Tír Na HiFi

Just a mini review on one of the most important elements to getting excellent music playback from a PC based solution to HiFi.
To get to where I am currently just a little background how myself and others here became aware how the quality of a Power Supply has so much to do in achieving true High Fidelity in music playback.

It started for me at a get together at Fran's place one weekend several tears ago where Fran (Tir Na HiFi founder) had tested a simple Maplin Linear 12v supply on a PC where compared to the standard ATX supply, the substitution of a linear 12v supply on the PC gave an improvement to the music which we all heard instantly and thus started the search for what could be achieved with better power supplies.

In those intervening years many of us tried various off the shelf battery solutions, linear supply solutions and home made solutions most notably by Nigel here on Tir Na HiFi.

Fast forward after many get together's with Nige leading the way with his home built linear supplies and battery solutions winning the day, I have been looking for an off the shelf solution to compete with the home built linear/battery solutions and I am glad to say we are getting there.

I have been using various combinations of Teddy Pardo Linear supplies, IFi IUSB supplies and Anker batteries in recent years with great results but finally I bought a Paul Hynes Linear supply which has given an amazing improvement in sound.

I finally received my SR7 this week after 6 months waiting and boy am I glad I bit my lip and hung on...it is an SR7EHD multirail supply currently specified for three rails, 12v @ 10A, 5v @ 3A, 5v @ 3A at £1,040.
It is expensive and I was reticent for a long time whether I would commit to such an investment without hearing one.

I have been listening to music this week and could not pull myself away from my system; the improvement is staggering with the new PS on my audio PC.
I would never have believed the improvement could be on the scale I am hearing; the SR7 has replaced a Teddy Pardo 12v supply, 2 IUSB 5v units and an Anker battery 5v supply.
I had a major improvement in my system when I moved from a Meitner MA1 to a Lampizator Big 7 but the addition of the SR7 feels like it almost brought an improvement of double what I heard after the DAC changes.

It will be interesting if it is enough to pass out the home built solutions but hopefully we will find out over the coming weeks.

I have taken some pics which are posted below.

Some more pics:

The regulators look the biz they are proprietary? If not Nigel will no doubt be hunting them down.

Hi Pearse

Glad you enjoy your SR7EHD straight out of the box as well.
Like you I took the jump on my (4-rail) SR7EHD without listening, and am also very satisfied.

I must say you have guts to take it apart already. I wouldn't dare to :-)

Aleg

tony wrote:The regulators look the biz they are proprietary? If not Nigel will no doubt be hunting them down.

Yep, he sells them for a fair amount, and I'm sure he considers them to be proprietary.

I'm too cheap to spend that much money on a PS myself, but I am curious to see how Nigels's stuff compares.

Randy

great pics Pearse

the reg boards aren't the usual ebay stuff
im certainly not a p hynes expert but these boards seem to be custom made seem much more complicated that what were using to keep our battery cells maintained

Crom tested his p hynes 5v vs 2 lifepo4s at 5v
said there wasnt much difference in it sq wise on ssds

anyway im not aware of any other ps contenders for top notch sq at these amperages

lifepo4 vs h hynes supplies
im expecting a close match

Can we hook up this to tonys pc easily for a-b comparison?

Thanks Pearse for detailed pictures.

I just wondered what is the purpose of the aluminium little square block and what is the purpose for the other one what looks like cooper block?

sima66 wrote:Thanks Pearse for detailed pictures.

I just wondered what is the purpose of the aluminium little square block and what is the purpose for the other one what looks like cooper block?

Heat dissipation. Those regulators are shunt regs so there's a lot of current going through the Mosfets bolted to the metal blocks.

jkeny wrote:

sima66 wrote:Thanks Pearse for detailed pictures.

I just wondered what is the purpose of the aluminium little square block and what is the purpose for the other one what looks like cooper block?

Heat dissipation. Those regulators are shunt regs so there's a lot of current going through the Mosfets bolted to the metal blocks.

Thanks John,
I thought that it has to do something with vibrations, but then cooper did not make sense! :)

nige2000 wrote:Can we hook up this to tonys pc easily for a-b comparison?

I have it hard wired into my PC with the cables that came with it and I do not have another set of cables.

Just jumped on RS to see if I can get some XLR connectors we can wire up for Tonys at the weekend.
If I get them in time then it should not take too long to make up cables which we can plug into the back of the PS.
I have some Molex and SATA power connectors left over from my PPA order which can be used on the ends if needed.