Suspended tables like the Linn are not my cup of tea. Not at all.
But you didn't ask that. You asked how a turntable motor power supply can make it sound better. Actually quite easy to answer. Should not even be all that hard to understand.
Its really enough to understand the primary component in a power supply, the rectifier diode. These tiny little parts, all they do is convert AC to DC by allowing the AC to flow one way only. Pretty simple. Should hardly even matter really, because the resulting DC power goes straight to a bank of storage capacitors. These things are typically over spec, meaning the caps store enough power to run the unit even sometimes for many seconds even after being turned off and unplugged.
So how could diodes possibly matter? Well, I don't really care. All I care is I know if I swap them out cheap bad ones for expensive good ones it makes a huge improvement. Not subtle hard to hear. Huge.
But you asked technical and there are technical reasons like switching speed. Looked at microscopically and at high speed nothing goes perfectly on and off. There's always a transition of some kind. Its the speed and slope and nature of that transition that matters. Because yes, in spite of all the capacitance you can throw at it some ripple still gets through.
So technically what you have then is a power supply with less ripple. That's just one reason. But a big one. More than enough.
But we got more. There's also the way the power supply responds to fluctuations in demand. Because it only looks to us like the motor and platter and all are turning at a perpetually steady constant rate. In reality and viewed up close and microscopically again the whole thing is vibrating like crazy. People use examples like bass notes or drum whacks or orchestral crescendoes, all things with massive groove modulation that makes it easier for us to accept the extra modulation is extra drag that might cause the platter to slow down a tiny amount.
In reality this is happening all the time. Its never enough to hear pitch changes. Nothing like that. You make a change that affects speed like I'm talking about and you will understand. These tiny near instantaneous speed changes are heard as hard, flat, lifeless. Improve the power supply and you hear more sense of ease, more depth, greater drive and life. Its not hard at all.
If the improvement in the power supply is significant, I mean. With Linn, who knows. I am not a fan of Linn. All the Linn I have heard is overpriced and underperforms. Turntable, phono stage, all of it. To go by my experience then this power supply is probably not going to be much different. Lot of money, might sound a tiny bit better.
Doesn't change a thing about how it is that technically a power supply can make a difference. You asked. No one else got it. So I answered.
But you didn't ask that. You asked how a turntable motor power supply can make it sound better. Actually quite easy to answer. Should not even be all that hard to understand.
Its really enough to understand the primary component in a power supply, the rectifier diode. These tiny little parts, all they do is convert AC to DC by allowing the AC to flow one way only. Pretty simple. Should hardly even matter really, because the resulting DC power goes straight to a bank of storage capacitors. These things are typically over spec, meaning the caps store enough power to run the unit even sometimes for many seconds even after being turned off and unplugged.
So how could diodes possibly matter? Well, I don't really care. All I care is I know if I swap them out cheap bad ones for expensive good ones it makes a huge improvement. Not subtle hard to hear. Huge.
But you asked technical and there are technical reasons like switching speed. Looked at microscopically and at high speed nothing goes perfectly on and off. There's always a transition of some kind. Its the speed and slope and nature of that transition that matters. Because yes, in spite of all the capacitance you can throw at it some ripple still gets through.
So technically what you have then is a power supply with less ripple. That's just one reason. But a big one. More than enough.
But we got more. There's also the way the power supply responds to fluctuations in demand. Because it only looks to us like the motor and platter and all are turning at a perpetually steady constant rate. In reality and viewed up close and microscopically again the whole thing is vibrating like crazy. People use examples like bass notes or drum whacks or orchestral crescendoes, all things with massive groove modulation that makes it easier for us to accept the extra modulation is extra drag that might cause the platter to slow down a tiny amount.
In reality this is happening all the time. Its never enough to hear pitch changes. Nothing like that. You make a change that affects speed like I'm talking about and you will understand. These tiny near instantaneous speed changes are heard as hard, flat, lifeless. Improve the power supply and you hear more sense of ease, more depth, greater drive and life. Its not hard at all.
If the improvement in the power supply is significant, I mean. With Linn, who knows. I am not a fan of Linn. All the Linn I have heard is overpriced and underperforms. Turntable, phono stage, all of it. To go by my experience then this power supply is probably not going to be much different. Lot of money, might sound a tiny bit better.
Doesn't change a thing about how it is that technically a power supply can make a difference. You asked. No one else got it. So I answered.