Question: Are you able to tell the sound with different PSUs to digital network components in a blind test? Else it’s just confirmation bias.
Nope, because there’s no valid scientific or electrical engineering basis for which to need to try a linear PSU on any of my equipment.
The linear PSU myth needs to die anyway, because a well-designed SMPS will outperform a linear PSU in audio applications. There’s no reason to add linear PSUs to networking gear - most of them have internal switching PSUs. Ethernet can’t transmit PSU noise if it’s implemented properly anyway due to galvanic isolation.
In any case, all of my network gear is enterprise stuff with IEC inlets which run straight from the mains. My amp has a SMPS built in (Benchmark AHB2), main DAC is also mains powered.
RPis are PoE powered, but again, the required 3.3V is derived from 5V via a switching regulator regardless of how you deliver the 5 V supply.
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Who cares about blind testing? It has nothing to do with how we listen to our setups on daily basis.
I don’t care if psu is linear or smps, both can be excellent and sound good. My Linn ADSM/3 has smps and ATC active speakers have linear psu’s.
I also fail to understand how confirmation or expectation bias works if the experienced difference totally contradicts with what we expect to hear or if we expect to hear no difference at all.
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I understand what you are saying, and I appreciate your point of view.
But until you try, you don’t actually know.
I have tried many PS’s in my system on streamers/Dac’s etc. I much prefer LPS V’s SMPS for digital front end hardware, but I’m quite happy with SMPS for my amplifiers.
I have used SMPS ifi power x supplies which measure incredibly well.
But my Linear supply sounds much better. How do I know? Experience.
I admit I use measurements from sites like ASR/Archimago to assist with purchasing hardware regularly. I have purchased many of my DAC’s/Amplifiers/streamers after analysing reviews and measurements. Most of my gear measures super well and is setup to maximise gain structure, minimise signal noise etc for my active speaker setup.
Some purchases include:
RME ADI 2 DAC, MOTU MK5 lite, 3x Purifi 1ET400a amplifiers, RPI4, etc
Most of these purchases have been amazing performers.
Not long ago I purchased and installed a quality linear power supply on my RPI4 and Motu MK5 lite DAC. It provided a nice sound quality improvement, when measurements/objective opinions might otherwise suggest it should not…
The fact that I hear an improvement is validation enough for me. No technical discussion will change my experience. I trust my ears, and I’m perfectly happy to mix measurements (pre purchase) and experience (post purchase) to make informed conclusions about hardware or tweaks in my system.
I will say, its all very well to provide comments after you have tried a product, but drawing conclusions with no first hand product experience seems quite short sighted…
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I can understand your umbrage - it’s hard to have one’s cherished beliefs challenged and undermined - but this isn’t about my experiential understanding of voodoo network gear, nor is it about yours.
Let’s start by assuming that psychoacoustic effects are real - that a person’s perception of events or phenomena can be influenced by their beliefs, such that their subjective experience is not grounded in a corresponding objective reality. I don’t think that that’s at all contentious, and there’s plenty of literature and evidence to support the idea.
So far, so good.
From there, let’s agree that there’s a vast amount of science and literature regarding the design and construction of audio and network equipment. In terms of the latter, let’s also accept that there are a number of people on this forum who have a great deal of knowledge with respect to this topic. Knowledge derived from academic, professional and scientific engagement in the field. Furthermore, let’s assume that they know what they’re taking about - better than you, and better than me. They’re the experts.
So here’s the question (well, two questions).
First, why do people believe that the EE8 ‘sounds better’ than a well designed switch when, in reality, it’s a rebadged bit of kit that normally costs around £20? The experts on this forum state that there’s no reason that it should, yet some people do hear a difference. Have English Electric stumbled on some previously undiscovered science that only they understand, or is this some form of cognitive bias? I know which sounds more likely to me.
Second, you believe that using an iFi PSU sounds better than the ‘stock psu’, yet English Electric claim the following:
“Switches require high speed power supplies so we could not opt for a linear power source due to their speed limitations. We set about improving the power signal by using an extremely high-quality wall supply. This clean supply permits an optimum quality network signal”
Optimum. Not good enough, or satisfactory, but optimum.
Isn’t there some sort of logical inconsistency here? On the one hand you’re claiming that they’ve developed a product that is so advanced none of the engineers or scientists on this forum have any idea as to how it works, yet you also believe they can’t even design a half competent PSU. How does that even begin to make sense?
I’m equally sure that you won’t, but maybe one or two of the poor souls who wander into this labyrinth of subjectivist claims and pseudo-scientific claptrap might pause for thought before shelling out for yet another ‘audiophile’ network product that, in reality, does little more than line the pockets of the companies that produce them.
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I don’t think I’m being short sighted here. There are places where PSUs may make a difference (in a power amplifier, for instance), but a network device is not one of them. Understanding how a network device is built and operates excludes it based purely on the engineering aspects.
There’s no point spending big bucks on a linear PSU to feed a device which then passes the supplied power through a switching regulator to achieve a lower internal supply voltage. Everything hinges on the quality of the internal switching regulator, not the external PSU.
To be entirely honest with yourself, you need to test stuff like this blind, otherwise biases affect perception.
I’ll try something if there’s a scientific basis on which it should make a difference. I won’t evaluate something purely based on sighted subjective listening - I’m a scientist. It goes against science, logic and statistical evaluation methodologies.
If I think I can hear a difference, I’ll test to try to understand why there’s a perceived difference.
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Benchmark have written a really good article on the importance and problems of measurement and listening. Well worth a read.
tl;dr
ABX testing is crucial.
And …
“Listening tests are never perfect and for this reason it is essential that we develop measurements for each artifact that we identify in a listening test. An APx555 test set has far more resolution than human hearing, but it has no intelligence. We have to tell it exactly what to measure and how to measure it. When we hear something that we cannot measure, we are just not doing the right measurements.”
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Yeah, I’ve read that article. Most of Benchmark’s articles are very well thought out and written and focus on the science and engineering.
More people should read and understand this stuff. It would save a lot of the arguments that occur on these forums.
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I agree with many of your comments.
But blind testing has its own set of issues.
I always try to mix the best of both objective measurements and subjective listening, to find a workable middle ground.
On a side note, I think we can all agree the brain is a complex organ.
I have read many articles suggesting we all hear and interpret sound differently. Which could help explain why some people hear differences in hardware/setups while others do not.
The immense spectrum of neurodiversity and its impact on hearing is not really discussed.
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It could explain why some people believe they hear differences in hardware/setups. That’s a point worth considering.
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Potentially, but science would back me up here.
A few articles…
Extract:
“Even the smallest differences in our individual skull structure or bone density can change the way our brain receives and processes sound waves, changing the frequency that our bones vibrate at as we hear sounds. That can also impact our ability to understand and process language, and it’s been found that inner ear structures might also impact agility.”
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My apologies, I wasn’t questioning that there’s evidence to suggest we hear things differently. That’s clearly the case. My point is that no amount of neurodiversity can account for people hearing things that have no objective basis, i.e. things that aren’t there in the first place.
I understand… my comments are really off topic from the thread title… Apologises.
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Dave, we’ve been through this several times already in these threads. It’s getting tiresome to repeat these things over and over again. Also it puzzles me why you and many other people not interested in audiophile switches are participating these threads. It puzzles me that you’re so worried of how I and many of us approach this hobby. I simply don’t get it.
I don’t need to prove myself or my experiences in audio to anyone. Also none of you can prove my experience wrong in any way. I share my subjective experience here and my subjective experience is everything I need to fully enjoy this hobby and do the decisions about my gear. I strongly encourage people to just audition stuff themselves and make decisions based on that, nothing else than your own experienge matters in this hobby. I’ve auditioned dozens of equipment, tweaks and gadgets which do nothing in my setup so I’ve returned them. Then again, at least as many I’ve found useful over the years. This just tells me that I’m onto something if there is an actual difference I experience.
Also you seem to be 100% certain that we can measure every single thing human sensitory system picks up when we sit down at our couches and press play. I’m sure people in the 70’s also thought that audio systems are at the peak of their evolution and there’s just nothing left to be found. How can a microphone tell us how we hear and sense and how can it mimic the human hearing and the fact that every single one of us have different shape ear canals and we hear the same audio signal differently? I guess we just know everything there is in 2022 and there’s nothing left to be discovered.
I’m perfectly aware of EE8 construction and the quote about the psu being good enough for the switch. It might be the psu or the better clock, or better casing/shielding affecting the end result, who knows. It just sounded better than the Netgear I had before. About the psu, when I auditon iFi vs stock, iFi just sounds better. Better clarity to my ears. I simply don’t need anything else to make my decision. The real every day listening situation with all my senses and brain affecting the end result is as real as it gets. There’s simply no other way to evaluate audio gear, nothing else makes zero sense since it differs from my regular listening session.
Back in my Naim days I’ve made the setup close to unlistenable with wrong power cable while everything’s perfectly fine with the other. I just got severe listening fatigue and shrill sound with the other. Should I just pick the one making the setup unlistenable since according to forum engineers I’m just imagining this stuff? What an absurd way to approach the hobby. Obviously I choose what sounds best to me and my ears. Nothing you say will change how I approach this hobby. Nothing you say will change the fact that some of us evaluate gear by ear and some uf us read measurements from ASR and then make themselves believe that it’s what they like and sounds best and there’s nothing else to find in the hobby. Measurements are good guideline to pick gear which is not broken but after that you need to listen to it by yourself.
I really can’t express my logic around this hobby any better than this. It has worked for me for 20 years now and will probably work the next 20 years. Nowadays I value measurements higher and will use them for my benefit when selecting gear for audition. In the end, it’s the audition (preferably at home with my own setup and space) which tells me what to choose.
Btw. I do plan on ordering TL-SG1008D for 20 euros and maybe iFi psu to go with it to test against the EE8 in close future. It would fit nicely on my equipment rack. If it sounds the same to me as EE8 I’m perfectly ready to sell the EE8 and stick with a regular switch. Evaluation is done in open sighted listening with the expectation of ”these two should sound identical because measurements and very wise engineers on Roon forums say so”.
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Agreed, absolutely not.
And this is where we part company. We live in a world where subjectivist claims regarding reality often threaten, or actually manage to overturn what can best be described as the truth. I’m not going to get into any examples, but it’s rife in politics, raised its head in numerous ways during the Covid-19 pandemic, and is currently playing in numerous other domains - from social media, to the war in Ukraine.
And I get that you think it doesn’t matter in this context - because this is just a hobby, and we should all have our own opinions - but I think that letting the small things slide (on the basis of appeals to subjectivity) is indicative of a broader move towards an irrationality that has a whole range of negative consequences that are considerably more consequential.
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We just have to agree to disagree on this one. I live in Finland which I like to think is one of the most objective/science minded countries in the world and my approach to pretty much everything in life is based strongly on science and data. Our news are strongly fact based here and people are mostly extremely well educated. But when it comes to music and audio… my own experience is everything to me. Simply said, why would anything else than my own enjoyment and experience matter here? That’s what I wish for everyone else also.
I’m not encouraging people to go for shakti stones or cable lifters first thing here. If you’ve been into this hobby for 10+ years and you think you have gone through everything else then by all means, try tweaks. But first take care of acoustics, speakers, amplification, source and analog cables. After that maybe try power cables, digital cables, digital transports and rest of the digital chain to see and hear if there’s a difference in your setup with your own ears. After that there’s imo nothing to try out anymore but it’s not my loss if someone wants to invest in equipment platforms, cable lifters or shakti stones and share their subjective experience on these.
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No, it’s not your personal loss, nor mine, but I do think it’s representative of a collective loss of rationality that shouldn’t be encouraged, no matter how trivial the specific domain in question.
Agreed.
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If one of my PSUs started to “sound”, I will throw it out of the window!
So you’re trying to say that power supplies in general can’t affect sound quality? Just rip a psu from a hair dryer and power your preamp with it and we’re done? Think again, your reply is beyond ridiculous.
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Strong words!
And yes, that is what I am trying to say. If it has no defect, it can’t affect sound quality.
Same for switches and ethernet cables.
That’s no magic, it is called scientfic knowledge. Big difference to subjective and anecdotal experience.
And no, I also don’t have to rent a boat and sail to the west to know that the world is not flat. There are things I don’t need to try for myself.