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RE: Juli@ Follies...

Well... life happened and I didn't get the time to hookup the separate power supplies to the Juli@ until late this week.

And I wasn't happy with it at first. No, it didn't sound bad... but I expected to be blown away and all I got was a little additional detail with a tradeoff of slightly diminished bass and dynamics. Not what I expected out of serious separate supplies. Yah, it could have been component break-in, but I doubted it. Heck, even replacing the caps on the Juli@ made a larger difference.

But this evening, I had a thought and went with it... and it's all changed. My raw supplies were regulated to 5v/+-12v using Dexa discrete regulator boards. Then they went into the 3.3v/5v/+-9v chip regulators on the Juli@. Tonight I replaced the the 3.3v and 5v regulators on the Juli@ with additional Dexa boards. Now I'm getting the improvements in bass, detail, density, texture, and dynamics I expected at first. I guess that the combination of the high-bandwidth Dexa into the somewhat lower bandwidth chip regulators was not ideal. This cMP's sound is VERY compelling and emotive now... and I'm a very happy camper!

And its only gonna get better as it breaks in. Woohoo!

If I get time tomorrow, I'll replace the +-9v regs on the Juli@ that power the output opamps with two more Dexa. Could be good!

Later this week, I'll post a report on what I did to connect up the supplies (I had a learning or two there) and post some pictures.

Between you and me, my cMP is not very pretty... my Zalman case is now FULL with 7 separate linear supplies. I've been mulling over ideas for a custom case... I'll need to move on that if I want to do much more tweaking with this beast! It's also a poster-child example on the benefits of SMPSs... My setup takes up 3-4 times the volume, weighs 5-6 times as much, and produces 2-3 times more heat than an equivalent SMPS.

But it sounds so good now!

Greg in Mississippi

P.S. The difference in sound between the modified Juli@ and having it powered by properly functioning separate supplies reminds me of an early tube-audio exprience I had a few years back. I'd I built up a phono stage that used 6DJ8 tubes and outfitted it with recent-manufacture tubes. Then I found a pair of NOS Mullard 7308s. Woah! I did not imagine it could sound that good. But the best thing here is that none of this setup will age and need to be replaced (except maybe the harddrive someday).


Edits: 04/25/09 04/26/09
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