Mac Mini Power Supply

I have the ECM and I would say it rolls off the highs. It makes digital sound less harsh and biting. With the ECM the highs sound more organic/analog. Can anyone explain how this is done with the transformers in the unit?

I don't think it really is a power supply.

I do have an adapter hooked up the the power supply of the Mimi that allowes me to use a high end power cable. Needless to say the PC does makes a huge difference from the stock cable.

What kind of $$$ are we into with such a power supply?

I borrowed the boulder supply from a friend of mine, one of the reasons I wanted to build one myself. My supply had a much larger impact on the sound, but both are very nice pieces of gear. I was offering to build my supply to a few people for $400.

As I understand it, the ECM uses Balanced power transformers. That means rather than having 120v on the hot conductor and 0 volts to ground on the negative, you have +60 and -60, which are out of phase. In theory that cancels out common mode noise in the same way balanced analog circuitry works.

While I can't say for certain, almost ALL power conditioners that boast a "more analog" sound are using suppression capacitors and ferrite cores. Ferrite tends to work fairly well on digital gear for rolling off what people consider to be digititis. Ultimately it's a cheap trick, but has poor tradeoffs. I'm yet to find a power conditioner that can hold it's own against a Topaz Isolation Transformer with 146dB common mode noise rejection.

People may say a better mac mini power supply makes the sound more analog-sounding. I personally just think that the power supply, and more accurately the non-linearity and ripple caused by crappy power supplies is what causes a piece of gear to sound digital.

Analog is just digital that's been pressed to LP.

Could you tell me how I can go about upgrading the power supply for my Mini? I am not skilled on computers at all.

Shoot me an email and I'll gladly give you some places to start. If you aren't tech savvy or haven't worked a soldering iron this project isn't for you. However, I am more than happy to build them.

07-20-10: Glory
I have the ECM

Glory,

What are the components of your digital music server setup? Mac mini? What DAC, Hard drives, cables, etc.? I'm just curious because I don't think many people would be familiar with the ECM unless they were Ultra-Fi customers or friends.

I live near the builder/designer and I have a couple of friends with full Mac Mini and Ultra-Fi solutions. The sound is outstanding IMHO.