As the amount of foot pedals I use, slowly grew over the years, my trusty daisy chain, which I used to power them, became, not only incapable of powering all of them simultaneously, but seemed to transform, from being a useful tool, into a messy, plastic spaghetti like tangle, that produced all kinds of irritating electrical hums, buzzes and crackles.
When I had just a couple of pedals, the daisy chain was fine – but with more than five pedals, the situation became unworkable! A new solution was clearly needed! I could have simply bought a second daisy chain, it would have been the cheapest option, but I had read that there were better solutions out there.
Pedal power solutions apparently exist, that have a lot less noise interference, less tangled mess, more sockets, more power, and for not much more money! – After many hours of watching YouTube videos, poring over stats, and reading reviews, the power solution I plumped for was the Donner DP-2
A few days after ordering it, my shiny new power supply arrived from Amazon – Hurrah! All the bits seemed to be there – The box itself, with it’s ten output sockets – along with the DC adapter plug, a bundle of ten 60cm (2 foot) long leads, as well as the two other, shorter, reverse polarity leads. Everything was neatly packed, and in pristine condition.
The power supply box itself, is much smaller than I imagined it would be, but feels heavy for its size, and quite solid – it’s clearly made out of good stuff! Hopefully it is a step up from the daisy chain I have been using. Not only should it be capable of powering all my pedals, but be quieter too, with less background noise and irritating electrical interference. Plus it comes with a variety of sockets, so I will be able to plug in any new pedals I buy, as I inevitably add more to my collection.
Yup – I bought mine from the UK so it has come with a UK plug, which is the wrong sort of plug for me, as it won’t plug in here in Spain – I should have thought of that before I bought it, lol – but at the time the DP-2 was unavailable in Spain, so I didn’t really have much choice! Never mind – A quick trip to the hardware shop to pick up a plug adapter, for just over 2€ and I am good to go!
Besides the DC adapter, the power supply comes with a bundle of ten individual 60cm (2 foot!) long cables, one for each outlet, and two much shorter extra leads – which are polarity reversal leads – and must not be mistakenly mixed with the regular leads, as feeding regualr pedals with reversed polarity current will not do the pedals any good whatsoever! Thankfully, since the reverse polarity leads are so much shorter, it would be difficult to mix them up, and use the wrong cable by mistake.
The Donner DP-2 comes with ten sockets – Six of them are 9v 100ma sockets, which are fine for most guitar pedals – Two of them are 9v 500 ma sockets, which you may need if you have any power hungry pedals – Of the two remaining sockets, one is a 12v 500ma, while the last one is 18v 500ma, for any pedals you may have that need different voltages. Not only is this significantly more sockets than you get on a regular daisy chain, but pedals that need to pull a bit of extra power, no longer have to share their amps with several other pedals, all trying to pull power from the same wire – Your power hungry pedal can now have it’s very own 500ma supply, all to itself!
The Donner DP-2 also comes with ten small blue LED lights, which can either be turned on or turned off. I had imagined each light would individually light up, when you plugged something in to that particular socket, but no – You can choose to have all ten lights turned on, or to have all ten lights turned off! Although according to the official blurb the lights can help you isolate any short circuit problems you may have with you pedals, as a short circuit will turn an individual light off, without affecting any other outlets or as Donner put it in their manual :-
“All 10 outputs in this unit have separate short-circuit protection, i.e. short circuit in one channel won’t affect other channels’ function. Under the circumstances of all LED lights on, LED light of the short-circuited channel will off, while lights in the other normal channels are still on. This helps locating the faults when there were short circuits among many effects.”
In other words, if one of your pedals shorts, it’s light will go off, but your other pedals will be fine, and continue to work!
I now have six pedals I regularly use, and, unlike my old daisy chain, I can comfortably use the sixth slot to plug my new Behringer CS 200 Compression/Sustain pedal – Plus I still have a few empty sockets available for when I inevitably get my next pedal! I’m thinking a tubescreamer would be a nice addition to my collection!
Yeah – I know I should have this all tidily fastened down to a nice pedalboard, with all the cables neatly tucked away – I am sure I will get round to that soon 😉
I am not going to pretend this is the greatest power supply in the world, as it is clearly not! I have heard it somewhat unfairly described as ‘a Daisy Chain in a box’ – which it is most certainly not! If you are looking for the best power supply on the planet – go have a look at the Truetone CS12, it’s certainly up there with the best – but it’s going to cost you near a couple of hundred dollars – No problem for those of you that have deep pockets – but for those of us that don’t, the Donner DP2 is a nice low noise upgrade from a daisy chain, that does not break the bank, or send the numbers whizzing into red!
One of the main issues, if not the main issue with this power supply, seems to be the question of whether the outputs are fully isolated or not, and what exactly does Donner mean when they claim the DP-2 has ‘Ten isolated outputs’?
Some people say it’s isolated – others say its not – what’s going on?
The answer, after checking multiple internet sources, watching several Youtube videos, and being lectured to by power supply purists, is a resounding ‘NO!’ the outlets are most definitely not fully isolated, they are only – and I quote Donner on this “Isolated Short Circuit/Overcurrent Protected” which means that, unlike a daisy chain, there is some isolation between the outlets which can protect your pedals from short circuits and stuff, but these outlets are not ‘fully isolated’, and unwanted noise can potentially leak from one pedal to another, from one output socket to another.
Unscrewing a few screws, gives easy access to the insides of the Donner DP-2 should you need it.
You can clearly see, each output has it’s own dedicated supply, rather than a single shared wire, as in the case of a daisy chain, where all the pedals share, and compete, for the same power – often with one or more pedals suffering the consequences of one greedy, power hungry pedal.
This is not a daisy chain in a box!
Every power supply you see, on Amazon, or anywhere else, with similar characteristics, at a similar price, is going to be the same – without full isolation! If you want full isolation, you need a transformer inside the box, with a separate individual connection to each outlet – and that’s going to cost you significantly more money than the Donner DP-2 will cost you.
The Truetone CS12 is a good example of a truly fully isolated power supply, and is one of the best units to buy if fully isolated outputs are important to you, and if you have the cash!
So is the Donner DP-2 quieter than a daisy chain or not?
Here is a short recording I made of background noise only – both with the Donner DP-2, and then with my daisy chain plugged in. The recording is amplified twenty times, so you can clearly hear, and see, the difference.
The recording starts with my my fender Strat is plugged in, and turned up full. The Donner DP-2 is powering three foot pedals, which are all turned off. The Strat is plugged into my new Behringer CS400 compression/sustain pedal, next in the sequence is my Harley Benton chorus pedal, and lastly my Digitech grunge pedal, which is plugged into my mixer, and into my PC where I am recording the sound – I chose these three pedals for the test, to keep it simple, and because non of these pedals make a significant amount of noise when turned off – Some of my other pedals (looking at you looper pedal) do!
There should be a sound of almost complete silence, as I am not playing the guitar, and all the pedals are turned off – The resulting background noise, with the Donner powering the setup, is not far off complete silence – Don’t forget this recording has been amplified 20 X!
At around five seconds I plug my daisy chain’s adapter into my mains multi-plug – which creates a sound, even though it is not connected to anything! I then unplug just one pedal, my compression pedal, from the Donner supply, and, at 11 seconds, I plug the daisy chain into the compression pedal. The difference in background noise is distinct and unmistakable. There is a lot more noise than there was before!
The Donner DP-2 is much quieter than my daisy chain!
I feel sure some daisy chains, and their adapters, are better than others, creating less noise than others, though the daisy chain cable itself seems to pick up weird radio frequency type sounds, like some kind of bizarre noise antennae. Moving the daisy chain cable around, closer to, or further away from the pedals, even when it is not plugged into anything but the mains, increases, or decreases, the amount of noise you hear coming into your system, from god only knows where.
It could be that I had a particularly noisy daisy chain adapter, or a noisy daisy chain cable – It was a very cheap one I bought, made by a company called Lavolta, who no longer manufacture this product! There may well be daisy chains out there that produce significantly less noise, or cables that pick up less interference – I really don’t know – It is impossible to test them all, just to see! Though the daisy chain itself definitely seems to produce at least some of the noise, regardless of the make, or quality, of the DC mains adapter.
I do know that the prongs on my Lavolta adapter plug broke, shortly after recording this, and since there was no apparent way to fix it, I threw it away! I wasn’t sorry to see it go!
The important thing for most people, I suspect, when buying a power supply for their pedals, is going to be the level of noise it creates within your system. So the 64,000 dollar question is – Is the Donner DP-2 quieter than a daisy chain?
I can answer this personally with a resounding YES! At least in my experience, it is much quieter indeed.
Not only is there significantly less noise, hiss and fizz, than with a simple daisy chain, but you also get short circuit and over-current protection. You get a total of eight 9v outputs, two of which are a full 500ma, as well as two extra sockets, one at 12v, the other at 18v. You also get a nice robust box instead of a mess of plastic spaghetti – Plus, it comes with some pretty lights!
I am glad I bought mine, and would now never choose to go back to using a daisy chain.
Is it worth €34? – Yes definitely!
Is this the power supply Pink Floyd use? – Probably not!
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