HDPlex 100W Linear "high end" powersupply experiences

[CoenP]

Hi there,

I saw this PSU tweak popping up in another thread and I already planned to share some notes. This didn't happen until now because I I lacked time and energy and I find it hard to form a consistent opinion.

Following a resolution I made with myself to once experiment with a Linear supply I decided in April to order a HDplex supply and matching 250Watt ATX converter. A sort of hybrid solution that at least in theory could bring some benefits. Expedition was fast and the whole lot looks like a well designed piece of kit and was able to fire up my Audio PC containing two harddisks (see signature).

Like I expected the power consumption at the powerstrip is significantly higher with the LPS, rising from 50Watts to 70Watts with my Win7 setup and 9e. Oddly the XX version 1.168 uses even 10 Watts MORE with (seemingly) identical settings. Consequently these extra 20/30Watts heat up the case.
At a "warm" day (20+ degrees in the room) I found it uncomfortably hot with 1.168 and also SQ seemed to suffer. The transformer started to make a noises (humming). Fortunately my 9e setup did not overheat or overload the box. My conclusion is that your setup should be limited to a 35-40 Watts power draw from the PC.

At the first audition I liked the midrange clarity and increased contrast to use a visual metaphor. Also there was a more natural flow to the music. However highs seemed a touch rough and the lows a little bloated and ill-defined. On closer inspection of my setting some had changed over time and I started to reset all to the settings in my signature. This gave quite a good sound that was different on a few aspects form what I remembered from the ATX switching supply.

In the past few weeks I have been changing settings, SATA connections and other stuff to make it work to my taste. The surface the PSU is placed upon really matters as do the SATA connections. Lately the latter seems less relevant because of the Diskless XXHE PC developments. I think it sounds quite nice now, but feel it has more potential and there are a few more experiments to conduct.

Interestingly at a time I reconnected the Seasonic out of frustration again. The sound was a tad smoother overall with a rough edge on the highs. It obviously lacked dynamics and flow that makes sound sound alive with the lPS. Still the LF and HF lack some focus and definition with the HDPLEX LPSU in comparison with the switcher. So this box is no perfect solution yet but a different balance that is more to my liking, at present.

These are a few observations and opinions on the effect on SQ at my side. For now I prefer the LPS over the Seasonic, but I'm also performing maintenance on my speakers and power amp that affect the sound and balance. I will reconduct comparisons between the SMPS and LPS when the rest of the system is stable again.

Please share your thoughts, questions and experiences on this route to "perfect sound".

cheers, Coen


 

[PeterSt]

Hi Coen - thank you so much for sharing this.

If I understand you correctly, 1.186a consumes a way lot more Watts than one of the older versions ? That seems quite impossible to me, unless you have the settings wrong in 1.186a - mainly the XTweaks. Watch out though, because if you'd copy my XTweaks settings of W8(/W10) ... they are explicitly wrong for W7, which I think you use. And yes, I *am* talking about heat (only).

Not sure whether this helps or whether you want this to help ... so just saying !

Regards,
Peter

[CoenP]

Hi Peter,

Xt tweaks are identical between the versions. I made a reading mistake, idle the Lps consumes 67 watt, with 9e running 71 watt and with 1.168 93 Watts!

This is of course with the very low LPS efficiency so a normal switching PSU will show less difference.

Anyway the only different setting I could find was Q5 that is set to 1 in 1.168. Furthermore "processor scheme 3" is chosen for 9e and "core 3,4" for 1.168.
Unfortunately the PC hung after changing Q5 because of a bad SATA connection with the OS disk. I will see this weekend if I can lower power consumption on 1.168.

Cheers, Coen

[PeterSt]

Hi Coen, what I tried to tell you is that both versions should NOT be equal. See my sig for XTweaks. But this is from the  angle of the OS.

64 1 1 0 1 (W7)
63 1 1 1 1 (W8)

You interpret it from the angle of both XX versions and possibly think it doesn't matter. But it does. So in absolute sense, when you use W7, use the settings you see above for W7 and then in both XX versions for good comparison.
But maybe you already did that ...

Peter

[CoenP]

Hi Peter,

Ok, I understand.

Now my finding is that the Q settings make a big difference when playing music.
Qx:1x;
Qn: 12,0,0,1,1. 93 watts;
Qn: 12,0,0,1,0. 83 Watts;
Qn: 12,0,0,0,0: 69 Watts.

I've to look closely to the powermeter display since the digit 8 is very similar to the digit 9. In my first post I mentioned the heat and humming that was with the 93 watts setup in stead of the 83.

I will look into the XT tweaks for further effects.

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Hey Coen,

Qx:1x;
Qn: 12,0,0,1,1. 93 watts;
Qn: 12,0,0,1,0. 83 Watts;
Qn: 12,0,0,0,0: 69 Watts.

If this is the result, then it has to be so that the XTweaks settings are not right (or say not like mine). I must add though that for W7 this is wat more difficult to get right (low consumption) than for W8.
Anyway the 12,0,0,1,1 requiring the most is logic in itself (watch the CPU graph). Still it can be counterattacked with proper XTWeaks.

Peter

[CoenP]

Hey Coen,

Qx:1x;
Qn: 12,0,0,1,1. 93 watts;
Qn: 12,0,0,1,0. 83 Watts;
Qn: 12,0,0,0,0: 69 Watts.

If this is the result, then it has to be so that the XTweaks settings are not right (or say not like mine). I must add though that for W7 this is wat more difficult to get right (low consumption) than for W8.
Anyway the 12,0,0,1,1 requiring the most is logic in itself (watch the CPU graph). Still it can be counterattacked with proper XTWeaks.

Peter

Hi Peter,

I quasi randomly played around with the XTtweaks an Q settings and I found the XT settings not that significant to the power consumption. A couple of watts at most. In fact changing the SFS made more of a difference.
I think I do observe a correlation between power consumption and sound quality. The lower the better it seems. This gives motivation to see how far I can go here more methodically.
I fear that there are too many things in my computer system different from yours and that not all effects of your reference can be reproduced here.

Cheers, Coen

[PeterSt]

Hi Coen - thank you for the feedback.

If you are as far as this, and are having fun with it anyway, try to make the draw as stable as possible (in W7 much harder than in W8). Meanwhile you will see that your mentioned "few Watts of difference only", suddenly is quite crucial. Why ? because your few Watts is just the instability and you won't like that (from now on - hahaha).

Btw, I hope you have a mater which updates once per second at least, or otherwise it's useless (for this).

If you want to get really dizzy, don't forget to incorporate the Clock Resolution. It is the most crucial (as you will see).


Peter