Mains
DIY
HiFi Cables
Power Supplies
Computer Audio
Vinyl Essentials
HiFi Equipment
Speakers
Headphones
Music
This is a fully regulated linear power supply to fit the new Chord Qutest DAC, we do not sell Chord products, this is a power supply to power it. Also works with Raspberry Pi.
MCRU have available one of their award winning fully regulated linear power supply’s for this DAC. Our power supply’s are designed and built in the UK by Longdog Audio, owned and run by respected UK audiophile Nick Gorham, the power supply’s have won 2 Hi-Fi Choice 5 star awards for sound quality and will improve the performance of any equipment connected to them.
The PSU can be supplied in silver or black and is supplied with a basic power cord to suit your country.
The design rationale behind these power supplies is below. Available with 120/230/240V input (you do not need to specify this as we can configure it based on your country).
All our power supplies are plug and play, simply attach to the DAC using the supplied micro USB connector and attach the supplied power cord, plug into the mains and enjoy.
The design thoughts behind the 2 box PSU are below.
When thinking of regulation, it’s worth remembering the Roman god Janus. Who was the god of gateways, and was a two faced god looking in both directions. Likewise a good voltage regulator is required to look in both directions at once. From one direction you have the mains supply, with the ever increasing noise, distortion and random variation that exists on our household mains supply. In the other direction you have the device you are supplying power to. The load will be asking constantly varying current, and the job of the regulator will be to ignore the varying load and to supply a rock steady voltage that ignores the changing load.
To ask a single regulator to perform both tasks means that it can not do either as well as it could. We don’t ask our regulators to be two faced, we split the two functions into two separate regulators and put them both where they can do the best job.
The first regulator is close to the mains supply, its job is to take the incoming mains and convert it into a low(ish) noise DC supply, and to isolate the mess that is our household power lines from what follows. In most power supplies on the market, the output of the first stage would be directly connected to the load device, and that would certainly be an improvement over the supplies that most manufactures provide. But we can do better by adding the other face of Janus to the system.
The second regulator is supplied with a clean low noise supply, and its job is to handle the changing demands of the load. To do that, it needs to be as close to the load as possible. So we remove the second regulator from the main box, and place it close to the load, both electrically and physically, that removes it from the noise and interference of the mains supply, and allows it to spend its time looking towards the load. Typical commercial voltage regulator chips are general purpose devices, but are not quiet enough for the task on hand, so the second regulator uses a bespoke regulator based on a low noise multi stage filtered voltage reference, a low noise error amplifier and a high current low resistance mosfet. To allow it to handle the changing load it also needs to supply current on demand, so all the remaining space in the second regulator is filled with low impedance capacitors to act as a local energy source.
Using the two stages of regulator, we achieve a noise floor equal or better than most battery supplies, and a effective source resistance of the order of 0.02 ohm (and the short cable run to the load avoids increasing this valve by adding copper where its not needed, and the use of a discrete regulator design allows that tiny value to be maintained way above frequency any audio device operates at.
Dac Power Supplies
2.5 Amp Linear Power Supply for Music Servers + Streamers
Available Models
OPTION ONE – Standard Model – Basic mains lead £295.00
OPTION TWO Kimber DC Kable, Furutech Gold plated IEC inlet, AMR Gold plated fuse, Supra Lorad mains lead to suit your country £450.00
OPTION THREE Pure Silver DC Cable, Furutech Rhodium plated IEC inlet, SR Orange fuse, Isol-8 Wave mains lead to suit your country £650.00
OPTION Four Pure Silver DC Cable, Furutech Rhodium plated IEC inlet, SR Orange fuse, MCRU No. 75 SE mains lead to suit your country, MCRU isolation support stand £750.00
Apogee MIni DAC Linear Power Supply
Arcam irDAC Linear Power Supply
Audiolab M-DAC Regulated Linear PSU
Richard Lockwood (verified owner) –
Having decided to invest in a Qutest after getting a Cyrus CD t cheap(er) on eBay, I was slightly disappointed by initial listenings. And gobsmacked by the flimsy wall-wart power unit – especially after reading a review saying that Chord had worked hard on the internal power supply thus negating the need to replace this plastic n pins thing! My previous Audiolab CDQ had really opened my ears to what CD could sound like with a half-decent DAC, and first listenings resulted in a sound that, to me, seemed no better: perhaps some more detail, but the sound wasn’t very ‘rich’, and I was a little deflated. In for a penny, in for more pounds, I invested in this Linear Power Supply and – Hallefkinorchestra! – I was blind but now I can see/hear! More of everything. This is what all the fuss is about! With CDs I had played scores of times, like Slayer’s ‘Seasons in the Abyss’ (1990), I was literally hearing things I hadn’t heard before, and the overall sound was so much more musical & dynamic. Go for it – it is worth the investment (and is impressively well-made).
john.rossall (verified owner) –
I was quite sceptical, having read statements from Chord about the perfect nature of the stock power brick, but I also watched a YouTube clip by The British Audiophile where he’d tried a MCRU LPS with a Chord Mojo. I also contacted David Brook through the website. He was confident and invited me to try and return if I was not happy.
I have a pretty good system, the Qutest feeds a Sugden amp and already sounds pretty sweet. Anyway, it sounds better. Here’s the thing, I can see why it might not work for everyone, I had to switch from one to the other to pick out the changes. The difference is subtle, but it’s distinguishable. If you don’t have your system already performing as close to what it can possibly achieve, then I suspect (I’m no expert) adding high quality power supplies will not have the impact it’s had for me. I suspect if you don’t have good imagining and instrument separation, then I can’t imagine that this will do it for you. But if you have a good sound already, I think this will exaggerate all the best bits. I don’t have the words, I’d say The British Audiophile puts into words what I’ve experienced.
simondilley (verified owner) –
I plumped for option 2 but asked for the 75 power cable as a custom request. Whilst David acknowledged that this would be possible and that he would invoice me for an extra charge. The invoice was never sent and when the power supply was delivered, it was option 2 without my custom request. This was disappointing, I’m hoping that David will at some point invoice me for a replacement 75 lead and take the supplied lead back as an exchange.
Now for the good bit, right out of the box the power supply made my Qutest sound more refined, fuller and richer wider and with more depth more defined. Then in 2 or 3 weeks of use the sound improved again. Just wonderful and without the order hitch would have been 5*