guiltyboxswapper

T+A repaired my DAC 8 DSD which was well out of warranty (by years!) as one of the clock crystals decided to die. I only had to pay shipping.

Not entirely true; i have been offered a streaming client upgrade by T+A for my SDV 3100 HV, and at some point they'll allow me to deploy the update at home when they're ready. Also looking at previous items in their range, the MP 3000 HV had an upgrade programme to MP 3100 HV via T+A, and whilst no guarantees I wouldn't be surprised if the SDV successor is offered as an upgrade. Same with their amps IIRC (can go from PA 3000 -> 3100).

Yes it does support DSD1024 in Linux no problem, but as @OE333 has said you may struggle to 1) run the modulator/filters at DSD 1024 rates and 2) tell the difference between DSD 512 and 1024 once you do (SDV 3100 HV owner here and i'm struggling myself to fully distinguish between 512 and 1024!)

I remember you mentioned last time, but they're HUGE so would require either a far bigger PCB (= stops fitting nicely in a PC) or wires, hence went for 33,000uf 40v x5 with lovely gold PCB traces instead.

I would suggest if you have some copper nearby, to try replacing the baseplate with a temporary copper sheet (with holes if you can). I am using copper between components in my own chassis (much like Taiko's copper firewalls) and the improvement for the little spent is ... considerable.

Yes, but by the sounds of things doing your thing may destroy the taiko DC DC? Again repeating my point - great, caps are nearby, but the PSU still has to fill them.... TBH its all of a bit of an accidental shit-show IMHO, but by all means try try try. We couldn't believe how much noise (measurable and subjective) was removed by taking this out of the equation and placing it all in one PCB (and for the record I had <10cm cable feeding this bank, and <15cm (eventually 8cm) on the output of the bank too:

Yep, literally what I found within 30mins of starting up revision 3. The only reason we didnt go to 198,000uf is in an attempt to keep the PSU small enough to place inside a PC chassis of sorts.

Happy to compare to be honest, but yes not sure how short of building my own ULPS at this stage. Will remove the VCAP on Sunday to see how that impacts things too.

Kind of- the PSU supplying the caps still plays a big part in the outcome. Ever tried attaching a brand new PSU to a broken in set of caps? Sounds dreadful as the new PSU settles down. You maybe better off soldering the 4th input pair on the Taiko DC DC for better impedance (the one left open), whilst keeping cables as short as possible.

TBH if you can keep your cables ultra short, you may not need to do this? Going from 60,000uf to 165,000uf (both Mundorf AG) has proven to be a dramatic difference with the audio grade SMPS I helped put together, and its not even been a week yet (still breaking in). Much extended (subsonic) bass response at even normal listening levels, with transient response (including gut wrenching impact) stepped up quite a notch in the process. More is better!

Me too, but I have no way of getting a hold of v2 nenon at this point - which is why I started all this to begin with. Plus didnt want yet another box/chassis and all the cables associated with that. I did plan to compare with my own unregulated linear build, but the performance from this has been so ... surprising ... that I may not bother now. Yes that Taiko DC DC whilst seems pricey, is strong VFM IMHO too.

Agreed, I was getting fed up with the ridiculous amount of boxes and wires I was accumulating to make this "happen" hence this development to begin with. In the end mind, I ended up purchasing a network attached DAC (https://www.ta-hifi.de/en/audiosystems/hv-series/sdv-3100-reference-streaming-dac-preamp/) and placing the server 30m+ away from the hifi itself (which as you can imagine brought improvements alone isolating it from the energy from the speakers...)

Sub $550 or less with a group buy of kinds, as you correctly pointed out some of those components are not cheap... You can ofcourse use HDPlex 800w or Taiko DC DC (I've been testing purely with Taiko tbh). As Nenon has said short cables make a massive difference, but being so compact you can place it right next to the DC DC and stay under 10cm cables between the two.

Time to let the cat out of the bag. For a while I've been using some audio grade SMPS from Micro Audio. Prompted by Nenon's reference to Mundorf AG caps, back in December 2020 I purchased some Mundorf AG 80v 10,000uf caps, and replaced the ELNA AG caps that were on the provided capbank, using the same PSU and setup in my amps (Purifi IET400A's using Sparkos SS2590 Pros). To my surprise I experienced one of the biggest (and cheapest!) upgrades that I'd heard in a long, long time. Then came the Taiko DC DC allowing all sorts of PSUs. So I tried his off the shelf "class A SMPS" with Elna first, and ... blew it up by accident (mea culpa, I shorted it) taking out the RCD tripper and creating some fireworks in the process (see below!). In this moment of madness, instead of asking for a replacement I asked if he could do a few small refinements namely move the CapBank PCB onto the same PCB that accepted 6x 30mm caps, and ensure we have nice juicy PCB traces for ultra low impedance from the same unregulated SMPS circuit. That revision populated with 6x 10000uf 63v Mundorf AGs was an astounding success, leaving behind my TDK Lambda HWS 1500 (a regulated industrial SMPS capable of 70a peak) no problem with a SQ upgrade from the first 30mins. In other words, Nenon and co are right, GTFO off regulated PSUs when it comes to very high current demand systems!! Being a zero current switcher even with my T+A SDV HV 3100 asking for DSD1024 from the Ryzen 5900x, it stayed as cool as a cucumber under load too (wall draw of 110w). It nicely fits into a PC chassis too. Amazed with the results, I then asked what if we did the following: - more output caps, from 60,000uf to 165,000uf - lowered switching frequency to 55khz - changed the AC filtering caps to Mundorf AG too (1360uf in total) - added bypass cap to the output (I chose V-CAP, but there's some tiny ceramic ones mounted on the PCB too) - gold plated PCB Tbh I've forgot what else we change.... So here comes revision 3 (as pictured below) and once again within 30mins, it blew the doors off revision 2 (above) straight from the start. Same compact size, same cool running etc. Will come back to yourselves in the next week or so once revision 3 is broken in, but this to me has been a massive revelation.

You might be surprised, I've managed to get poly-sinc-short-mp running on an i7 DHNE (quad i7 something) at DSD 512 rates although the first cold start did take a good minute. Was actually fine after this mind.