But seriously, how would a beefier PSU be any better when P50 is within manufacturer specs? There’s no reason to buy overpowered PSU for your gear, just follow the manufacturer guidelines and you’re fine.
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hmm… now going the second time over the posts. How hard is to disable spdif from the command line?
I followed these instructions (with a help of Google Translate):
http://forum-hifi.fr/thread-26655-post-589022.html#pid589022
I’d like to explain further but I’m on the road currently. Meeting the minimum requirements should be safe no need for a fancy power supply. An understanding of ohms law will help to understand current and voltage requirements.
Quick analogy would be do you run the family car engine at nearly redline for extended periods?
When I set specs for commercial radio transmitters and instrumentation systems I make certain not to use more than 70% of rated continuous amperage of power supply units. But here we are only talking hobby stuff that won’t cause any major issues or emergency service calls 
I’ve seen that but did not save it. thanks, now I can save and have a better look. If I remember correctly he uses a Pegasus Dac and I like that dac
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It’s always better to have two separate power supplies for two individual devices (so you are avoiding cross over interference). Sure that is part of optimization but when you can start right away correctly than do so 
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As long as your chassis all share a common ground point this is good practice. When we build out a radio repeater system we do run a single power supply to run the receiver and transmitter and controller Astron 50 amp @ 13.8v is my goto favorite for years of trouble free service. Perhaps a bit overkill to run a ifi device 
I understand your point but ZS doesn’t draw 15V/0.8A all the time so your car analogy doesn’t work here. Probably with all the bells and whistles on it might get close to peak consumption every now and then. But P50 isn’t struggling there. The switch I power with P50 is specced 5V/1A and so is P50’s second outputs. No problems powering that one either. You can actually power three devices with P50 (2x 5V/1A and 1x 15V/1A).
I also own two iFi iPower2’s (5V and 15V) and I used to power the switch and ZS with these. I prefer the P50. Obviously we can dive deep to audiophoolery and buy ridiculously priced PSU’s for 350EUR streamer but I believe it’s not worth it.
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So you have inserted a dvom and measured the amperage draw? I’m being a bit facetious perhaps hey if you’re happy with how it is working then good on you. The need to obsess on these things is part of the hobby and us types tend towards the ocd side. I just feel bad that folks spend money and time on the things that won’t have a good return on investment. I most certainly didn’t mean to offend you or say that you are doing something wrong or dangerous.
Enjoy your system and the music 
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You are very mild. My ex wife would consider any audio gear investment as chasing ghosts
Joke aside, I do not now what to think, if just imagining things and pay for that is ok (not talking the numbers here). How much difference is between that and someone buying a something just for the looks?
None actually. Many would argue that looks are essential, I know that it has to pass a “looks” review before I can put speakers in a communal living space. Luckily, my speaker choices look good. LOL.
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A “real” audiophile knows that the ugliest speaker sounds the best 
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Not offended, no worries. I’ve spent my fair share on various tweaks and gadgets in this hobby. Some of them work, some don’t. PSU’s are on the grey area. Sometimes they bring huge improvements, like with Naim gear I owned back in the day. Sometimes it’s very small, like with digital streaming products (IMO). My reasoning with P50 was that I wanted to get rid of all the SMPS’ connected to the same power strip where the rest of my hifi is connected.
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I’ve heard different things in this thread about the recommended voltage. At one point it was thought 15V was best. But iFi themselves told me that some users have overheating issues with 15V and thus they recommended against it. I bought 12V for iFi Elite. I also use a Wyred4Sound Recovery (RUR) which is 9V. So it seemed worthwhile to try a 9V Farad Super3 which can power both units with a split DS cable. I ran all of this by Farad and they agreed. Grand total was $700 for the basic Super3 + their split DC cable.
While I’ve not tried 9V on the ZS, I have experience with various low powered gizmos like the MicroRendu and the Matrix X-SPDIF2 which could run on 6 to 9 volts. With those, I always seemed to prefer the more relaxed sound of the lower voltage. I’m hoping the same will be true of the Farad’s 9V powering the ZS.
The Super3 ships from the Netherlands tomorrow. I’m keen to try it and shall report back.
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Thank you for reporting back. Day by day I get more in love with ZS NAA and ZD signature @256 DSD. So looks like upgrades to this setup might be a good choice for me.
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The voltage regulation circuit will have to dissipate a higher amount of heat the higher the voltage over the minimum voltage required. Zen stream runs fairly warm with the stock power supply imo but I haven’t measured it yet.
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I did wonder why ZS has the specs from 9 to 15V. Maybe it is designed in one way if using just the device or in another way if you feed power to the dac from the ZS and also you have one USB drive connected. I’m totally ignorant on the case so I can be totally wrong.
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It is quite interesting that they implemented a wide range voltage regulation ability, my guess is that it is a part of the design to filter noise and supply an excellent clean power supply to the main circuit. Now I’m just a little curious about the amperage draw of the device, unfortunately my DVOM is a couple of states away from my iFi stream. Would anyone be able to insert a DVOM in the power input circuit and report back what voltage being input and what the amperage draw is? A decent DVOM with a 10 amp test capacity would be good.
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Sorry to bump an old thread, but I am curious since you also have an A14 MKII – I am looking for an out-of-the-box streaming solution for the Rotel. I have tried my Bluesound Node, but it will only stream over SPDIF. I can connect a PC to the PC-USB port on the back of the A14 for high-res streaming through Roon, but this is even less convenient. Are you using the ifi Zen Stream via PC-USB and does it work?
Thanks!
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I am the only one to use a power supply outside the iFi Audio recommendations, which does not mean that it is better.
However, the value for money is great… and it has been running on 7.5v for almost a year without a hitch and my Pegasus is over the moon.
I haven’t compared it and I would have to do it with the 12v output of my HDPlex.
The MeanWell is given for a ripple of 80 mVp-p and tested at 23.1 mVp-p. (O/P:FULL LOAD Ta:25℃).
But I specify that I use the exclusive NAA mode (without wifi) and still optimized by me.
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