Mark Schneider and the team at LTA know their way around a power supply. It all starts with David Berning. He is truly the Guru of tube amplification and the inventor of the ZOTL circuit, the first real change, or improvement in tube amplification in 60 years. Yes, LTA makes a great linear power supply but Berning’s switching power supply is even better and probably the best out there.
Linear Tube Audio- Little Known Great- Linear Power Supply
I bought one of these LPS for both my Sonore and uptone Ethernet converters rather then use the cheap wall warts , I have found the LPS make a big difference in my system and others who have tried the Linear tube Audio brand we had a audio shoot out with 9 guys in our local audio club this is 7 volt and a Whopping 8 amps ,they can make these to over 20 volts if I need before streamer or server. I had a Fidelizer I used which is very clear and open but no warmth or too neutral , this Linear LPS beat 5 different models by 7-2 margin this included the uptone audio LPS with dual outputs, as well as Sonore , both were more $ monies . This unit I bought direct on Audiogon for $700 , Teddy pardo was another, a model from little green computer and a 4 year old Mojo audio which btw came in 2 nd with 2 votes . It was the naturalness and soundstage expansion that was most apparent ,imaging too had more weight . Low level detail , the Linear tube brought out details from the background more to the forefront where you can hear much more into the mix. One thing I do want to mention , during the review I removed the after market 5 amp slow blow ,20 mm synergistic purple fuse ,with writing on the fuse facing the front when installing ,I put in the stock buzz fuse . For the shootout . To make everything equal . As far as build quality No contest the Linear tube trumped everyone , at almost 6 pounds, the others had mostly a 30 Va transformer and 30-50 k in capacitance . The Linear tube Audio LPS has a 100 Va low noise transformer , over 125k in Nichicon capacitors that’s more then some amps ! It has 3 inductors for filtering with the capacitors for the incoming AC , as well as the DC on the output , it does one more thing attached to a heat sink the Worlds best Belleson Super regulator to keep everything super low noise and stable.
regarding after market fuse Highly recommended, mfr stock fuses are a Huge bottleneck coming in they are zinc - steel and brass around 18 on the conductivity index ,the top fuses around 60 , by having far lower resistance much lower noise. Floor coming in , the internal filtering has a much clearer signal to start with . My friend has a Linear tube LPS on his router as well which is 12 volt like most today that are modem- router combos , he brought this over to demonstrate on my router ,any wifi signal is far better and for Audio from my New motorola 8702 modem-router which btw has docsis 3.1, older routers have 3.0 docsis ,the 3.1 is many times faster, much bigger buffer ,I have No drop outs now and excellent wifi range., the audio for streaming was much better cleaner much more pristine sounding he has a Synergistic purple fuse in his LPS which makes everything a bit warmer more natural, and just makes every aspect of the performance more natural. Yes $200 is a lot for a fuse but to me as a Audiophile well worth it . One more thing a respectable power cord is a must ,stock cords compress the soundstage .I use Pangea best awg14 sig mk2 using the Cardas 6-9s Copper and very beefy Copper gold connectors for $200 an easy recommendations even in dacs,preamp, powercords if you don’t want to spend $$ the Pangea Ac 9 SE it’s actually awg7 using Cardas best wire at $350 a true bargain . On my home page I have pictures taken with the cage removed to see the
top notch construction of the Linear Tube Audio LPS made in MD USA 🇺🇸 which to me is a Huge plus .
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there are many well made, capable linear power supplies out there these days... priced very high to quite reasonable no doubt lta makes good stuff, i am an owner and lover of their zotl 40 ref plus amp, a wonderful sounding and well built piece .... but quick research will shed light on the fact that there are plenty of excellent lps’s on the market that give the user the benefits of that upgrade ferrum sean jacobs etc on the high end teddy pardo, paul hynes etc at the mid level sbooster, ifi, keces etc etc on the affordable end
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Agreed, so many variables involved from one listener/system/component to another. Not possible to declare one particular good quality LPS superior to all the rest. There’s a host of very good choices. Charles
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@audioman58 Old thread but still on topic so... Where do I start? I've got a Sbooster on a Chord Qutest DAC, the stock SMPS on a Chord MScaler which feeds the DAC, a iFi Elite on the satellite router which feeds connectivity to the audio system. And the stock cheap SMPS on the main router in another room/floor which has the separate home theater system. That SMPS is on a Hydra 4 conditioner but I'm still leaning toward replacing it and would appreciate your opinion. Also, Chord advises caution on replacing the SMPS on the MScaler. I've read they advise using 12vdc instead of the 15vdc supplied because of voltage variations in aftermarket LPSs and other aftermarket power supplies. I tried a 12vdc iFi Elite on the MScaler and did not think it sounded as good as the stock medical grade (MeanWell?) SMPS. But the IFi Elite seemed to improve my overall audio quality when used on the satellite router which feeds the audio system. |
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