Thanks for all the good info! I'm using a cheap 12VAC wall wart adapter I got off Amazon (link). That make sense that the Braids would be inherently noisy since I remember reading somewhere that MI intended the Plaits to be a cleaned-up version of the Braids. Don't know if this would make a difference, but my Braids modules are the through-hole build that Soundforce designed that use cheaper 12-bit DACs instead of the nice 16-bit DACs that the original design uses.