a Moronic review.http://noaudiophile.com/Bose_901/

forum.audiogon.com

The AI response was something along the lines of "Don't plug a Bose 901 directly into an AC outlet." So I guess AI really is getting better?

 

[JSmith]

I dunno, Johnny Cage punches faster in the NTSC version. Your overseas PALs have to make do with 50Hz... so I guess overall it evens out.

View attachment 542324

That's from the OG arcade though, which ran [email protected] on all cabinets;

Mortal Kombat (rev 1.0 08/09/92) - MAME machine

Mortal Kombat (rev 1.0 08/09/92) MAME detail page - ROM mkla1

adb.arcadeitalia.net

PAL slowdown was on early home console ports.


JSmith

 

[Keith_W]

So.. there is none and it’s not measurable then.. thought so.

Of course the performance of this product is measurable. You need to know where to look. In this case ... you look at their balance sheet and yearly profit

Anyway, I don't think we should be applying purity tests. They make great products at a great price. They need to expand their market to cater for those guys who think that this might "improve" the sound and give them "blacker blacks" or whatever. I don't begrudge my local steak restaurant having a vegan menu to cater for occasional vegans who might come along. I'll just keep ordering the steak.

 

[Power Pop 23]

Of course the performance of this product is measurable. You need to know where to look. In this case ... you look at their balance sheet and yearly profit

Anyway, I don't think we should be applying purity tests. They make great products at a great price. They need to expand their market to cater for those guys who think that this might "improve" the sound and give them "blacker blacks" or whatever. I don't begrudge my local steak restaurant having a vegan menu to cater for occasional vegans who might come along. I'll just keep ordering the steak.

Ditto for my favorite craft beer brewers offering hard cider, hard seltzer or their recipe for an American lager like Budweiser.

 

[Bleib]

Of course the performance of this product is measurable. You need to know where to look. In this case ... you look at their balance sheet and yearly profit

Anyway, I don't think we should be applying purity tests. They make great products at a great price. They need to expand their market to cater for those guys who think that this might "improve" the sound and give them "blacker blacks" or whatever. I don't begrudge my local steak restaurant having a vegan menu to cater for occasional vegans who might come along. I'll just keep ordering the steak.

Yes, whilst I don't exactly applaud the release of this product I understand that companies need to do these things in order to survive. And well, we can point out here and there that it's a waste of money, we have the possibility to educate a few here and there

 

[JSmith]

Nah, there's no need for audiophool nonsense... Fosi were the company that claimed one needed different opamps for specific genres of music.

They dialed that down eventually and now back to it with this type of marketing strategy. Sure, sell a PSU, but don't claim nonsense in the product description... poor form.


JSmith

 

[Bleib]

Nah, there's no need for audiophool nonsense... Fosi were the company that claimed one needed different opamps for specific genres of music.

They dialed that down eventually and now back to it with this type of marketing strategy. Sure, sell a PSU, but don't claim nonsense in the product description... poor form.


JSmith

I think magazines like Stereophile would have sold a lot less ads if they didn't promote for instance snake oil cables.
I think we still benefit from the more serious side of their work, like the measurements on speakers... so it's better that the magazine survives

 

[Power Pop 23]

I am displeased with the marketing of consumer audio and am empathetic to many people running a business.

I await the identification of tension between engineering and marketing as a measurable physical constant.


The first of rule of business is stay in business. - Sheila Weisfeld, co-founder of VPI Industries.

VPI Industries

Yesterday was VPI Founder and Mom's birthday. Every year we like to share about the person who held us all together and helped to build what we have become. On this December 12th, anyone out there...

www.facebook.com

 

[respice finem]

IMHO they simply want to "harvest" both camps, objectivists and subjectivists.

Pecunia non olet.

 

[voodooless]

Of course the performance of this product is measurable. You need to know where to look. In this case ... you look at their balance sheet and yearly profit

Yeah, I figured that out slightly late: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...is-new-linear-power-supply.72149/post-2630005

Anyway, I don't think we should be applying purity tests. They make great products at a great price.

Some of them, yes, absolutely. That doesn't mean we should not be calling out the bullshit claims on other products. This has nothing to do with purity; it's just consistent.

They need to expand their market to cater for those guys who think that this might "improve" the sound and give them "blacker blacks" or whatever. I don't begrudge my local steak restaurant having a vegan menu to cater for occasional vegans who might come along. I'll just keep ordering the steak.

If the restaurant sold homeopathic steak enhancer for €99, then the analogy would fit.

 

[bungle]

But they won’t claim any audible differences

In this product: https://rme-audio.de/lni-2-dc.html they state though:

This results in an enhanced audio signal and sound quality avoiding humming, buzzing and other noises that can be caused by power supplies or dirty mains power.
Small, Compact, Portable - For an Enhanced Audio Signal.

So there is a little bit of that. Of course you can go that: "well, they don't actually mean that", but for some highendists, even knowing that in some situations it can happen, they think they need to fix it, even if it never happens in their home setup (but you "need" it if you want to reach "perfection" — it is hobby anyway and if it is not audible, it may be meaningful or bring some esoteric joy). I feel those are similar to Fosi ones. Most of the time, no benefit but usually harmless. The Fosi also allows you to feed power to multiple devices, so it kinda works as powerstrip too, which could in some setups lead to nicer cabling and some people just love these boxes (especially stacked).

 

[Redacted]

A lot of people have expressed discontent with the various switching power bricks...I personally have no problem with them, the ones from Fosi and Aiyima seem fine.

But Fosi sees customer comments and decided to "fill the void"...

Indeed. I have many small switching PSUs, usually 5v for USB power, 9v for guitar pedals or 12v for various other things. Only one 9v ever made noise I could hear (on a pedal) - and that's £4.95 I won't be able to spend again

I must be unique in having a load of kit that has internal regulators and filters that fixes any PSU issues, and all the PSUs, bar a hefty12v 100w one in a metal chassis (now in an additional ABS case), have no earth pins, so no ground loops....

I have no problem if people want clean PSU to fix an audible or other electronic problem - my issue is £240 for a mere 40w supply, which is exploitative pricing for the fantards.

 

[Mike123]

In 2026, use those terrible non-linear power supplies? This is madness .

 

[Redacted]

That's the first thing I thought of.

The small ones with internal PSU likely can't be linear simply due to size. Not like it matters as long as it's well filtered. And they're usually isolated indeed.

Yup, pedal PSUs are usually switched and isolated. Or at least all mine were.
I gave away a bunch with pedals I no longer use, but oddly, the one I chose to keep does have an earth connection but is no problem in use with my guitar amp which is also grounded (had to reverse the power jack polarity though on the PSU)... It's 9v 45W, so enough for a full pedal board. I could put it on my oscilloscope, but if I hear no noise, why bother? I also use battery packs with pedals that take USB - there's no audible difference between the batteries (which of course use DC-DC converters) and the cheapo 9v PSU.

Here is it, I probably could have got it cheaper elsewhere , but not exactly a ripoff :

Multibao 9V 5A 45W Power Supply Adapter, Replacement Power Converter Transformers Charger 5.5mm x 2.1mm (2.5mm) DC Output for CCTV Cameras/LED Strips: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

Free delivery and returns on eligible orders. Buy Multibao 9V 5A 45W Power Supply Adapter, Replacement Power Converter Transformers Charger 5.5mm x 2.1mm (2.5mm) DC Output for CCTV Cameras/LED Strips at Amazon UK.

www.amazon.co.uk