SPCR

Does anyone know which of these two PSUs has the "cleanest" power? (the voltage regulation and ripple).

I couldn't find any reviews comparing the two and individual reviews i found weren't so in detail concering the regulation analysis.

Thanks

perplex wrote:Does anyone know which of these two PSUs has the "cleanest" power? (the voltage regulation and ripple).

Both are known as high quality PSUs. My question would be, why do you think there will be a significant difference ?

i'm asking because my main use of the computer will be music listening.... Audiophile music listening so the soundcard needs to be fed with nice power :]

Is it possible to get "audiophile music listening" from a PC? The inside of a
PC isn't exactly quiet, electrically speaking. You'd probably get significantly
better sound (and probably cost less) to buy a cheap sound card, e.g.
Chaintech AV-710, and bring your music out digitally to a receiver and amp.
The receiver wouldn't even have to be high-end to beat a PC's sound, I
would expect.

erikt

Or possibly (I'm not audiophile, so I wouldn't really now but all the noise inside a standard PC can't be good for the music) with an external soundcard?

mongobilly wrote:Or possibly (I'm not audiophile, so I wouldn't really now but all the noise inside a standard PC can't be good for the music) with an external soundcard?

This is the best option for cleaner sound; it's better to have the D/A converters outside of the main box. Both M-Audio and Emu make fairly inexpensive breakout boxes (I prefer M-Audio myself, but it's personal preference).

AFAIK, PSUs can only do with what they are given; it might be more beneficial to try and clean up what's coming out of the wall than to see which PSU is producing the cleanest DC.

But to answer the original question, they're virtually the same, ~1%. No power supply is great for an internal card because of everything else running off it in the system.

Doh. you were asking about harmonic things and interfering waves and such....


bah.

you would need to isolate every wire and every thing especially like a psu!, from cabling to chips, and the d/a converter, to make a case closed yet non problematic.


and a physics lab at MIT to test it.

----
edit: heres a tip, have someone test to see if all of your components are TRULY grounded, that helps massively. OR do a ground lift where nothing at all has a ground whatsoever. thats odd I know, but a studio engineer explained it to me when i was getting feedback sorts of buzzes in my equipment and computer sound cards.

Green Shoes wrote: AFAIK, PSUs can only do with what they are given; it might be more beneficial to try and clean up what's coming out of the wall than to see which PSU is producing the cleanest DC.

I'll second this. At the very least use a surge protector. Or if you have money to spend, invest in a quality UPS.

Any difference that might exist between those two PSUs will be insignificant when compared with power ripples coming out of the wall. Also preferably plug your computer behind a dedicated line coming from your fusebox. Any additional devices plugged into the same line will interfere.

Even a surge protector can't filter huge spikes all the way out, so paying attention what else is connected to the line pays off. Things like a refrigerator or a vacuum cleaner (any big electric motor) can cause particularly nasty spikes.

This psu test shows that there is a difference in cleaness of power between power supplies. The silverstone fanless happens to be one of the best tested. No antec and no seasonic however.
http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/psus/index.x?pg=1

It always amazes me how many different wrong answers people are able to come up with that avoid the original question. - FG

~El~Jefe~ wrote:edit: heres a tip, have someone test to see if all of your components are TRULY grounded, that helps massively. OR do a ground lift where nothing at all has a ground whatsoever. thats odd I know, but a studio engineer explained it to me when i was getting feedback sorts of buzzes in my equipment and computer sound cards.

When I was still doing live sound we'd carry around a baggie of several ground lifts (~ a dollar at Home Depot). We were always a little leery of using them, however, unless we had to; although it's not terribly likely, there's always a chance that you can become the ground.

Unless your sound card is powered with a separate Molex connector, I'd imagine the PSU circuitry on the motherboard is likely to introduce a fair bit of noise no matter what PSU you use. If you really care about clean power for your audio card, you'll probably need to get an external box that is powered separately.