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Again, congratulations...

Sounds like you're providing several new wrinkles that will benefit us all.

First, thanks for sharing the info on the new Belleson 2A regulators. I hadn't seen them yet. They look to be THE current contender for DIY supply regulators... I'd even look at their 2A regulator if I were doing another linear/hybrid supply for the main 12v rail. I strongly suspect they are a better choice than the AMB Sigma... and based on your comment about the high-current 5v Salas, it may not be suitable (BTW, can you point to any web references or discussions on this aspect of the Salas? I'd like to see what can be done to make the voltage level more consistent).

You know, as I ponder it more, I think I need to put an order in for a couple of 12v & a 5v 2A regulator from them.

On voltages, earlier this summer, I had been in communication with a lurking-inmate from Oz who had a fully linear supply built. He had pots to adjust the voltages and found (similar to other postings here) that a slightly lower voltage was best sonically. He didn't get around to reporting on the 3.3v rail, but found the sweet voltages for his setup were 4.6v & 11.8v for the ATX connection.

BTW, he used the John Swenson choke-filtered supply for his basic raw DC supplies and was very happy with the results. Very interested in what you're doing for the choke-filtering for your 5v raw supply if you're willing to share it.

Those are the voltages I settled on based on his suggestions.

And I'd agree that using an LT1086-3.3v is likely your best bang-for-the-bux for the 3.3v rail. Sorry, tho, I haven't taken the time to put in my LT3080-based regulator on that rail, so I don't have a definitive opinion on that.

As for heatsinks on the rectifiers for the 5v raw supply, I totally agree with that. Those devices are the hot-spots of my fully-linear supply and putting heatsinks on them was one of the first things I did when trying to resolve my early issues that I thought were related to overheating (but were not). I'd also suggest heatsinks for the other regulators too, especially if you have a fairly high input-to-output voltage differential on them. All of my regulators (all LT1083 or LT3080 based at this time) run from moderately-warm to hot, but I do have fairly high differentials on all of them.

On powering the HDD, if you have a 2.5" SATA drive, they only need the 5v rail. I believe that 3.5" drives need both the 5v & 12v, but I cannot confirm that... it may have changed with the newer 'Green' drives. But I strongly suspect that the best sound quality will be had by using an entirely separate supply (or pair of them) for the HDD instead of sharing it with the USB 5v supply.... the drive(s) seem to be electrical-noise hot-spot(s) in our cMPs.

Finally, my experience with the sonic benefits parallel yours. 'Dense' is the adjective that comes to mind... lot of details, lot of textures, all presented in an easy-to-listen-to, but musical fashion. But I bet your Belleson-based supplies with the choke-filtering on the 5v raw supply might be the best sounding implementation out there currently.

Thanks... And Happy New Year too!

Greg in Mississippi

P.S. I have a few tweak comments too... will put them into the EVS Ground Enhancer tweak sub-thread you, Theob, & Playmate discussed awhile back.
Everything matters!


Edits: 12/31/10 12/31/10
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