alternative LPS for sotm sms-200

[CharlesY]

Hi,

 

New to the forum here.

I used to serve my music (stored in NAS) from my laptop running JMC via USB to my DAC (LKS MH-DA003 unmodded) but have stopped now as the laptop has packed and I need a new server/streamer device.

I am ready to take the plunge to purchase the sotm sms-200 and due to budget constraint that I can not afford the well-known more expensive LPS such as Ultracap LPS-1 etc at this stage. I read from somewhere (probably from this forum) that owners  (sms-200/ultra and microrendu) have good results with the less expensive r-core transformer type LPS e.g. zerozone and teradak for less than $100 (£80).

 

As I never owned a LPS before and I need advice which specific zerozone/teradak LPS model I should get and to help understand what specific voltage/amp requirements for the sms-200. I have read that some used a 12v LPS for the sms-200 and i produces better sound but I wonder will it cause damage to the sms-200 due to the 9v-vs-12v. If not the r-core type, are there any good Chinese made LPS that are not that expensive and are good with the sms-200?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

[LTG2010]

Teradak supplies are bargains for their cost ,cleaner and smoother sounding than say an ifi smps, you could add and ifi dc filter later and this will improve matters further. 9V is all you need with the maximum amount of amps you can afford say 2amps min. If you can stretch your budget a bit eg get a used sms200, then go for an S-booster or MCRU power supply. The SMS200 will work with 12V, ( it will reduce the voltage internally) I found minimal difference and it got hotter so no real benefit. By the way it comes with a cheap power supply to get you started.

[CharlesY]

Thanks for the prompt reply. I will look into the teradak LPS.

 

I am also thinking of attaching my external HDD USB drive directly into sms-200 and wonder if the sms-200 can power the external HDD and how about performance - is it better to serve the music files via a NAS than HDD via usb (will it create more noise this way). Due to logistics arrangement, the sms-200 to be located will not be able (without a long twisting and turning cable) to connect to my gigabit router via a cat6 cable. I am thinking of getting a wifi extender like the TP RE650 and see if that helps and installing a USB wifi dongle on the sms-200. My question is even if I can achieve a high bandwidth with the wifi extender, will the sms-200 with he wifi dongle be able to perform vs a cat6 ethernet connection.

[Boomboy]

Good choice for a network player .. luv using my 200 unit  . I plugged my sandisk extreme pro usb stick into the back of the 200 but found music quality was better using a powered hub plugged into rear. 

 

I now use a raspberry pi running omv so the music is on the network .. 

[LTG2010]

The SMS 200 can power your HDD just fine it depends on the attached power supply, hence get the most amps you can afford.Or you can use direct powered storage. Music sounds better in my opinion directly attached, but others have said different, you can try both since you have a NAS and HDD. Direct connection means no upsampling or DSP as playback is carried out by the SMS200. A wifi extender works just fine, I deally to avoid drop outs I would use a switch such as a netgear gs105 nearby with 2 short lengths of the best ethernet cable I could afford and then connect the switch to my router with a long length of cable. This is not so critical if you connect your storage directly or don't intend to use tidal etc.

[CharlesY]

Thanks think I will give the directly usb HDD a go and get the  DC9V@3A LPS (should it enough for both the sms-200 and the external usb HDD??). The wifi extender TP-Link RE650 I have in mind does have a fast speed gigabit ethernet port where I think can cat6 into the SMS-200. I don't need a PC anymore (for hifi purpose as the sms-20 can just do the job but better I hope).

[LTG2010]

DC9V @ 3A is perfect.

[CharlesY]

This is the r-core transformer LPS  I have in mind, is it any good? To be honest I can't tell the difference between the first one (Zerozone) from the other two.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ZEROZONE-30VA-LT1038cp-mini-linear-Power-supply-DC5V-9V-12V-15V-18V-24V-L158/131585252891?hash=item1ea3179e1b:g:-KoAAOSw9N1VysYe

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TeraDak-DC-30W-TOUCH-Linear-Power-Supply-5V-3A-9V-2-5A-12V-1-8A-15V-1A/253084489893?hash=item3aed02d8a5:g:foIAAOSwr6RZiWKQ

 

and this one I think is an identical copy from ZeroZone

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ZEROZONE-HIFI-65W-65VA-Linear-Power-Supply-With-Display-DC-5V-6V-9V-12V-12-6V/172766848513?hash=item2839b4e601:g:ez0AAOSwceNZXfpF

[LTG2010]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TeraDak-DC-90W-12V-5A-power-source-PSU-Linear-Power-Supply-/222532768557

If you make an offer for something like this you have more flexibility for future use. Also check out how to ground the negative dc output to ac earth in the latter part of thread ' A novel way......'

[CharlesY]

Thanks but what is the reason going for a 12v/5A instead of 9v/3A sorry for my lack of knowledge in LPS.

Does it mean a 12v LPS can be used for any devices require equal or less voltage (e.g. 5v, 7v and 9v etc) and it won't cause damage to the devices?

[LTG2010]

My apologies wrong link, they will configure the voltage to your requirements, just specify 9v. I would contact them directly regarding the SMS200 and USB dock you want to power. If the price is similar I would go for the extra amps, for future proofing. Also the 2.5 amp supply you posted I've seen elsewhere described for powering the SOTM USB card, the 90W for the SMS 200. So it's not clear how they are rating their product. For sure the 3amp S Booster will do it. I've only used the 5amp Teradak.

[CharlesY]

Thanks very much for your informative advice LTG2010.

[CharlesY]

Am I right that a higher voltage LPS (e.g. DC12V@5A) will work well with devices requires lower voltage e.g. sms-200 (9v) and the microrendu (7v) and it will not cause damages to the powered devices. I am thinking of future proof in case that I may use the LPS to power other devices in the future.

[jcn3]

8 hours ago, CharlesY said:

Am I right that a higher voltage LPS (e.g. DC12V@5A) will work well with devices requires lower voltage e.g. sms-200 (9v) and the microrendu (7v) and it will not cause damages to the powered devices. I am thinking of future proof in case that I may use the LPS to power other devices in the future.

That is not true. You need a power supply that works within the published specs of the individual devices. For instance 9v is the max for the microrendu.

[LTG2010]

11 hours ago, CharlesY said:

Am I right that a higher voltage LPS (e.g. DC12V@5A) will work well with devices requires lower voltage e.g. sms-200 (9v) and the microrendu (7v) and it will not cause damages to the powered devices. I am thinking of future proof in case that I may use the LPS to power other devices in the future.

The published specs for the sms200 are: Input Voltage : +6.5 ~ 12Vdc So you should be ok with that.

[CharlesY]

The published input voltage for the sms-200 as follows:

  Input Voltage : +6.5 ~ 12Vdc
  Power : Max 15W

So I will need a LPS between that voltage and power <= 15w ?

 

I saw some LPS on sale meets the voltage range but the watt power is much higher.  Please advice.

[LTG2010]

27 minutes ago, CharlesY said:

 

I saw some LPS on sale meets the voltage range but the watt power is much higher.  Please advice.

You can use a power supply up to 12v if you exceed this by too much it may damage the sms200. With Watts or amps get as much as you can afford, if you want to power a USB hub. If you get a self powered hub/ storage then a low watt supply will suffice, ( the device will only draw the amount of current (amps) it requires from the supply a higher amp version will not harm it and will benefit in terms of sound quality for various reasons.

[sandyk]

On ‎17‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 3:25 AM, CharlesY said:

and this one I think is an identical copy from ZeroZone

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ZEROZONE-HIFI-65W-65VA-Linear-Power-Supply-With-Display-DC-5V-6V-9V-12V-12-6V/172766848513?hash=item2839b4e601:g:ez0AAOSwceNZXfpF

 

 This one , with the superior,  and higher rated (65VA) R-core transformer, would appear to be a good choice. It also uses 10,000uF filter capacitors for greater short term current demands.

The photos of the others aren't very clear, but at least one of them (perhaps all) have heat sinks that are too small for continuous high currents, and are likely to get quite hot at >500mA continuous load at the higher voltages.

Alex

[davide256]

On 11/16/2017 at 11:00 AM, CharlesY said:

Thanks think I will give the directly usb HDD a go and get the  DC9V@3A LPS (should it enough for both the sms-200 and the external usb HDD??). The wifi extender TP-Link RE650 I have in mind does have a fast speed gigabit ethernet port where I think can cat6 into the SMS-200. I don't need a PC anymore (for hifi purpose as the sms-20 can just do the job but better I hope).

I suspect that you aren't going to be happy with the speed of a USB2 attached HDD... network attached will allow you to access the drive far faster

[sandyk]

48 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I suspect that you aren't going to be happy with the speed of a USB2 attached HDD... network attached will allow you to access the drive far faster

 

Speed isn't everything. USB 2.0 is often reported to sound better than USB 3.0 too, which is also my recent experience when I changed to an additional pair of USB 2.0 front mounted ports instead of the front mounted USB 3.0 ports that I had been using previously. 

The front panel adaptor also had the +5V leads of the 2 ports connected in parallel, with additional 100uF capacitors on each port to further clean up the USB power from these ports, as well as increase the amount of current available from each (one at a time) to 1A instead of 500mA. 

Click on the image for a larger image.

[davide256]

37 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Speed isn't everything. USB 2.0 is often reported to sound better than USB 3.0 too, which is also my recent experience when I changed to an additional pair of USB 2.0 front mounted ports instead of the front mounted USB 3.0 ports that I had been using previously. 

The front panel adaptor also had the +5V leads of the 2 ports connected in parallel, with additional 100uF capacitors on each port to further clean up the USB power from these ports, as well as increase the amount of current available from each (one at a time) to 1A instead of 500mA. 

Click on the image for a larger image.

The SoTM SMS200 has a dedicated USB2 audio port... that's not what we are talking about. USB2 as a drive access method is slow and can contribute to appreciable library scan time. It takes USB3 to approach the speed of a GigE network connection.

[sandyk]

Just now, davide256 said:

The SoTM SMS200 has a dedicated USN2 audio port... that's not what we are talking about. USB2 as a drive access method is slow and can contribute to appreciable library scan time. It takes USB3 to approach the speed of a GigE network connection.

 

 I would have thought that SQ would take precedence over access and Library Scan speed ?

[davide256]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

 I would have thought that SQ would take precedence over access and Library Scan speed ?

 a HDD USB connection and Ethernet data connection are just two different paths to get data to the CPU for the same task of creating a USB audio output signal.  As long as the speed of data transmission is fast enough to  avoid output lags and un-errored, the two should sound identical. I personally would rather have a fire hose for data transmission speed...any data re-transmission errors are marginalized if the send rate is overkill.

[sandyk]

31 minutes ago, davide256 said:

As long as the speed of data transmission is fast enough to  avoid output lags and un-errored, the two should sound identical

 Perhaps USB 2.0 is actually electrically quieter, and why many members appear to prefer USB 2.0 for music ?

It may be a different matter with the faster speed requirements of the latest DSD though ?

[davide256]

9 hours ago, sandyk said:

 Perhaps USB 2.0 is actually electrically quieter, and why many members appear to prefer USB 2.0 for music ?

It may be a different matter with the faster speed requirements of the latest DSD though ?

Again, I'm not talking about the port used for audio USB connection to DAC. There has been  a huge investment in intellectual capital to make audio USB2 right, no where near that effort yet for USB3 to DAC.  There is no special "mojo" for the use of USB2  with computer peripherals like hard drives however and USB2 should be disappearing on new main boards since USB3 is backwards compatible.