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....#1 - Power cords and the Tranquility's sensitivity to different variants - The engineering staff at dB Audio Labs agonized long and hard over the question of the power cord sensitivity with the Tranquility design. Generally speaking, we appreciate excellent power cord technology. However, this comes at a cost - a substantial cost. So, to turn the phrase a bit, the staff pondered, "Does it make sense to build a DAC the retails for $1495 that requires a power that costs more than double that to sound its best?" Ultimately, the staff decided that this made little, if any sense! The question then became, how to design and optimize the Tranquility to work with lesser power cords without sacrificing the sonics or, said another way, how to desensitize the Tranquility to differences between power cords. Could it be done? The answer is 'Yes!". First, the secondary of the power transformer is damped such that the switch-off of the diodes in the bridge subsequent the power transformer does not resonate with the inductance of its secondary. There is commonly a resonant tank circuit found here with what appears to be a typical bridge rectifier. We also managed to optimize without the use "hexfreds", "Cree diodes", or the like as it would actually degrade the performance. This is about cost and value to the consumer - not about boutique parts in and of themselves. Having taken care of the backward path, the forward path was considered. Here a similarly damped common mode choke is used and these devices, when properly employed, are excellent at taking care of or riding oneself of typical line born noise. Third, having chosen the forgoing, a CLRC or capacitor-choke-resistor-capacitor filter is realized. This further lessens the burden of subsequent voltage regulators and their, in turn, sensitivity of variations in power cords. Moreover, they work more on a fundamental sinusoidal basis rather than on overtones/noise when their inherent impedance is less effective. From there, the Tranquility uses no less than three separate regulators! - two which are surface mount and one of which is discrete - for the output stages and current-to-voltage converters and dac chip. (Yes, the engineering staff listened to all of the well regarded thru-hole regulators in addition to the surface mount regulators to make sure which was best!) Further, each manufacturer or brand of the selected regulator was also auditioned before arriving at those selected. Even a few other things, but we've got to still keep some of our design secrets to ourselves. In a nutshell, the totality of our tuning and proprietary optimizations greatly reduces the sensitivity to variations in power cords. ......Cheers!Eric H
I don't follow the logic (other than 'assuming the consequent') of your assertion that these efforts minimize the benefits of different power cords.
There's 4' of high-end power cord with optimum geometry for the DAC coiled in the base of the chassis under a piece of sheet metal.
Are we talking about the same DAC, DaveC113? Because the Tranquility I have has the IEC mounted directly and connected to the pcb board.
The anecdote of the dac sounding better without the intermediation of a PS Audio Quartet might be more a confirmation of the importance of the cord feeding a conditioner, or the fact that in many systems, the nickel plated PowerPort receptacles within the Quartet aren't appropriate for higher resolution components.
I have a Dodd Balanced Power Supply on the way to check out. Presumably it will clean up the A/C without any negative affects. It will also give me surge protection that I lack connecting the DAC to the wall directly. I'll feel better once it's got a little protection in place.
I didn't know the Dodd Balanced Power Conditioner had surge protection included, are you sure about this? Thanks. Cheers,Robin
I own the Dodd BPT and it doesn't offer surge protection just balanced power.
i think dave is making a funny... doug s.
Eric, Given the size of the NYC Rave membership, hopefully someone will be bringing one to a Rave.Regards,Paul
Hi Guys,Just for clarification sake, there are DEFINITE sonic differences between different power cords used on the Tranquility. The sonic differences are just reduced as compared to most other audiophile power supply circuits. Hence, there are other things that a good power cord may offer beyond our own electronic optimizations and noise rejection schemes. For instance, you should be able to detect some dynamic differences between power cord variants. Our goal was to give you guys the ability to achieve really good sound from the Tranquility right out of the box, without the absolute need of having to purchase a big money state of the art power cord to get it to sound special Cheers,Eric H
As an audio agnostic, what's the essence of SOA pwr. cords? Anything beyond Ga., $ spent & duplicate good filtration which is the sine qua non of any properly designed amp.
