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Post by Bender on Oct 23, 2017 18:28:14 GMT -6
Bump! Can't wait to hear the results from this! On a somewhat (un)related note, I do have an amateur question about the dc link switches found on the Capi rack and on some other chassis.....do you enable DC link when using a double carded module....or two preamps/fx...say vp 28's when being used as a stereo pair for inserts.... never explained anywhere and I've always been curious as to their function and ASSumed that's what they were for. Silly I know!
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Post by mulmany on Oct 23, 2017 19:26:26 GMT -6
Bump! Can't wait to hear the results from this! On a somewhat (un)related note, I do have an amateur question about the dc link switches found on the Capi rack and on some other chassis.....do you enable DC link when using a double carded module....or two preamps/ fx such as compressors being used as stereo pair... for example say i've got 2vp 28's when being used as a stereo pair for inserts I'd want to enable dc link? or no.... never explained anywhere and I've always been curious as to their function and ASSUmed that's what they were for. Silly I know! DC link is most commonly used for linking compressors for stereo use. |
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Post by guitfiddler on Jan 10, 2018 6:37:38 GMT -6
Bringing this back...Do we have any new info to add? I am in the market for a 10 space!
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Post by guitfiddler on Feb 7, 2018 14:43:12 GMT -6
So I've been testing out a bunch of 500 series racks lately because I'm trying to launch a new 500 series product and want to verify compatibility. drbill has been helping me, too. Between the two of us we have: API 500V with outboard linear supply CAPI rack with outboard linear supply Avedis R52 with internal linear supply Purple Sweet Ten with internal SMPS Rupert Neve Designs R6 with internal SMPS Radial Workhorse with external SMPS My conclusions thus far are: 1. Whatever my assumptions were regarding SMPS vs. linear and outboard vs. internal were wrong. 2. Not all modules have the same performance with every rack on the market, especially with regards to noise. A module made with IC's might perform just fine, but a module made with transistors or tubes might not. 3. One of these racks has weird modulated noise that sounds like an 8-bit video game. Before I name names I want to touch base with the manufacturer to find out if this is normal. If so, then I will not recommend this rack. 4. The quietest rack in my personal possession is the Purple Sweet Ten. It's about 20 dB quieter than the RND R6. I think it may be the quietest of the lot based on what Bill has provided to me. I have yet to put these racks on my Prism dScope rig to take precise measurements. So far I've just been looking at RMS levels in my DAW. If someone smarter than me can give me some tips on the proper way to measure power supply noise using an audio analyzer like the dScope I'm all ears. Has anyone compared the new API 8-sp Lunchbox to the Radial SixPack? I'm tempted to pick up one of those because they seem to use the same line lump SMPS. I assume their filtering scheme is similar. Can anyone confirm? After doing these tests I feel that the best future design strategy might be to provide my own regulation for positive and negative rails right on the 500 series product using LDO linear regulators. That's the only way you can have some control over what's feeding your circuit. Brad Disclaimer: I'm fully prepared to say some of these racks don't meet my minimum requirements for noise performance for the modules I'm testing with. I will ultimately back this up with objective measurements. Brad, did you ever come to a conclusion, or are you going to build your own power supply 500 rack enclosure for your 500 series products? |
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,086 
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Post by ericn on Feb 7, 2018 16:11:12 GMT -6
One thing to remember as informative as Brad's work in this area is, it can all be rendered completely useless at the drop of a hat for most of these units because most of these Vendors may switch OEM PSU suppliers or the OEM might live up to those pesky words on every spec sheet " subject to change without notice" oh the world of electronics, but they will meet those regulator requirements!
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Post by drbill on Feb 7, 2018 16:58:41 GMT -6
Hi guys, just saw this again, and I'll post some of our thoughts (mostly Brad's) here where it makes more sense...... Here goes :
Brad has been swamped with SB and Chroma and Chop Shop orders, as well as the recently release Royal Blue and some new products not yet announced. I know his intent is to finish the 500 rack comparisons, along with a possible solution to what he feels is a short-falling in the 500 rack wars - but that is all in the (hopefully not too distant) future. Ultimately I think you'll find the comparisons hosted on the LTL website when finished, but be aware, these comparisons are not easy and not simple. They require a lot of legwork / testing to make them fair and equitable. All is not what it appears when talking about good hosting for 500 series modules - including multiple layer backplanes for those new racks carrying digital audio. There is good discussion on this on the "other" site if interested where Brad shares a lot of info. Lots of good stuff discussed over there. But I'll hit a few of Brad's recent quotes over there for you to consider. This is a DEEP topic that is not easily or simply discussed :
From BradM :
"I know I said I would never in a million years make a 500 series rack, but just between you and me I may have to soften that position and reconsider. The market is so saturated with racks. We'll see. When you want something done right..."
"Don't let manufacturers simply tell you that more current is better. It's not that simple. And they know this."
"To these points, I think having a distributed regulation scheme in the design is probably the best way to minimize interactions between modules and keep "clean" power fed to each module. It's also the most costly and complicated."
In regards to why Brad is leaning more towards switching supplies (HF noise) and away from linear supplies (LF noise) :
"I personally feel it's easier to eliminate high frequency noise than it is low frequency noise which appears as 60 Hz hum in the U.S. Plus they are universal and can be plugged in anywhere in the world. However, I'm not sure why many of these racks aren't adequately filtering out the switching noise. The API 8B Lunchbox, for example, has a choke-capacitor (LC) filter to do this on the +/- 16V rails. That's good! However, it has no LC filter on the 48V supply. The Radial Six-Pack, on the other hand, has no filter than I can see (just a big capacitor) and all the switching noise just shows up on the rails. Not so great. As for the R10...I have an R6 and it appears to have an internal SMPS and separate regulation / filtering board. While the construction of R6 rack is probably the best of all those I have here, its noise performance is bested by many others I tested.."
"I'm not sure I would agree with that statement. Mechanically speaking - yes. The enclosure is beautiful and there is a all the I/O you could want. The current metering is a nice touch. The metal work is first class. It feels solid. However, when it comes down to peformance... marketing is marketing, and performance data is performance data."
"I obviously can't test everything out there. I tested a BENTO 6, for instance. Supposedly the Bento 6S is improved. Do I try to get a Bento 6S and redo the tests to be fair? I still need to capture audio through each of these racks. Designing a good test can be challenging given that a chosen module might be more immune to power supply issues than another module. So I need to think through what I want my tests to accomplish. Am I trying to simply figure out which racks sound/peform best with my own Louder Than Liftoff modules, or am I trying to make a more absolute judgment. That's, of course, much harder to do."
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Post by guitfiddler on Feb 7, 2018 18:07:07 GMT -6
Thumbs up!
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Post by BradM on Feb 15, 2018 11:41:27 GMT -6
Hey guys, Sorry I've been away from the site for a bit. As Bill mentioned I got a bit busy with running the business and cracking the whip on production. I'm at an inflection point with the business where I need to start outsourcing things I suck at or dislike doing so that I can keep up with the things I enjoy doing...like designing new products. Anyway... Thanks drbill for covering for me. Everything you pasted here sums up my thoughts nicely. ericn - You are totally correct. As it is, some of the racks I've tested are last year's model (like the Bento 6 vs. the 6S for instance). It's hard to keep up with everything. But at least it's a start. I'm still struggling with the best way to present my findings/data/thoughts. I'm also struggling with how to best prioritize my time in general. There's only so many hours in the day so usually the priority is customers, sales/inventory, accounting/admin, new designs, and then fun nerdy stuff. Obviously if the fun nerdy stuff can be leveraged for the business then it moves up the list. Brad |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 15, 2018 11:58:30 GMT -6
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Post by BradM on Feb 15, 2018 12:05:19 GMT -6
I thought that was a little strange that they opted to semi co-brand the rack with Heritage since I assume BLA knows their way around power supplies and regulator designs already. I don't understand the business motivation for putting "OST" on the rack. It wouldn't seem to carry the same branding weight as something like Rupert Neve's signature on an SE mic. Brad |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 15, 2018 12:10:15 GMT -6
I don't know the details, but I think BLA is connected to Heritage now, possibly sharing management and design expertise.
The patchbay seems like a great idea, don't you think?
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Post by guitfiddler on Feb 15, 2018 12:12:19 GMT -6
I'm looking at the Supercarrier 500 11 space from Wes Audio. It looks as if this power supply powers each individual piece in the rack separately instead of powering each connecter in series? I'm still trying to research this stuff and wrap my head around it. I am looking at this piece because I know a person in particular using it with no problems, and that is a great price for 500 rack power supply.
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Post by indiehouse on Feb 15, 2018 12:19:30 GMT -6
Does it even get much better than the CAPI stuff? I have zero issues with mine. It's built like a tank.
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Post by BradM on Feb 15, 2018 13:35:45 GMT -6
Does it even get much better than the CAPI stuff? I have zero issues with mine. It's built like a tank. I'd say a 4-layer backplane with proper ground and power planes, and individual regulation on each slot using state of the art LDO regulators would give the absolute best performance. I'm not sure which racks have those design features. Brad |
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Post by BradM on Feb 15, 2018 13:38:22 GMT -6
I don't know the details, but I think BLA is connected to Heritage now, possibly sharing management and design expertise. The patchbay seems like a great idea, don't you think? Interesting, I didn't realize there had been a business partnership. That makes more sense. I could see guys with no patchbay in their setup already being really jazzed about that feature. Although the new Flock Patch system is way more slick for a hybrid setup. I got the demo at NAMM and was impressed. Brad |
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Post by gouge on Feb 15, 2018 15:43:44 GMT -6
Does it even get much better than the CAPI stuff? I have zero issues with mine. It's built like a tank. I'd say a 4-layer backplane with proper ground and power planes, and individual regulation on each slot using state of the art LDO regulators would give the absolute best performance. I'm not sure which racks have those design features. Brad Dont quote me but I thought the jlm racks headed down that path. |
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Post by Quint on Feb 15, 2018 18:31:47 GMT -6
Hey guys, Sorry I've been away from the site for a bit. As Bill mentioned I got a bit busy with running the business and cracking the whip on production. I'm at an inflection point with the business where I need to start outsourcing things I suck at or dislike doing so that I can keep up with the things I enjoy doing...like designing new products. Anyway... Thanks drbill for covering for me. Everything you pasted here sums up my thoughts nicely. ericn - You are totally correct. As it is, some of the racks I've tested are last year's model (like the Bento 6 vs. the 6S for instance). It's hard to keep up with everything. But at least it's a start. I'm still struggling with the best way to present my findings/data/thoughts. I'm also struggling with how to best prioritize my time in general. There's only so many hours in the day so usually the priority is customers, sales/inventory, accounting/admin, new designs, and then fun nerdy stuff. Obviously if the fun nerdy stuff can be leveraged for the business then it moves up the list. Brad What did you think of the Bento? |
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Post by BradM on Feb 15, 2018 19:22:05 GMT -6
What did you think of the Bento? I have the older Bento 6 and not the newer Bento 6S so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. They could have changed all this. My first impression was that fit and finish was really nice, and it includes a lot of I/O. I soon realized that the thing is nearly impossible to get apart. Instead of designing for easy repair I feel like it was designed for tamper proofing, which was frustrating. The internal supply is a pair of off the shelf Meanwell switchers. There's a custom regulation/filtering board that creates the 48V rail and also filters the switch mode noise. All that seemed promising. But the audio had a weird resonant tone around 500 Hz which was even visible in my noise measurements. While attempting to make measurements using little load PCBs I created, I discovered that unlike other racks where the top and bottom pins of the edge connector are bridged (technically it's a 30 pin interface...15 top + 15 bottom), the Bento only bridged the voltage rail and ground pins. The other signals are only wired to the top side of the board. So that caused some frustation getting my load PCBs to work since I had put my contacts on the bottom of my board without even thinking that would be an issue. I had to take the whole rack apart and solder in some little bridges on the pins I cared about (refer to my comment above about being tamper proof). To top it all off the LEDs were incredibly blinding, and they weren't all the same intensity. Sooo...the older Bento rack is not in my recommended list, especially when you consider the scores of anecdotal evidence of some modules not working properly. It wouldn't suprise me if they addressed many of these things in the newer 6S version. I haven't tried the new one yet, though. Brad |
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Post by Quint on Feb 15, 2018 19:51:24 GMT -6
What did you think of the Bento? I have the older Bento 6 and not the newer Bento 6S so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. They could have changed all this. My first impression was that fit and finish was really nice, and it includes a lot of I/O. I soon realized that the thing is nearly impossible to get apart. Instead of designing for easy repair I feel like it was designed for tamper proofing, which was frustrating. The internal supply is a pair of off the shelf Meanwell switchers. There's a custom regulation/filtering board that creates the 48V rail and also filters the switch mode noise. All that seemed promising. But the audio had a weird resonant tone around 500 Hz which was even visible in my noise measurements. While attempting to make measurements using little load PCBs I created, I discovered that unlike other racks where the top and bottom pins of the edge connector are bridged (technically it's a 30 pin interface...15 top + 15 bottom), the Bento only bridged the voltage rail and ground pins. The other signals are only wired to the top side of the board. So that caused some frustation getting my load PCBs to work since I had put my contacts on the bottom of my board without even thinking that would be an issue. I had to take the whole rack apart and solder in some little bridges on the pins I cared about (refer to my comment above about being tamper proof). To top it all off the LEDs were incredibly blinding, and they weren't all the same intensity. Sooo...the older Bento rack is not in my recommended list, especially when you consider the scores of anecdotal evidence of some modules not working properly. It wouldn't suprise me if they addressed many of these things in the newer 6S version. I haven't tried the new one yet, though. Brad I have the Bento 10s. I haven't noticed anything weird when compared to my BAE 11 space, though I have all of my 500 series preamps in the BAE and only have four slots filled in the Bento so far with a pair of Electras and a pair of LilPEQRs, so I'm not exactly pushing the Bento very hard so far either. However, I did hear that they made some power supply filtering and distribution improvements in the "s" version. |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 15, 2018 21:26:27 GMT -6
Whoa, that Flock patch system looks brilliant. Thanks for mentioning that Brad. So it depends what the Flock will cost. The patchbay in the Lunchbox is cool for guys like me at home for sure, or smaller studios, but that Flock systems a whole new thing.
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Post by Quint on Feb 15, 2018 22:11:05 GMT -6
Whoa, that Flock patch system looks brilliant. Thanks for mentioning that Brad. So it depends what the Flock will cost. The patchbay in the Lunchbox is cool for guys like me at home for sure, or smaller studios, but that Flock systems a whole new thing. I believe I read that it will be in the $1500 range. |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Feb 15, 2018 23:15:02 GMT -6
That seems fair considering what it can do for pro studios. Me, I’d have to have outboard to patch in first. 😐
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Post by gouge on Feb 16, 2018 3:20:19 GMT -6
SIDEKICK 8 way 500 Series Rack with super power filter backplane PCB
and +/-16v @ 2A type and 48v @150ma VI green SMPS external power supply,
which make this rack & power supply quieter than a linear power supply.
Runs on any mains power in the world 85vac to 250vac.
Taken from jlm site
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Post by jsteiger on Feb 16, 2018 15:08:31 GMT -6
Does it even get much better than the CAPI stuff? I have zero issues with mine. It's built like a tank. I'd say a 4-layer backplane with proper ground and power planes... Sorry but I totally disagree. There is zero to be gained by going to a 4 layer backplane in a 500 series rack. In fact, I have experimented with a 2 layer backplane vs 4 layer in my SumBus mixer and the only gain was in price which was dramatic. |
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Post by Blackdawg on Feb 16, 2018 15:20:25 GMT -6
I just got a TAC 11 slot 500series rack. I know Jeff's PSU will work with it but i went for Cemal's rack mounted PSU itself as his racks have power switches on the front that trigger relays in the PSU so you don't have to go to the PSU or back of the rack to power down.
Cemal's racks also have the best I/O routing i've ever seen on a 500 series rack. I intend to make an all analog mixer with them using ML2s it 2 or 3 racks and running the insert points to whatever i want. Then the outputs hopefully going to Jeffs new Summing mixer.
Cemal was kind enough to do a custom PSU to power 3 racks for me as well for the ML2s. Great to work with the guy. And again, I don't think there is a single chassis out there that has as many features as his do.
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