Upgrading EverSolo DMP-A6 with LHY LPS-A6 Power Supply

9.0 TOTAL SCORE

LHY LPS-A6 (tested at $286)

Buy Now

Sound Improvment 9

Build 10

Value 8

Pros

Very noticable performance upgrade
Easy to install

Cons

Voids EverSolo warranty

If you’re new to the audiophile world, this might surprise you – but there is a long tradition of upgrading an audio device by upgrading its power supply. The most obvious way is whenever your device comes with a small power brick or a wall wart. This means it is external and easily replaceable. But why would anyone do that? Because these are usually very low-quality, high-noise, switching power supplies. Believe it or not, having a noisy power supply is easily heard in a revealing hi-fi system. More accurately, it is not heard until you exchange it for a better one and realize what it can bring to the sound.

Eversolo DMP-A6 is a very popular network audio streamer I’ve reviewed already and had little negative to say about it. After all, it became very popular for a reason – it performs really well. But can we maybe do something to lift its performance to an even higher level? Enters LHY with their LPS-A6 linear power supply made with that goal in mind.

Build Quality

Without doing a deep dive into the quality of electronic parts such as transformers, capacitors, etc. I’ll just say that LHY LPS-A6 gives a feeling of a well-made and well-tought power supply with high-quality parts. It being linear, means that it is also heavier and has some bigger parts on-board. But worry not, everything is made to the available space well. Aside from the power supply itself, a new flat cable to connect it to the mainboard is provided in the box too. This one is made of silver-plated copper wires.

How This Works

Since Eversolo DMP-A6’s power supply is internal, the LHY LPS-A6 comes as an easily swappable PCB board. To swap them you first have to unscrew and open your Eversolo streamer. Inside, you will notice two separate PCB boards; the smaller one is a power supply attached to the mainboard by one flat cable, and to the case by several screws. If you ever did anything similar, unscrewing these and disconnecting one cable is a quick and easy job.

Now it’s just a matter of slotting in the new LHY power supply, putting screws in place, and connecting that one flat cable. Once that’s done, put the lid back on, screw it in, and you’re ready to go. The only problem with this endeavor is that it will void your Eversolo warranty. That said, there is no warranty seal anywhere on the device itself so if it ever comes to that – I’ll leave the tough moral decisions to you.

Sound

I started listening to the digital outputs first, using several standalone DACs connected to the Eversolo DMP-A6. I was positivly surprised by how tonally richer DMP-A6 sounded. This was true across the frequency spectrum but for me personally most easily noticeable in the midrange. Already clean and well-separated tones now have a new level of harmonic richness, and inner tone detailing. Listen to wind instruments and the improvement will be hard to miss since they strongly benefit from a richer tone timbre. Already good soundstaging is still equally good and stable, but tones inside that stage are now more realistic and believable. Increased detail retrieval doesn’t come at the expense of good tonality though. If anything, Eversolo now sounds calmer and even more natural, without a trace of harshness.

Moving to the analog outputs, and the improvement is probably even more striking. While the analog section already sounded clean, precise, and dynamic, it always had a slightly analytical side to it. LHY LPS-A6 removed that impression completely, bringing a respectable amount of tonal richness. And the DAC section – analog outputs – needed this even more than the digital outputs. It went from sounding like a decent 400~500 dollars DAC (Topping E70 Velvet or SMSL SU-9 Pro for example) to sounding like a very decent 700~900 dollars one (roughly in line with Topping D70 pro, Chord Mojo 2 or SMSL SU-10).

Conclusion

Accessing the value of an upgrade like this one is not a straightforward job. In a more recently and less carefully assembled HiFi setup, this upgrade will be observable but might not appear to be significant enough to justify the jump. However, if you’ve been tending to your system and fine-tuning it for some time, you know it’s decently transparent, and you enjoy pushing it as far as you can – this upgrade will be more than justified. I belong to this second group and I find the LHY LPS-A6 purchase justified even for the digital outputs, and a true no-brainer if you happen to use the internal DAC too.

Topping TCX-1 XLR Balanced Cables

Mojo 2 Portable DAC and Headphone Amplifier

Hi-End 8AG Silver Plated OCC 16 Strands Audio Cable With Carbon Fiber XLR Balanced

LHY LPS-A6 – CHARACTERISTICS

Linear Power Supply for eversolo DMP-A6 [Standard/Master Edition].
Designed and hand-built by highly skilled electronics crews by LHY Audio
Purpose-built for Eversolo DMP-A6 with selected premium components
Low Noise, High Speed, High Current, Low Ripple, Low Dropout DC
Silver Plated internal wiring
The LPS-A6 comes with a pre-set voltage of 120/240VAC at the factory.
Compatible with AC voltage range 115-120VAC / 220-240VAC ± 2%, 50/60Hz.

Official product page

4 thoughts on “Upgrading EverSolo DMP-A6 with LHY LPS-A6 Power Supply”

Hi, I’m a bit puzzled about this review. You give it a 9 out of 10 for sound improvement that is almost the biggest sound improvement you can get according to the scale and to get this really high mark it’s almost like the original power supply should be broken or something. I’m a little curious what this 1-10 scale actually mean. 1 should be no difference at all I guess but 10?

Best regards,
Jan

Hi Jan,

Giving any score to something like this is very difficult but I’ll try to give my best to explain my line of thoughts. The sound improvement is very noticeable. Bigger than the one you get most of the time when adding this much money over this base price. For example, take a great speaker at $850 (the price of A6) then take another great speaker priced at $1150 (the price of A6+LPS). Chances are the difference in performance will not be huge – but more modest. Same with any other device. So adding $300 on top of $850 comes with certain expectations. I try to consider these when weighing how big is the improvement. 1 would be no improvement, 3 would be something different but not objectively better. 5~6 would be some modest improvement. 8~9~10 would be something that brings obvious and easily noticeable improvement. I value all of this based on my previous experiences and investments in similar kinds of upgrades, and knowing what I usually get. In this case, LHY LPS-A6 was in the same category as any other power supply, including external ones. This means it’s not a very mild upgraade like buying an iFi iPower for your DAC, or even iPower X, but more on a level you would expect from the best 200~300 linear power supply to bring.

To be perfectly candid here, I started this whole website without scores. Giving simple scores to sound and our experience of it is a very difficult and above all subjective thing. But so many early readers complained about lack of scores – and said that they love them, and expect them. I argued against them at first, but those kinds of demands were overwhelming – so I had to take into account what readers want to see. I still don’t like it personally. Now many ask where are products that are 2s, 4s, etc. Why is everything 6+. And I knew that would happen. But the answer is that I don’t review mass consumer products, PC audio devices, etc… selling at supermarkets and other general electronics stores that would occupy those scores. Even the worst ELAC, KEF, Topping, or xDuoo product is still leaps and bounds ahead of average Creative Labs, Edifier, Acme, Asus, LG, Samsung, Xiaomi, etc. audio products. Those would be 1 to 5.

Hello, tested on which system (amp and speaker)? Thanks 😉

Upgrading EverSolo DMP-A6 with LHY LPS-A6 Power Supply