[Review] "White Noise" PSU for turntable

"White Noise" PSU for turntable

First of all, let me say that, no matter what anyone says, I don't believe that external PSUs make any great difference to the sound of a turntable. To me, this is just another example of the hi-fi mythology that has built up around other bits, most notoriously cables and ICs. However, there are hi-fi brands whose upgrade path is through allegedly superior power supplies. Why they couldn't simply have put in a half-decent one in the first place and have done is beyond me, but it clearly works, at least from the point of view of sales figures.

So, why then did I buy a PSU for my LP12? And why this one? Firstly and most importantly, my LP12 (Valhalla-powered) had developed the annoying habit of switching itself on when the computer was switched on (they share the same power outlet). When the younger ladies were on the computer, I would come in to find the LP12 spinning merrily away. This, as far as they were concerned, was MY affair. In addition, there was the element of curiosity; could a PSU make a difference as to how a thing sounded? The cry of the believer is always, “Ah, but you haven't tried it!†Given that I've now been through Mana stands, various other equipment supports, various ICs, power leads and cables and the Densen DeMagic demagnetising tea mug coaster, without any perceptible improvement whatsoever, you'd think I'd have learned, wouldn't you?

The obvious choices for the LP12 are Linn's own Lingo and the Naim Armageddon. And the obvious reason for avoiding these is the outrageous price demanded for these. Even second-hand on E-Bay they are not cheap. So I looked at alternatives. There are several small British companies that make LP12-suitable PSUs. I went so far as to order one from one, but after 12 months I concluded that I wasn't going ever to see that one. And then I came across Dr. David White of White Noise, here:

http://www.wnaudio.com/

The technical justification for the particular unit was beyond my ken (I am a competent handyperson, but my knowledge of electronics stops at the occasional correct spelling of the word) but the price was reasonable (OK, not too unreasonable), and it came in kit form, which made it even less unreasonable (£230 or thereabouts). David White was the very model of helpfulness and a well-packed box soon arrived chez Tones. Within was a smallish simple black box, comprising a cover, a chassis with three round black transformers of varying size and considerable weight attached thereto, and two largish capacitors fixed to a large and particularly evil-looking finned heatsink. Within also came an electronics module (presumably the crystal thingummy) and a package of components and hardware. I opened this and my heart sank – perhaps, I thought, I should have bought a built-up one. There were strange little bits, such as a curious little white plastic thingie with three prongs. It transpired later that this was a potentiometer. To someone who last saw a potentiometer in the form of a Wheatstone Bridge in school physics class in the early 1960s, this came as somewhat of a shock.

Total assembly time was around 3 hours. Be warned! To folk not used to this sort of thing, much of the work is fiddly and finicky, demanding the possession of three hands, all having long, slender fingers with universal joints at the ends. You will also need more wire than that supplied. My solder joints were messy in the extreme. Moreover, for someone such as myself, the instructions were poor to the point of non-existence, which means that folk with zero knowledge of things electrical and electronic should think twice about attempting this. So, finally it was assembled and I switched it on – and nothing. Well, not actually nothing, just completely the wrong sort of something – a feeling in a cold garage of a source of heat. One of the transformers had become too hot to touch. David White said it was shorted out and pinpointed the probable problem, so we were in action.

Well, sort of. There then arose a further hurdle. David had said that I should take the LP12 “back to Basikâ€Â, which I interpreted as tossing away the Valhalla and connecting the PSU in its place. Not quite… When I gazed for the first time on the Valhalla board, I saw that there were two wires going in, but four coming out. What went where? I posed the question to the ever-patient, ever-helpful Dr. White. Aha, he said, he'd assumed I knew that the Basik has, between power line and motor, a little circuit that looks like this (courtesy, The Vinyl Engine):

Suggested values are (given a motor resistance of 8k8 ohms and inductance of 10H). For 240V, 50Hz :
C1
--------+----||---------------- Blue
| R1
+--/\/\/\---+---------- Red
240VAC |
= C2

--------------------+--+------- Grey
|
+------- Grey
R1 = 20k ohms C1 = 0.1uF, C2= 0.1uF, Vout is about 75V

(Sorry, doesn't come over correctly, but at least you'll recognise the real thing in The Vinyl Engine)

He suggested that I get an old Basik circuit. However, these are very rare (I saw only one on eBay, at an outrageous price) and Linn doesn't make them any more (in fact, LP12s now come only with the Lingo, which makes new LP12s even worse value than was previously the case). So, an exercise in circuit building was needed. The instrument group of my employer tacked my little order on to the end of one of their big ones and gave me an old bit of circuit board. So, some messy work with a soldering iron later, I had my circuit and I installed it in the LP12.

And the result? Surprisingly, when I turned it on, it worked, that is, neither it nor I exploded or expired in a puff of smoke or anything like that. However, it did make the turntable rotate in the wrong direction, which is fine if you want to play Led Zeppelin and the like (where it is impossible to make it sound any worse), but not if you have proper music. So, with the advice of David White, I connected the blue and red wires shown above in the “wrong†way and it worked fine. It also gives the LP12 the ability to work at 45 rpm, a rotation speed for which I have no use whatsoever. But did it SOUND any different? To me, no, but at least it stays off when I want it to. It appears to confirm what I said above, that PSUs have little or no effect on the sound of a turntable (to his credit, David White doesn't claim any such thing, so clearly is someone trustworthy). However, for believers in such things with a bit more electronic nous than yours truly, this could be worthwhile.

 

Excellent review tones, you made me laugh out loud

-- Ian

 

Tones,
Excellent. You won't wish to know this but the Linn Basik circuit is simple in the extreme and very easy to copy/clone. I have a Linn circuit diagram in my box of bits somewhere. There are only about 6 common components on the circuit. I have also toyed with a few PSU's on my own LP12 and like you have never really noticed even the minutest amount of difference. My LP12 originally came fitted with a very late (1999) Valhalla PSU which was e-bayed a while ago, I've also tried a 'Geddon clone' , again the player worked just fine but didn't sound any different to the Valhalla, certainly not an improvement that i could hear. I then ran my LP12 with a NOS genuine Basik circuit that i picked up off e-bay for £25. I now have the Basik supplied by an old Moth 'Flutterbuster' PSU. The only real benefit of this is 45 rpm at the flick of a switch , at a much lower price of a Lingo. The Flutterbuster actually blew up when i first used it with a huge flash and puff of smoke , I am only using it now as i spent about 6 months DIY fixing it ( i happily used the Basik on its own during this time @ 33 rpm) . I'm still not sure which component actually fixed the problem, I just went for the carpet bomb approach and changed nearly all of them

 

if you search the web, you may've already, you can find other diy psu's, there are clones of armageddon's, and sadly, though a very nice psu, the armageddon is a total rip, it is just a big transformer, with that rc network, very much like the basic.

I think there were others, the origin live is quite popular, in the past pink triangle did one, avondale audio do one, there are probably more....

the lingo however is very clever, horridly complex, and I can see why that is pricy,

nice write up

anyone understand turntable psu's...? why the phase shift network and how is 33 rpm attained from an ac motor?

I think there are the 2 ways for ac, rc network and crystal oscillator, then

you have dc motors....

 

an AC motor speed is controlled by the amount/config of windings in relation to the frequency of the phase. By creating a phase shift you create a kind of pseudo 3 phase and can alter frequency.

 

surelly the only real point of a better offboard PSU for a turntable is to regulate the power to the motor and hence acheive a more stable rotational speed (cutting down pitch instability etc) thats the only real reason i can see for having a PSU,

that and the ability to change speed quickly and easilly.

 

I see no argument with that, but just read of the apparently miraculous changes in the sound quality wrought by the use of PSUs, much, much more than merely having your long sustained piano notes sound better. For example, "Stereovile" raves over how much better are LP12s equipped with the Lingo and the Armageddon over, say, those with the Valhalla, and how different they sound from each other. You can read the same sort of stuff over on PFM and Naim. My tendency is to wonder what these people were drinking and/or smoking at the time of listening and please may I have some. Of course, these are the people who can tell the difference when a fuse is the "wrong" way round (see current slanging matches on Naim and HFC Forums).

 

What about the effect of dirty waveforms going into the plinth where the motor is mounted, which makes the motor vibrate, which is converted to mechanical energy, which gets to the arm and cartridge... is that all rubbish too? Sincere question.

 

Steve, my personal opinion is that this sort of thing is grossly exaggerated by some folk. Certainly the LP12 motor is completely isolated from the arm by the deck's suspension system, and I think that the non-suspended decks (Rega, etc.) have their motors mounted in rubber. I suspect that some people simply don't have enough to occupy themselves and/or the "toy" factor of the equipment is more important than the music.

P.S. What, exactly, is a "dirty" waveform? And why should they go into the plinth?

 

I meant not a pure sinewave going to the motor - dirty in the sense of containing harmonics that are not intended to be there. As outlined on http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/gyroqc_e.html for example. (added in edit)

It may well be that the effect is exaggerated as you say, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, which you seem to be sliding over to. Motors may well be isolated, but there's no perfect isolation, at least so long as there's a connection to the platter.

Anyway, I'm not the right person to defend this position, so I'll leave that thought with you and leave it to a real turntable fanatic to pick up the thread if they want to. Alternatively, you can take the last word

 

Only insofar as I agree that there will certainly be some vibration, Steve. However, I don't think it has any noticeable effect at all. I guess I'm the wrong person to discuss this sort of thing as I am NOT an audiophile, not to mention probably this Forum's biggest sceptic/unbeliever, so I simply don't take this stuff at all seriously. My LP12 played fine before the PSU, and it plays fine after, with the advantage that I can now switch it off (45 rpm isn't an advantage as I have only a couple). I'm sure a turntable diehard would think otherwise, but, hey, it's a free country.

 

i think the changes described by many reviewers are most likely because they want them to be there. Its amazing what you can hear once you hav etrained yourself to listen for it... or even to find it on purpose.

if your convinced your system is doing something wrong... or right for that matter.. you will probably find yourself hearing it.. regardless of wether its actually there.

im sure there are minute differences in what power supplies do for turntables... but i can imagine it being more than 2-3% of the performance as a whole. at which point... is it truly worth all that money?

if your on a holy grail hunt for the perfect setup.. and have unlimited funds then by all means. Me... i'll stick to more attainable means of reproducing music.

 

What is that 2-3% based on?
How about reducing/eliminating speed fluctuations? Reducing mains distortion and thus reducing the noise generated by the motor and vibrations traveling down the belt straight into the platter, into the bearings and the record? Or do they not affect TT performance If not, what do you class as the important bits to TT design?
As with virtually everything audio, good design starts at the PSU imo. Obviously the returns you get vary as with where your starting from, I'd hope hanging a £300 project speedbox on one of those £50K blue pearl things would be a step in the wrong direction but for cheaper decks which were made to fit a budget it could be a big upgrade, more worthwhile than changing arms etc.

 

i was excluding the speed variation variable.

i doubt if the other changes you mention such as mains distortion getting through the belt etc really make a whole lot of difference.

by the time a distortion which is inherently small travels through a rubber belt and then a platter and eventually gets to the cart.. id be amazed if its even detectable.

Id certainly like to see some actual test data on that.

i cen see far more gain to power supplies being used on cd players where they feed delicate circuitry and optics than on something as basic as spinning a single motor. Hardly a complex job by any means.

 

To hear the noise generated by the motor,
try removing the belt, replace the platter put a record on and lower the arm onto the record, start the motor and listern to the noise through the speakers,
it's gives a good idea of why you need to have the motor running as smoothly as you can,
give me a decent power supply every time

 

Lingo view

I'm also a sceptic (and an electronics engineer) so I also was very sceptical about the PSU thing. In spring however I had a Lingo 1 installed on my Valhalla LP12. Even my girlfriend (who thinks that the £400 I paid would have been better spent on shoes and handbags) sat down and said that she could hear an improvement. I played a lot of LPs that I know well and kept pulling out new ones to check. There was no doubt about the improvement. Of course a lot of factors could be at work here, but I couldn't deny the often stated points of improvement: Much lower bass, better clarity and especially much better treble. Cymbals now had much more of that metal sheen they have in real life.

Considering the minute movements of the stylus and the fact that the signal is amplified 100.000 x or more, I can understand why even the smallest changes in the source can result in audible change. (if you magnified the groove wall to about 6' the smallest treble-undulations in the groove would still need a magnifying glass to be seen). Whether this is actually picked up by the cartridge is another matter, but it goes to show that we're talking really small and delicate mechanics here.

Maybe the Lingo improvement doesn't merit shouting and screaming, as some magazines have done, but it is real and quite big nonetheless. I do have quite acute hearing (I get annoyed at the thermos whistling in the kitchen, that noone else notices) so perhaps I'm lucky/unlucky depending on the view. It could of course also be psycho-acoustics at work, but I didn't tell my girlfriend about the nature of the improvement beforehand and she came up with the exact same things (and no, she reads fashion magazines, not Hifi mags

In conclusion, try and listen and if you like something fine, otherwise, fine (buy new shoes and handbags instead)

Cheers.

 

What was the point ?........Are you going to remove it as makes no difference ?

Conversley I've used Three out board PSU on different TT and Found that they play a huge role in the final sound.
For the record [pun intended]
Logic DM101 mk II......logics electronic psu.... resynesised mains frequency
Alphason Sonatta and Atlas psu
Gyrodec and QCpsu.

Even cloth eared friends with zero hifi intrested could hear the difference!!!!

 

Obviously not meant for the previous gent, so I'll assume that it was addressed to me. My little piece said that the PSU did indeed make a difference - I can now switch the LP12 off and it stays off, and I now have 45rpm (for which I have no use whatsoever). So, positive report. However, it made no difference to the way anything sounded.

The psychology of perception is an interesting subject, don't you find?

 

Allow me to point to the large number of direct-to-disc recordings that run 45rpm. Check eBay for "direct" and "LP" and you'll see. In particular one record stands out: San Francisco Ltd. from Crystal Clear records. It's a 1976 release featuring some fine jazz musicians. The sound is simply out of this world and the music itself is superb. As you may know D2D records are recorded directly to the master, live and without compression and then very few copies are made on virgin vinyl. This particular LP was a large part of the reason why I was interested in the Lingo as I thought the 45 adapter was a hassle. I've bought a handful of such LPs on eBay and never been disappointed. For technical reasons such recordings cannot be made on CD - and there'll always be the A/D conversion.

 

... it's this one I'm raving about - if you haven't got it, buy it: http://cgi.ebay.com/SAN-FRANCISCO-L...goryZ306QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

p.s. it's not folk, but jazz