QUAD Cortex power supply noise comparison 

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 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.

Your Video helped me to compare it with my experiences on the Cortex. THX 4 That 😊

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.

Thanks for doing this

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.

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.

thanks for your sharing ! that will be useful

Where did you buy the plexiglass? protection I see in your videos?

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.

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.

Fascinating.

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.

What marshal amp are you using?

Whats that Marshall frfr model?

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

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.

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!!!