Any Advantage to Using a Linear Power Supply with a Router?

I have a Sbooster BOTW Mark II power supply that has the same specs as the wall wart that came with my router. Would there be an sonic advantages to switching them out?

Brave man. Did you try swapping them out? What did you hear?

1 Like

For a while I was powering my ASUS RT AC88U with one of the spare rails on my HD Plex 200W LPS, only because it was in the same rack and it reduced plug/wall wart count. Now my router is powered by its own wall wart as I moved house and my layout is different.

I couldn’t tell you if the LPS made any difference in sound, why would it? Unless you have some other underlying electrical issue.

Try it, if it makes you happy, use it.

I started this thread because I wanted to find out if anyone else had tried this. If you can’t tell me if there would be a difference in SQ, why would you even post here? Thanks for your suggestion, and I realize I can try it myself but as I said, I was wondering if others had tried it.

No, I was just wondering if anyone else had experience with a linear power supply connected to their router.

Er sorry Steve, I didn’t mean to offend you. I thought I answered your question in that I have tried it and did not find any sonic advantage.

I won’t post anymore as it doesn’t seem like you want people to post if they haven’t had a positive result.

Once again sorry if I offended you.

2 Likes

“I couldn’t tell you if the LPS made any difference in sound, why would it?” doesn’t translate to me that you’ve had experience in what I was asking about, only that you didn’t know if it made a difference. To answer your question; I don’t know why it would make a difference but somebody here can probably answer your query.

Okay, I couldn’t tell you if it made a SQ difference as nothing leapt out at me when listening to my set up where the LPS was located.

The LPS was also feeding my MOCK server with the SSD also on its own 5V rail.

MOCK => Router => Meridian MS600 => Meridian G02 Pre-amp => Meridian G57 Power amp => KEF Reference Model 1 speakers.

I wanted there to be a stand out SQ difference but as I said nothing made me sit up and listen any more than I do with the set up as it is now.

Thanks, that’s very helpful.

I probably should also mention that we had very noisy mains in Adelaide (you could hear radio with a mains analyser, it was crystal clear) so all of my gear was plugged into an Isotek Evo3 Polaris which was in turn plugged into an Isotek Evo3 Syncro. I had dreadful hum from my power amp and the HD Plex LPS without the Syncro.
All the mains power cables are home made with Neotech Nep 3001 cable and furutech plugs. All D.C. cables from the HD Plex are made by Ghent Audio with the JSSG mod.
Ethernet cables are CAT6A from BlueJeans.

1 Like

I wouldn’t suggest that a LPS would help the router, but I think there may be something to be said for removing ALL SMPS from your HiFi electrics. Some pieces of gear are designed with modern (i.e. noisy) electrical environments in mind, but most are not. I run my Meridian 818v3 behind a relatively cheap power filtration unit and I’m careful not to put any SMPS bricks on the “clean” side of the filter.

Does it make any difference? Dunno, but seems prudent. A lot of equipment was designed before SMPS became ubiquitous in the home.

2 Likes

Good point @Joel, even after saying what I have said, when the time comes for me to move back home and have my system set up how it originally was, my router will be plugged back into the HD Plex LPS.

I don’t have any SMPS plugged into the power board where my Hi-Fi equipment plugs in apart from my Meridian HP set up and then its an iFi iPower that supplies the USBridge Sig. When Allo release their ultra low noise SMPS I will probably replace the iFi.

In the late 90’s I was working in Germany and I picked up a lot of power cables, power conditioning and power strip equipment from a local brand “PowerPlan”. I still have it. But originally it was for an analogue system mostly of good quality components including solid state and valve I used to pick up second hand. In that system I heard a worthwhile difference, my guess is because it helped rationalise the earthing in a system that had become quite complicated. In that system I also heard differences with analogue signal and power cables and experimented a lot eventually settling on a combination of PowerPlan power cables and Siltech and DNG signal cables. I still have all that and haven’t changed it very much.

Its not quite the same as your use case but I still have the PowerStar. It is a sort of circular power strip. Plugging the Netgear wallwart into that instead of directly into the wall makes no difference at all but it does help a lot with the cable mess! Old habits die hard. We will be moving over the next few months so I have got an electrician in to quote for dedicated circuits into both the listening roon and a sort of dedicated server cupboard for all the Ethernet stuff in the new place. Sigh. Madness really.

2 Likes

Any recollection of this units brand/model as I am looking for something like this for a mains noise issue I have.

I should have said “mains noise analyser” as the two are quite different.

I’m pretty sure it was a Blue Horizon analyser, my buddy worked at a Hi-Fi store in Adelaide (sadly gone now) and brought it round to my house, with some Isotek products of course :grin:

I got what you meant :slight_smile: but seems IsoTek no longer have these on there site. might have to try and see if other options exist or someone has one I can borrow in Singapore.

1 Like