I am so sorry to be so late on this write up. I have been busy and traveling lately, but that's no excuse.
The Hynes tour power supply is an SR3-18 with an externally adjustable voltage range of 8.5V to 18V, done using a multimeter and a rotary switch. I left the ps at 18V for all of my uses, and there were many. Although the tour began as a chance for a few of us to evaluate the use of a Hynes power supply for the Antelope DAC (Plus version. in my case) with the locking dc umbilical cord, Paul was nice enough to also send along a "generic" 2.1mm tip positive dc umbilical as well, for use with other equipment. He did that on my behest because I was going to try it on the M2Tech Young DAC I had inhouse.
When the ps arrived I did not have the Young inhouse, however, as it was due to be sent back to Italy for some work, so instead I used the Hynes strictly for the Antelope Plus initially. At the time the Plus was being powered by its stock laptop-style power supply and sounded good. As most have read on these and other forums, the Antelope DACs really don't come into their own until at least 500 hours of use, and then really blossom at 800 hours+. It's a PITA frankly, but patience is rewarded. Well, my Antelope dac was borrowed from Rydenfan (David) and had at least 800 hours on it, but seemed to get slightly better as it settled into my system, nonetheless. The stock ps had nice balance, etc. Installing the Hynes ps, however, took the Antelope to a slightly different sonic level, not night and day, but clearly better. The presentation became slightly more forward, but not at the expense of musicality. The images were better delineated, and the leading edges of pianos and other percussive instruments were tighter and sharper, but not at the expense of smooth organic sound. And to me, the best improvement was a more palpable midrange; timbre was better, guitars were more alive.
These changes are not, as I said, night and day, but are qualitatively better all around. This puts the Hynes ps as a necessary add-on, assuming one doesn't go with Antelope's own Voltikus, a more expensive yet alternative.
So...what about the Hynes vs the Voltikus? Well, it's not a case of who's better, but which flavor do you like. The Voltikus, like Srajan says in his 6Moons review, presents a very smooth and tube-like sound, without smearing or image detail loss. It puts you back several rows, but you are still in the first section of seats. It's french vanilla to the Hynes deep chocolate...either are great flavors but I doubt one would LOVE both. The msrp of the Hynes is about 30% less money, by the way.
I was also able to test the Hynes in several other scenarios (luckily the power ratings of each fit with the 18V ps). I tried it with two other DACS, the Metric Halo LIO-8 firewire pro-style DAC, and the M2tech Young (after it returned from 3 weeks in Italy, which was the main reason this report is so damn late). Net/net, waiting for the Young proved to be not worth the wait....the Hynes/Young marriage resulted in aggressive somewhat grainy first row perspective, likely mostly the fault of the Young, but was not something I could live with. Detail was slightly smeared by a feeling of graininess or maybe a slight amount of digital clipping? The aggressive forward nature was not horrible by any means, but combined with the less than perfect detail, proved to be somewhat fatiguing overall.
The experiment with the Metric Halo ended up being quite interesting in that the stock switching ps held its own pretty well. yes, the Hynes provided maybe a 2% blacker background and maybe a 1% tighter bass control, but was it worth the extra $$....not in my opinion.
Which leaves me with the last (not chronologically) unit I tried...the measily little $150 Alix Linux server. It's nothing but a board and a cf card housed in an aluminum enclosure, attached to USB and the network (see the thread here on AC). I found the stock server to have great potential, wonderful detail, and great frequency extension, but the noise floor was, well, noisy, and the high end was brittle and digital. Classic digititis. In fact, with a few 3rd party inexpensive ps's already demo'd I was becoming convinced that this solution was a classic case of "you get what you paid for". That is, until the Hynes! One word...transformational! The Hynes on the Alix, combined with the additive effects of the Voltikus on the Plus, provided me with the best sound I've ever had in my system. The Hynes cleaned up the digititis, settled down the tizzy high end, and created an ultra-detailed transport that had a noise floor of pure black. The combination with the Antelope's smooth hirez analog stage was glorious.
So, net/net, the Hynes is an absolute must for Antelope owners who do not opt for the more expensive and different sounding Voltikus ps. Although their presentations are different, one could live with either for a long long time. Me?? I ordered the SR3-18 from Paul this morning!!
It will initially go on the Alix while a Voltikus will be attached to my newly purchased Antelope.....GOLD.
Although an 18V ps is overkill for the Alix, I wanted to make sure that the Hynes ps I bought was powerful enough to play with the Antelope too....and anyway, I didn't want to chance that what I heard in the Alix/Hynes marriage was compromised with lesser power.
Randy, the Young is one of two DACs under $1800 (street) I would categorize as keepers (the other being the Bolder modded EE DAC), and would even try a Hynes again...but I think maybe at 15V instead of 18V, etc.. It's ability to do 32/384k is a nice side benefit. I think Marco and the folks at M2Tech have finally worked out the bugs. But for twice the price, I opted to go Antelope and raise my benchmark even higher. (and yes, if we discuss any further let's start a new thread or PM). Sorry for the slight hijack.
I want to thank Paul for his generosity in shipping us a tour SR3-18, and especially for his expertise in building state of the art power supplies. Ken (Bigfish) now has it in his paws, and will then send on to David to compare to the same Plus and Voltikus that I just reported on.
