Well done. It is nice to see someone test these theories, rather than just repeat "FaceBook opinion". I have always been very sceptical that alternative power supplies will solve the QC noise issues by "grounding" it. Most of the miraculous "holy grail" alternatives only have a 2-pin mains connection, and are not even grounded themselves. Those that do have a mains connection to ground are required to do so because they have a metallic case that has to be grounded. The ground connection is then broken by the step-down transformer to the 2 conductor wire to the QC barrel connector. Even if this did carry a ground via the DC negative, the QC is not designed to be grounded this way. Neural made the decision to ground the QC via the XLR connector to the power amplification. They say that they did it this way to avoid ground-loop issues, but it may well have been driven by wanting to avoid having a power supply integrated ino the QC, which would also have meant needing a ground lift circuit. This would have made the QC bigger, and probably more costly to produce. Whatever the motive, we are stuck with the result, and the QC can not be grounded by any alternative power supply. Users may want a more robust power supply, or something that is more "pedal-board friendly". I have no problem with anyone recommending an alternative power supply for these reasons, but none of the options will "ground" the QC or have any more than a marginal effect on noise. I do have a problem with those that claim a different power supply will "ground" the QC and solve everyone's noise issues.
I per-ordered the QC back when they weren't available yet, from Sweetwater. I've read that the supplied power supply for the QC is garbage. I still haven't gotten a better power supply yet. Would you recommend the Cloks/Cioks DC-7 power supply or is there any other alternatives? Thanks in advance Nigel.
I haven't tried anything other than the original power supply, and Iwouldn't recommend anything. People on the forums were slagging off the power supply that comes with the QC, and insisting that various alternatives would "ground" the QC and solve all the noise issues. That is garbage. If you can ground the QC via the amplification, and you can connect the QC to power with the original power supply, I see no reason to spend money on anything else. If you are using QC with headphones, and do not have it grounded by connection to FRFR etc, you may have noise issues because you and the guitar pickups are acting as RF antennas and passing interference down the chain. Only answer to that is to plug the QC into grounded amplification, even if the amplification is turned off. If you need something to power QC on a pedalboard, and you can't plug the original power supply into the mains power that supplies the pedalboard, the alternatives like CIOKS are options. Just beware of units that say they will do the job, but do not actually supply power to the correct specs. Many only actually produce 2A whereas the QC requires 3A, and problems have been reported arising from this.
Fundamentally, you're right, at least in the sense that it's good he actually tests it rather than just sharing opinions. But: I've also tested it with 2 different power supplies (including Cioks) and with 3 different QC units, and the interesting thing is that the QCs themselves behave differently. I had one QC here that had no ground hum whatsoever, not even when connected with just a guitar and headphones, while the other two had this hum. Interestingly, this particular QC then caused issues when connected via XLR to a Midas mixer -> there's something fundamentally not right here. My current QC makes hum noises when I connect only headphones and guitar as long as I use the original PSU. With the CIOKS, these noises are gone. However, the CIOKS picks up noise via the Powerline that the original PSU does not pick up -> CIOKS is not the holy grail, as it is often portrayed.
I use a Cioks DC7 on my pedalboard to power my Quad Cortex along with other devices. I went with the Cioks Crux 12V adapter specifically to power the QC which eliminates the need to use several parallel cables and use up multiple ports on the DC7. There’s a single, dedicated 12V out on the DC7 that the Crux connects to. It’s an expensive setup overall but I couldn’t be more pleased with it.
Sounds like you have electrical noise from your outlets. I use a TripLite Isobar 2 outlet to plug into the wall. It's a surge protector and it filters out the EMI noise. That's why the Cioks was less noisy. It's isolated.
Great work. Meticulous and important. Also, niche as hell! 😂😂😂. I got some Songbird FX USB C adapters coming this week to try. The idea of pairing a brick like the Cioks with a device whose win is its svelte form factor is a bitter pill to swallow.
I'm just looking for a power supply that has a little bit of a beefier cable set up that would stand up to traveling. Unfortunately I feel like I'm kind of bound to using the croix unit or something similar. I'm just trying to avoid the additional RCA cable mess that comes with using that device.
Ouch. So the QC is just.....noisy in general. 7db reduction is significant for sure. Sad that it costs 200 dollars/pounds to get it on an already very expensive piece of kit. I had a QC and sent it back due to it being very noisy. Thanks for the testing.
Purchased a QC few days-Now I find out I need a Cioks power supply AND A F**KING Cioks CRUX??? Attached by 4 cables??? $2100.00 dollars and a power plug that feeds under voltage power to the QC???? AND ALL WITH A PERCEPTIBLE "HUM"?? WHAT THE FUCK!!!
One of the reason I sold mine (QC). Damn it, the in-the.box power supply should work perfectly. Its a cheap piece of garbage and an insult to every customer
@@Nicolae8607 the ground is your guitar. Similar to real amp. I think if they had a ground on the power supply it would create a ground loop between the device and guitar. I’m just paraphrasing what I remember seeing
Neural has probably found the cheapest power supply to ship along with this unit. I can only imagine how cheap the parts inside the QC must be if they did not think its respectful to ship a good power supply with a unit that costs over $1000. 2 years after announcing the product they have still not delivered on the initial promises anyway to their customers.
Well done. It is nice to see someone test these theories, rather than just repeat "FaceBook opinion". I have always been very sceptical that alternative power supplies will solve the QC noise issues by "grounding" it. Most of the miraculous "holy grail" alternatives only have a 2-pin mains connection, and are not even grounded themselves. Those that do have a mains connection to ground are required to do so because they have a metallic case that has to be grounded. The ground connection is then broken by the step-down transformer to the 2 conductor wire to the QC barrel connector. Even if this did carry a ground via the DC negative, the QC is not designed to be grounded this way.
Neural made the decision to ground the QC via the XLR connector to the power amplification. They say that they did it this way to avoid ground-loop issues, but it may well have been driven by wanting to avoid having a power supply integrated ino the QC, which would also have meant needing a ground lift circuit. This would have made the QC bigger, and probably more costly to produce. Whatever the motive, we are stuck with the result, and the QC can not be grounded by any alternative power supply.
Users may want a more robust power supply, or something that is more "pedal-board friendly". I have no problem with anyone recommending an alternative power supply for these reasons, but none of the options will "ground" the QC or have any more than a marginal effect on noise. I do have a problem with those that claim a different power supply will "ground" the QC and solve everyone's noise issues.
I per-ordered the QC back when they weren't available yet, from Sweetwater. I've read that the supplied power supply for the QC is garbage. I still haven't gotten a better power supply yet. Would you recommend the Cloks/Cioks DC-7 power supply or is there any other alternatives? Thanks in advance Nigel.
I haven't tried anything other than the original power supply, and Iwouldn't recommend anything. People on the forums were slagging off the power supply that comes with the QC, and insisting that various alternatives would "ground" the QC and solve all the noise issues. That is garbage.
If you can ground the QC via the amplification, and you can connect the QC to power with the original power supply, I see no reason to spend money on anything else.
If you are using QC with headphones, and do not have it grounded by connection to FRFR etc, you may have noise issues because you and the guitar pickups are acting as RF antennas and passing interference down the chain. Only answer to that is to plug the QC into grounded amplification, even if the amplification is turned off.
If you need something to power QC on a pedalboard, and you can't plug the original power supply into the mains power that supplies the pedalboard, the alternatives like CIOKS are options. Just beware of units that say they will do the job, but do not actually supply power to the correct specs. Many only actually produce 2A whereas the QC requires 3A, and problems have been reported arising from this.
Fundamentally, you're right, at least in the sense that it's good he actually tests it rather than just sharing opinions. But: I've also tested it with 2 different power supplies (including Cioks) and with 3 different QC units, and the interesting thing is that the QCs themselves behave differently. I had one QC here that had no ground hum whatsoever, not even when connected with just a guitar and headphones, while the other two had this hum. Interestingly, this particular QC then caused issues when connected via XLR to a Midas mixer -> there's something fundamentally not right here.
My current QC makes hum noises when I connect only headphones and guitar as long as I use the original PSU. With the CIOKS, these noises are gone. However, the CIOKS picks up noise via the Powerline that the original PSU does not pick up -> CIOKS is not the holy grail, as it is often portrayed.
I use a Cioks DC7 on my pedalboard to power my Quad Cortex along with other devices. I went with the Cioks Crux 12V adapter specifically to power the QC which eliminates the need to use several parallel cables and use up multiple ports on the DC7. There’s a single, dedicated 12V out on the DC7 that the Crux connects to.
It’s an expensive setup overall but I couldn’t be more pleased with it.
As a back up for the CIOKS DC7 I purchased a power supply from MyVolts, a UK company, that supply a dedicated replacement specifically for the QC.
Which myvolts supply did you get. I love those I have one for my H9 and Talkbox. Can’t find the QC one.
I've heard these are good.
Sounds like you have electrical noise from your outlets. I use a TripLite Isobar 2 outlet to plug into the wall. It's a surge protector and it filters out the EMI noise. That's why the Cioks was less noisy. It's isolated.
Great work. Meticulous and important. Also, niche as hell! 😂😂😂. I got some Songbird FX USB C adapters coming this week to try. The idea of pairing a brick like the Cioks with a device whose win is its svelte form factor is a bitter pill to swallow.
Your Video helped me to compare it with my experiences on the Cortex. THX 4 That 😊
Great. Glad it helped.
I'm just looking for a power supply that has a little bit of a beefier cable set up that would stand up to traveling. Unfortunately I feel like I'm kind of bound to using the croix unit or something similar. I'm just trying to avoid the additional RCA cable mess that comes with using that device.
Ouch. So the QC is just.....noisy in general.
7db reduction is significant for sure. Sad that it costs 200 dollars/pounds to get it on an already very expensive piece of kit.
I had a QC and sent it back due to it being very noisy. Thanks for the testing.
Thumbs up for doing this. Any 3S LiPo battery would work well powering the QC. My experience is that this works quite well wrt noise.
Glad you liked it. Useful idea.
Where did you buy the plexiglass? protection I see in your videos?
It's Gear by Ceba www.gearbyceba.com
Thank you! That was great!
Glad it was helpful!
This is very helpful, thanks! I think that I will buy a cioks or a similar power supply to run my QC and other devices that I use.
Glad it helped.
Thanks for doing this
No problem!
Purchased a QC few days-Now I find out I need a Cioks power supply AND A F**KING Cioks CRUX??? Attached by 4 cables???
$2100.00 dollars and a power plug that feeds under voltage power to the QC???? AND ALL WITH A PERCEPTIBLE "HUM"?? WHAT THE FUCK!!!
I’m in the same boat as you
Just gate the signal, it was turned off here for testing
What marshal amp are you using?
It's a Hanwell
One of the reason I sold mine (QC). Damn it, the in-the.box power supply should work perfectly. Its a cheap piece of garbage and an insult to every customer
True. Although they have said that they did it for a reason.
@@GuitarStuffChannel thank you for the video
What is the reson they did this power supply?
@@Nicolae8607 the ground is your guitar. Similar to real amp. I think if they had a ground on the power supply it would create a ground loop between the device and guitar. I’m just paraphrasing what I remember seeing
@@brendenrodgers7821 The guitar can not be the grounding device...
Whats that Marshall frfr model?
It's a Marshall Hanwell. They used to have a range of speakers, but I don't think that they make this one any more.
thanks for your sharing ! that will be useful
and.. can you tell me where can buy protect QC plastic top ?thanks you
My one is Gear by Ceba www.gearbyceba.com
Fascinating.
Ha!
Neural has probably found the cheapest power supply to ship along with this unit. I can only imagine how cheap the parts inside the QC must be if they did not think its respectful to ship a good power supply with a unit that costs over $1000. 2 years after announcing the product they have still not delivered on the initial promises anyway to their customers.