Linear power supply for a Mac Mini

johnsonad · 7951

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Offline johnsonad

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on: December 28, 2014, 09:29:01 AM
Has anyone swapped out the internal switching supply of a 2012 Mac Mini for a linear supply or a battery supply? Is so, what differences are you hearing?  I'm considering this as a down the road mod.  First, I want to see if it sounds sufficiently good without modding with the BH Dac. 

Aaron Johnson


Offline Yoder

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Reply #1 on: January 03, 2015, 07:57:20 PM
I built a new power cord for my Mini and the sound improvement was significant. The OEM is a great little antenna, and that is about it. I looked into alternative power sources and found the cord to be significantly cheaper.



Offline johnsonad

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Reply #2 on: January 04, 2015, 04:29:11 AM
What recipe did you use for your power cord?

Aaron Johnson


Offline Yoder

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Reply #3 on: January 04, 2015, 08:17:07 AM
I used a helix braid similar to the BH cord. In fact and easy way to do it would be to buy the BH cord and then make the appropriate mods. Once I braided the wires, I put a tinned copper sleeve over them and ground that to the AC end. I used Furutech on both ends, but the C7 was the challenging part. The Furutech C7 does not fit properly, so I used the cap of a guitar cleaner bottle, cut a hole in the end to slide the wires through, filled it with hot glue, and then put the shrink wrap on it. See the photos below.

I shielded my cord since we have a lot of electrical interference around here. The shield and a C7 female end is the only mods needed if using the BH cord.

Below is an image of the C7 and AC plug, soldering a ground wire to the tinned copper sleeve, wire config (note where the green ground is), a close-up of the cap I used, and a full image of the finished cord.




Offline johnsonad

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Reply #4 on: January 04, 2015, 09:03:48 AM
Impressive!

Aaron Johnson


Offline orson

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Reply #5 on: February 25, 2015, 12:00:46 PM
That cable is definitely an improvement if you have EMI around your Mac.
For a cheaper first try one can get good results with cutting of the plug of the stock cable, putting tinned copper sleeve over the cable and connect that to the ground of the new plug to mount. That would be probably 5 bucks, you avoid the tricky C7 installation and get a good part of the achievements of the above mentioned cable.
Nevertheless I am interested in thoughts of an external PSU too.

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