Hey all, I’ve been using the Quad Cortex in a live rig for about two years now. It’s awesome. Currently I’m running the stock power supply through a Furman Power Conditioner, but I’m wondering if it would make a difference to throw the iPower Elite into the mix. The reason I’d like this over say, a CIOKs DC7 is because I have my quad cortex in a rack behind me. All my pedals are midi controlled.
Hi, electrical engineer here. 12V 4A will work just fine for powering the Quad Cortex (4A is overkill but the QC will only pull as much current as it needs). Just make sure that it’s center-pin-negative with a 2.1mm plug.
$300 price tag is steep. There’s a lot of “engineered marketing” language on that product–I snorted when reading “oversized power MOSFET”–but it’s unlikely that you would be able to tell a difference in sound quality from your QC.
Here’s an example of a power supply that’s similar to what I’m using. 12V 5A (again, overkill but won’t hurt the QC), 2.1mm plug, and only $19.
…HOWEVER. That power supply is center-pin-positive. You would need a reverse polarity adapter to use with it:
I’ve been powering my QC this way the entire time I’ve had it. I’ve never had noise or power issues. You could save yourself a lot of money AND have a few power supplies + cables as backups.
I picked up one on the closeout shelf at Wal-Mart $14 that is multivolt from like 9 -24 and supplies 5A at 12V. Much heavier cord than the stock so if I were still gigging I would use it instead but I got it as a spare for lots of pedals. Already had several polarity adapters in the bag. I’ve never had any noise problems from the power supply.
I’ve been thinking about going down the battery route with the QC. The main reason is to be able to use it when playing in places with no power supply, but as someone who has trouble with electrical interference even at home (crappy old electrics, the house need re-wiring!) as I understand it one major advantage of a battery pack is that you eliminate the electrical noise.
Apparently this is even true if you plug the battery charger in to the mains while using the QC, as the Krisdonia units allow pass-through charging, so you are actually powering from the battery while the battery is charging…
The iFi power elite has a claimed spec of 1uV OP noise + ripple vs 120mV on those cheap supplies you suggest. That’s a big difference - does it make a sonic difference, I don’t know but my experience with lots of Pro Audio and HiFi gear points toward low PS noise being surprisingly important. Some one should do a shootout with controlled blind test conditions, see how QC responds to these aftermarket supplies.
I recommend the sweetfoot pedals power supply Neural DSP Quad Cortex
He makes them specifically for the QC’s power requirements, works like a charm and are rock solid
I’ve had zero noise issues with my power supply since day one, including recording and gigging with my QC.
I have no doubt that the iFi is great, but $300 is a tall order when I already don’t exactly need it.
I’m an electrical engineer–if I thought I was having a genuine problem with power, believe me, I would tear my hair out over it and pony up the cash for a high-grade power supply.
My power sucks. I have a furman power conditioner and if I plug the stock power supply into that, use a humbucker equipped guitar and an input noise gate at mild settings (~30% I think) then it is silent as can be.
FWIW when comparing the Cioks DC7 vs the stock PS, the stock PS is quieter. Go figure.
The furman power conditioner isn’t all that important… makes a subtle difference
If you play single coils, I’ve found that any “direct” rig is noisy, which is one reason I lean toward humbuckers or noiseless single coils.
But I’ve tried several modelers, Strymon iridium, hx stomp, fractal fm9 and the QC. All roughly equally as noisy.
I play at home a lot monitoring with headphones and any hum is REALLY annoying to me. But when I play an amp 8 feet away, give me single coils and I can care less if there’s hum.
All that said this 300 dollar power supply is interesting. If you try it out and like it let us know. Sweetwater does have a great return policy
For bad power in the home, you’ll need voltage regulation. The Furman boxes are expensive, but you could get something like this nicer APC UPS with sine wave regulation (like this for example: Amazon.com ). Then plug your Furman conditioner into that for that little extra cleanup and you should have decent clean voltage, a battery backup for gradual power downs at a price that’s not too insane.
That ultra-low ripple voltage will need some clean input. If you’re looking to spend a few hundred, I’d look into something that does decent sine wave voltage regulation (the cheap ones might just chop up waves and therefore introduce noise!) before squeezing that last bit out of a nicer power supply.
