HDPLEX 300W LPS

[rakeshpoorun]

Hi Guys,

I have been wondering about getting a LPS for my projected 'audio pc' but what would have been the relatively high power consumption of the dual cpu motherboard meant that I was slightly unstuck.

HDPlex offer a 100W LPS, however when I contacted Larry of HDPlex, he said that a 300W unit was coming out. It looks like it would do the job. The price is $688 inclusive of shipping in Europe.

Here is a pic.

[acg]

Hi Rakesh,

Just a little bit of history on this subject.  As far as I am aware Peter has an LPS that probably only needs a little more time to get working and then possibly he will bring it into production if it works out.  Personally, given the current direction and advancements Peter has made with W10 running from ramdisk I would wait for Peter.

On the other hand, Peter has sort of challenged me to get an ATX LPS designed and prototyped which I started in earnest some time ago and then set the project aside when the NOS1a and its increased immunity to noise from the PC came along.  Well just yesterday I ordered more parts to resurrect that project, and if successful I dare say that I will give the design to Peter/Ciska to build for all of us.  My design is more over the top than the HDPlex units seems...it uses modern regulators for a start...and the noise will be orders of magnitude lower than either the HDPlex or the other ATX LPS units that are available.  

Now, what we don't know is just whether these LPS will be useful or not and let me try to explain why.  What is not immediately apparent to many people that know Peter and visit this forum is that Peters approach is not necessarily to tackle the easiest issue first rather to tackle the issues that present themselves as being most important or limiting first.  An ATX LPS is one of those 'easy fixes'...you just make one then plonk it in your system and it does something good or bad or indifferent.  But what problem/s is/are being addressed by the LPS?  What issues does it cover up?  It is entirely probably that computer audio can be developed such that the ATX LPS has no effect on sound quality, and much, if not all of what Peter has done over the years with help from the forum is to work through ideas that probably shift/reduce/change electronic noise profiles so that they give us better SQ.  He has done this by trialling and choosing sensible hardware for the computer, designing his software to manage and manipulate that hardware via the windows operating system and producing a dac that is probably influenced less by the computer than anything else out there.  But the computer still makes a difference.  Operating systems make a profound difference.  It is frustrating, and would be more frustrating if the SQ was not getting better all the time.

So is it the right time for a ATX LPS for the XXHE PC?  Well, yes, I believe that it is the right time.  But like everything else that Peter does this ATX LPS needs to be designed to suit the current and future state of XXHE and the NOS1a/NOS2 dacs.  For me that does not mean using an off-the-shelf LPS that we have no control over and no input into its design.  Because XXHE and the NOS1a are already at the leading edge of computer audio, it is likely that it will need a solution that is just right for the situation, and we will need some experimenting to figure out just what it is about an ATX LPS that brings about any improvements and in that way we are more likely to reveal the next steps for improving things.

I hope I have written this in a way that is easy to understand...it has come out as a train of thought.  This also goes back to your other thread about building your own pc for XXHE.  I can almost guarantee you that if you follow Peters formula for the XXHE PC that you will be part of a rolling improvement in SQ as Peter and the forum take these incremental steps as part of a communal effort.  If you have hardware that is significantly different then perhaps you will miss out on some things.

Regards,

Anthony

[rakeshpoorun]

Hi Anthony,

Sounds good.

Obviously I could not even remotely conceive that there was such a thing in the pipeline, albeit a very long pipeline.

In reality, I was not too happy with the idea on a personal level, as I would rather just follow my 'own way.'

Once my 'audio pc' is ready, whatever its hardware, I will probably get a Linear Power Supply and see if there is some improvement to be made there. The HDPlex is a current product. Yours is an ongoing R&D exercise and bound to a specific configuration. There is no indication of when it is going to materialise as a product. If it is more flexible, and will suit my eventual "audio pc," of course I would be happy to try it.

My personal opinion? Not that it matters but I have a feeling that given that your product might be a long time coming that people here should not feel the need to delay their buying decisions but feel free to do as they please, and buy whatever LPS is available currently and see if it works for them.

The HDPLEX 300W LPS also seems rather reasonably priced, even at full price of $680 including shipping and taxes in Europe.

Best regards
Rakesh

[acg]

Hi Rakesh,

It is not even really about the "conflict of interest" even if there really is one, which I am not sure. 

The way these things generally work is that someone comes up with a tweak, say the HDPlex LPS, and if they have a computer setup similar to the remainder of the group then some others will give that tweak a try for themselves and report in and if there seems to be some general consensus then perhaps that is the time to get excited by a group buy.  Certainly not before.  If we had a group buy for every perceived tweak all of us would be broke and have a garage full of useless contraptions. 

Truth is that most of the hardware out there is not applicable to the XXHE/NOS1a system although I can guarantee than most of it has been tried or trialled by one user or another.

Cheers,

Anthony

[rakeshpoorun]

Hi Rakesh,

It is not even really about the "conflict of interest" even if there really is one, which I am not sure. 

The way these things generally work is that someone comes up with a tweak, say the HDPlex LPS, and if they have a computer setup similar to the remainder of the group then some others will give that tweak a try for themselves and report in and if there seems to be some general consensus then perhaps that is the time to get excited by a group buy.  Certainly not before.  If we had a group buy for every perceived tweak all of us would be broke and have a garage full of useless contraptions. 

Truth is that most of the hardware out there is not applicable to the XXHE/NOS1a system although I can guarantee than most of it has been tried or trialled by one user or another.

Cheers,

Anthony

Hi Anthony,

Sure thing. I will keep my own counsel on this from now on.

But you are a very enthusiastic partner in this 'joint' development of this ACG/Phasure LPS I must say. Good for you.

Best regards
Rakesh

[acg]

When you get your system up and running Rakesh, I suggest that you wait a while for everything to run-in, for the NOS1 takes a considerable time to come fully on song, and for you to to get used to the sounds that you are hearing and then change the standard computer power supply for an ATX LPS and let us know what, if anything, you hear.  Perhaps by then someone else has something good to report about their experience with this or a similar product and we can get some consensus.

I am more enthusiastic about the way that Phasure develops or gets things done than the ATX LPS project itself.  I am honestly expecting Peter to come up with something else, perhaps this w10 on ramdisk thing, that will mean that my project is not so important anymore and that there are other avenues to explore first.

We will see!!

[rakeshpoorun]

Hi Anthony,

Enjoy your summer holidays (well it's always summer where you are!).

Best regards
Rakesh