As one of the Ciunas power supply tour recipients, I’ve been reviewing the Supercapacitor ISO-PS, 5VDC output powering my Calyx 24/192 DAC. Because we ran into an issue with the older version (2-cap) and its SMPS, John sent me the new version with three capacitors, plus I’ve tried some different SMPS feeders. One advantage of this is that I’ve got to listen two versions of the Supercapacitor PS and three different SMPS feeding them. However, it seems the problem had been an unstable and slowly failing SMPS. My reference has been a battery powered supply with 2x18650 batteries feeding 4xLT3045 regulators in parallel to handle up to 2A. This replaced an ifiAudio iPower.
DC cable caveat: it became rather apparent that different DC cables have different sonic performance. So using the supplied DC cable with the ISO-PS gave rather different results than the DC cable I’ve been using heretofore. Best to first compare ones existing PSU to the ISO-PS using the same cable if possible.
Listening:
The Supercapacitor ISO-PS has excellent dynamics. In fact, right out of the box, once charged up, the new ISO-PS sounded almost vise-like in its control of dynamics and especially in the bass. But the soundstage presented more as a flat, two dimensional plane, rather than a more ‘living’ three dimensional stage and this seemed to come with a touch of coldness. After leaving things playing for 48-96 hours, things opened up and become much more natural in all these areas.
I’ve tried AC mains cables before where the bass weight and dynamic attack seemed a bit hypercharged, but the Supercapacitors ISO-PS does not have that generally. It has a sense of attack and pace that works well and feels natural while being rather present. Note that the supplied DC cable did push things in the direction of overdone dynamics, but most of the DC cables I used had great extension, weight, pitch control, and staging without seeming at all bloated or hyper. The Supercapacitors ISO-PS portrays music with a good sense of texture and fine detail and can produce a realistic 3D soundstage, provided one's other equipment and room setup allow. The current 3-cap version is even a little stronger in dynamic control, pitch definition, and stage depth than the older 2-cap version… in a good way. Otherwise the two versions are very similar.
Comparatively, my battery PSU with 4xLT3045/2x18650 has a little lighter touch on the pace of the bass line and lacks just that bit of attack and pace. It is not noticeable on a lot of music but one some it comes across as a light touch, slightly polite, and therefore has less apparent drive, attack, and emphasis in the note sequence of some musical passages.So, the Ciunas ISO-PS qualities help some music ‘flow’ better. Otherwise the overall quietness, fine detail, definition, sound stage depth, texture, etc. seems close.
All of this is influenced by the DC cable, its gauge, is geometry, type of shielding. I have six different DC cables, each of which interact with the ISO-PS and music differently and as significantly as different power supplies.
I fed the Supercapacitor ISO-PS with three SMPS:
Unbranded 12V 48W shunted SMPS: Supplied by Ciunas, the sound has a fat, round tone notable in the bass, and portrays the edges ever so slightly softer than the Meanwell, but imparts a breath of life to the overall sound with a natural stage depth. Good detail and staging, and is musical. But my copy sometimes became unstable, which did not affect the sound quality, so much as introducing a 2Hz pulse-noise underneath it. When the noise was not there, the sound was great.
Meanwell 9V 54W shunted SMPS: The sound has tighter definition overall but heard well in the lower bass notes. Slightly more dynamic impact. Good sound stage depth, with fine detail and nuance in HF and LF. This had no 2 Hz noise.
Gophert CPS-3205ii Adjustable power supply (0-32V 0-5A), shunted: This had the best of both worlds, albeit at a cost 2-3x that of the other SMPS. It had all the definition, detail, texture, and sound stage of the Meanwell, but revealed the Meanwell as just a hair on the cool side of neutral. By comparison, the music just flowed more organically with the Gophert feeding the Supercapacitor ISO-PS. It had the breath of life and natural musical flow whilst maintaining all the definition and HF/LF nuance of the Meanwell.