derekslam

Maybe the 12v to 5v circuit I used was inferior. The difference in tone for me was obvious. Especially when I used distortion. I wouldn't be surprised however if the G10 receiver was looking for a handshake from the power supply. It is a pretty sophisticated little gadget. It's the first wireless I ever had that let me update software for the transmitter and receiver through the micro usb connector. I would love to see a Line 6 tech weigh in on this.

I do not recommend powering your G10 with anything but the factory power supply. When I first bought the G10, I didn't want to use the factory power supply because the shape and size used up a bit of space on my pedal board. (My pedal board has to fit in my carry on bag because I do a lot of fly out gigs) I tried to power it with a smaller usb charger. The smaller chargers I tried produced 5v at 2.0 amps just like the factory one. They caused the G10 to hum so I couldn't use them. I saw this thread and and tried to power the G10 from my Voodoo Lab Pedal Power. I used the circuit from a car charger and soldered it to a 9v connector and plugged it into the Voodoo Lab. It powered the G10 without any hum so I thought I was good to go. Over the next couple of weeks I noticed that my guitar tone was a little icky. I've spent a lot of time & money to have a tone that makes me happy on stage and if my rig doesn't sound right it drives me out of my mind. It had been a year since I had retubed my 78 Princeton so I put some new 6v6's in. Still icky. I use a 5751 in V1 that was 5 years old so I ordered a new one. Still icky. My tech suggested I replace v3 with a new 12ax7. Still icky. My tech asked if we had ever replaced the filter cap. I opened up the amp and saw that the filter cap was really old so I ordered a new one and decided to gig with my back up Deluxe Reverb until the new filter cap arrived. The Deluxe sounded icky! (Icky, but louder) I spent most of the gig staring at my pedal board because I now knew the culprit was somewhere in there. The next morning I A/B'd my 9v mod with the factory power supply and there was a noticeable difference in sound. I had also noticed that the transmitter had been taking longer to fully charge. I went back to the factory power supply and gigged that night in sonic happiness. I asked a electronics wizard buddy of mine to explain why all 5v 2amp power supplies are not created equal and he said that the G10 power supply must be designed with a smart circuit that the G10 receiver recognizes and uses to correctly regulate it's power. It's the same reason that many smart phones will not charge correctly with 3rd party chargers.