DIY Regen Battery tweak

[olpplo]

Hi all,
this is my first post here in this forum.

I'd like to share with you my finding about the lifepo4 mod.

The Regen alone with standard supply didn't impresss me: nothing special except few minor improvements. I didn't use it.
What a surprise when I connected a Lifepo4 battery, following Jkenny guidelines: timbre, no more hard edge, intruments separation and placement, dynamic and really darker blackground, etc, etc.

I don't like to speak using "audiophile" terms but This is really a worth mod to be tried!!!

I'm curious if splitting clock supply from main one can bring further improvements, only I wasn't able to do that.
My audio chain is now Laptop/Jplay/Regen/various dac (Chord Mojo, Tento 1862, Mirand Audio Ak4490, etc.)

Cheers,

[jkeny]

Hi all,
this is my first post here in this forum.

I'd like to share with you my finding about the lifepo4 mod.

The Regen alone with standard supply didn't impresss me: nothing special except few minor improvements. I didn't use it.
What a surprise when I connected a Lifepo4 battery, following Jkenny guidelines: timbre, no more hard edge, intruments separation and placement, dynamic and really darker blackground, etc, etc.

I don't like to speak using "audiophile" terms but This is really a worth mod to be tried!!!

I'm curious if splitting clock supply from main one can bring further improvements, only I wasn't able to do that.
My audio chain is now Laptop/Jplay/Regen/various dac (Chord Mojo, Tento 1862, Mirand Audio Ak4490, etc.)

Cheers,

Welcome & thanks for posting your impressions here
I doubt that there's much to be gained from splitting out the clock supply - you would need our intrepid Nige for that but as far as I remember when we built our version of the Regen using the USB hub chip & clock, powering the clock independently made no difference.
Anyway, I didn't want to make the mod more complicated than it needs be - just a simple connection of two wires & power it by LiFePO4 battery is all that's needed & you get a jump in sound quality like you experienced.

It's strange the reaction of the crowd on audioasylum when I posted this mod :) Always surprises me just how negative most audio forums are - except for this one, of course :). Some would say we are hanging out there but anybody who hears the results of what is being done in here knows that it's not BS, it really delivers quality sound

[nige2000]

nope there will be no improvement in powering chip and oscillator separate
you can power a few light duty devices from one cell without degradation
so for an oscillator and hub chip is not even a breeze

[Sligolad]

Yes it has been some months now since John brought along his battery powered Regen to a group meet and blew away my Paul Hynes powered Regen on the day.

It was always on my list of mods to carry out but with all the other stuff going on right now with Digital Audio it kept slipping to the bottom of the pile.

2 weeks ago John brought along another special bit of kit to a group meet and this was another amazing step forward in digital audio for all on the day, it was very early prototype test but several of us committed to a purchase on the day when John finally gets working units ready for release, we are waiting with much anticipation, cannot say much about it at the moment and it will no doubt require its own thread but we are looking forward to it coming to fruition.

Anyway back to the battery modded regen......John had one with him on the day in his box of goodies so he gave me a loan of it and it has been in my system since and I am not feeling like taking it out so I will have to see if we can come to an arrangement for purchase, there is certainly no going back when you hear it in your system.

Cheers, Pearse.

[rickmcinnis]

I have to disagree with you, Nigel.

USB is a problem.

Please get a SATA SD card writer, get a copy of SLITAZ and copy some files. http://www.slitaz.org/en/get/

That part is not difficult.

I think it shows the shortcomings of USB for audio

link a sata sd card writer for me

what are you comparing this sata sd card writer to?

Sorry for this getting off topic.

I had used a better than average construction USB SD writer. It had a cable so I could use battery power.

After making some copies with this I thought I would hear what happens with using the REGEN so I inserted it into the chain (with battery power, of course) and it was better but I was still hearing vestiges of the sound that I assumed might just be the Achilles heel of digital audio, the lower midrange to the bass was not right - thin and not resolved.

I ordered a pcie based reader which I destroyed before I could use it by connecting the batteries backwards. this thing required a gigantic driver which made me nervous. In fact, I wondered if it was like the PINK FAUN pcie to IIS card that uses USB so I thought it might be a blessing I destroyed it. I am not sure about that but that driver made me wonder.

So with Greg Stewart saying he was using a SATA based writer, and seeing how cheap they are, I got one. Even my first attempt with XP as the copy OS the difference was not subtle. FINALLY I am hearing the low midrange, upper bass, and bass with the weight of the phonograph. But there was obviously some kind of conflict with XP and its use of IDE mode and this card. I was hoping I could do the same thing with the copy os as I had with the ripper os, make it single purpose and very small but the conflict was not going away. One would have to boot more than once to get the card recognized by the OS. BIOS would list it but after booting it would not show up in EXPLORER.

I started looking around at small LINUX distros and found this one that has a good file manager and contains GParted for formatting. It seemed like a perfect fit. It has a very comprehensive task manager that says it takes up 52 mB in the memory. I am using LIVE CD since there is no USB in this setup. One has to have a CDROM to make rips so why not use that?

The SD writer is always recognized with this. There are no hiccups at start up.

I do have to change the SATA config in the BIOS when using SLITAZ to AHCI. Simple enough.

There are plenty of these things available from AMAZON and EBAY. At this point I have four versions on order.

I was ordering from AMAZON a "green" card that received better reviews than a cheaper "red" card. Two times I received the "red" card. The red card works just fine but I cannot stand the idea of paying 22 dollars for a device I can get for 11.

I have ordered these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/281837211706?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131685287973?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/291715245532?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
this one is the one I ordered from AMAZON but was shipped the "red" one. The company apologized for the mix up. The "red" one has only one LSIC, who knows what difference that would make?

http://www.amazon.com/uxcell-Secure-Dig ... 9HBE8YE4BF
this is the "red" one at the good price.

I did not see much of anything at amazon.co.uk.

If you try this and not hear any difference well, I guess you will no longer have to pay ANY attention to me!

I have not tried this with "standard" rips but cannot imagine it not having a similar effect. If you hear something useful I can assure you the ripper OS expands upon this.

[jkeny]

Yes it has been some months now since John brought along his battery powered Regen to a group meet and blew away my Paul Hynes powered Regen on the day.

It was always on my list of mods to carry out but with all the other stuff going on right now with Digital Audio it kept slipping to the bottom of the pile.

2 weeks ago John brought along another special bit of kit to a group meet and this was another amazing step forward in digital audio for all on the day, it was very early prototype test but several of us committed to a purchase on the day when John finally gets working units ready for release, we are waiting with much anticipation, cannot say much about it at the moment and it will no doubt require its own thread but we are looking forward to it coming to fruition.

Anyway back to the battery modded regen......John had one with him on the day in his box of goodies so he gave me a loan of it and it has been in my system since and I am not feeling like taking it out so I will have to see if we can come to an arrangement for purchase, there is certainly no going back when you hear it in your system.

Cheers, Pearse.

haha, Pearse, they call me the "placebo pusher" - I give out a device & people get hooked on the placebo & want more :)

[tims]

Apologies if this has been asked before but after reading this http://www.lygte-info.dk/info/battery%2 ... %20UK.html and seeing all the additional electronics for protecting cells, I'm wondering if in a protected Lifepo4 cell the voltage output is degraded in any way (i.e. more noise and ripple caused by the additional electronics) when comparing it to an unprotected cell of the same type?

[jkeny]

Apologies if this has been asked before but after reading this http://www.lygte-info.dk/info/battery%2 ... %20UK.html and seeing all the additional electronics for protecting cells, I'm wondering if in a protected Lifepo4 cell the voltage output is degraded in any way (i.e. more noise and ripple caused by the additional electronics) when comparing it to an unprotected cell of the same type?

Hi Tims, a couple of points:
- That's a Li-ion battery which outputs 3.7V (not 3.3V) & is not as stable as LiFePO4 batteries (output 3.3V). It's ONLY the LiFePO4 batteries that are being recommended for this tweak
- It's the Li-ion batteries that have the scare stories about fires, etc NOT the LiFePO4 batteries - these are a very safe chemistry
- the cell protection is needed for overvoltage or undervoltage situations. Overvoltage for LiFePo4 batteries is > 3.8V. Undervoltage is allowing the battery to fall to 0V & continuing to draw current.
- cell protection is not needed for LiFePO4 batteries if the trickle charge is regulated to 3.3V & the battery is not allowed to drain

Yes, cell protection circuits do affect the operation of the battery - it may be added noise and/or slower transient response - both of which I believe are important for digital audio devices

Hope this helps?

[tims]

"Yes, cell protection circuits do affect the operation of the battery - it may be added noise and/or slower transient response - both of which I believe are important for digital audio devices"

Yes that helps, thanks John.
I guess the protection cct design is similar for both Li-ion and LiFePo4 batteries (other than the different voltage requirements between the two) so ideally I should be looking for a non protected LiFePo4 battery.

[jkeny]

"Yes, cell protection circuits do affect the operation of the battery - it may be added noise and/or slower transient response - both of which I believe are important for digital audio devices"

Yes that helps, thanks John.
I guess the protection cct design is similar for both Li-ion and LiFePo4 batteries (other than the different voltage requirements between the two) so ideally I should be looking for a non protected LiFePo4 battery.

Yea, don't use any regulators or protection circuits between battery & device being powered - it interferes with the sonics

I don't know what country you live in but do a search for "26650 LifePO4" & get the ones with metal tabs welded to each end of the battery otherwise it's very difficult to solder a wire to the battery ends.

Something like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Accus-26650-R ... Mqg9a2150A