Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Linn and Switched Mode Power Supplies

I have just come across this:

"Introducing Utopik, Linn’s all new generation of exceptionally efficient and highly responsive switch-mode power supplies for their products.
Utopik provides the best of both worlds, outputting maximum power whilst retaining speed and optimal efficiency. It boasts absolutely stable output voltage; providing Linn products with optimal power regardless of the current demand. Featuring Intelligent Valley Switching, Power Factor Correction, and with precision regulated and isolated power rails – these power supplies are Linn’s cleanest and best yet."

This is in evident contrast to the direction Meridian took a few years ago in moving back to linear supplies, but, as some of you may have read in one or two posts I have submitted, well designed switched mode power supplies (SMPS) using good components can be superior to linear supplies - the doubts being more to do with reliability/lifetime because of their complexity and the need for all parts of the circuits to be operating exactly as intended.

So, a little comfort for those of you who have stayed with SMPS! Meridian weren't being cheapskates in opting for SMPS even if they sometimes failed a bit more often than one would like.

Actually I think there were, because they didn't think that it mattered. The first time they put an LPSU into an 8xx unit, to paraphrase, the quote was something like: "[censored], we should have done this years ago".

I'm sure that SMPS can be done well. In Meridian's case, the high-frequency switching RF was probably a problem. Perhaps Linn have solved this, but perhaps not. Perhaps its more down to environmental regulations?

I think it's worth mentioning that SMPS supplies can inject noise in both directions, which can have an impact on other equipment, even if noise at the powered unit is filtered out.

Can you give some examples of smps affecting other equipment? Perhaps Linn want to make their products better by adversely affecting the opposition.

John Swenson writes some good blog posts on topics like this: John Swenson’s Tech Corner

That link doesn't seem to work. Is it up to date?

Just looked Swenson up and it seems he died in 2022 (if I have the right person) which could explain the link not being active.

Not sure what happened, but try it again now! I believe it was a different John Swenson who died. This is the chap who designs much of UpTone Audio’s equipment (and I believe Sonore too).

The deceased John Swenson was a music critic so not a million miles from interest in audio quality!

I have read some of the commentary to which you referred and found it a bit smoke and mirrors. He notes that SMPS can be very good and even superior to some LPS. He also notes that the mysterious noise, backwards and forwards, that most designers of electronics know nothing about, afflicts both LPS and SMPS. Unfortunately, in what I could find, he does not say what the noise is, nor how it is caused, nor how it affects sound, but he does say it is at a very low level and hard to measure. Of course, as a seller of goods, he makes and has just what you need to get rid of it. Naturally.

I am not troubled by things I can't hear when it comes to audio quality and I do not buy things that purportedly overcome problems that I cannot discern. I am completely satisfied that I cannot hear the difference between a good SMPS and a good LPS so I don't mind which I have got except that, in my experience, the SMPS that people make and use are often not as reliable as LPS. I also find LPS easier to fault trace and repair if they do go wrong. On the other hand, speaking as a physicist (well, educated as one) I can see how SMPS are able to provide superior performance from how they work (if executed properly). So Linn's move is not a great surprise.

As always, though, I really don't mind what people choose to buy if it makes them feel good. One may not understand why it makes them feel good, but what people do with their money is a matter for them not me. What I do mind is people telling me what to think, especially when it comes to MQA. I single that out purely because of the suspiciously vehement comments that there are about it and the fact that when I first heard an MQA'd early recording (mono) of Louis Armstrong at a Meridian demonstration, it was the first time in the modern era (meaning about 1965 onwards) that I had heard an advance in sound quality that I could distinctly discern as, for me, a major step forwards. This despite the fact that the original recording was pretty basic. When I think about the massive variations in microphones and their positioning, studio acoustics, sound balance, mixing and mixing desks, the personal views of recording engineers, the adjustment on the day of the recording electronics and so on, frankly, listening to the sound (as opposed to the music) to detect vanishingly small features to worry about is not my preference.

Indeed, he and UpTone have made a living from this secret sauce.

I read some of his stuff a while back when I was investigating USB. I found that his "principle" of ensuring the signal was as clean as possible before hitting the USB receiver chip (so that it didn't engage some of its "noisy" circuitry) was, in general, good engineering practice. Meridian, for example, always urged up-sampling to 96k as soon as possible in the chain as they believed the signal was more robust (to jitter I think).

Ideally, well designed equipment should be immune to PSU noise, RF noise, HDMI noise, USB noise, etc., but the reality is that it's harder than most people think; so the "do no harm" principle is a good 'un.

I think it was to 96k and also MHR (encryption) that helped to remove the signal correlated noise. I may not recall that fully though. It's been a while.

I'm not surprised there was confusion :-)

While I think your arguments are better put to him, as mentioned in a previous comment, many thousands of customers rave about the products he designs and his arguments shouldn't be dismissed. We should also remember that he isn't likely to tell his competitors how he does it!

I completely agree

I wouldn't think of doing so!

I agree, however, the improvement does seem to be dependent on the equipment in use