Why aren't power amplifiers regulated?
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- Опубликовано: 27 мар 2018
- The power supplies in power amplifiers are rarely regulated. Instead, they are sloppy and noise filled. Why don't designers regulate the voltage in them and wouldn't they perform better if they were? Have a question you'd like to ask Paul? www.psaudio.com/ask-paul/
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Voltage regulation is a gate on a dam. It opens and closes to control the flow rate. It attempts to keep the flow constant. When the stream requirements are relatively small, such as preamplifiers, then there's not as high of flow rate, what we call current, as there is for powerful amplifiers that must provide much higher current.
Traditional methods of power regulation are inefficient, can be heavy and expensive for all the reasons you stated, Paul.
The drawbacks to analog power regulation, can be mostly removed when we have a digital power supply. It takes the incoming line voltage and not only increases the voltage by several times, it also changes the normal 120 Hz signal, and changes it to a higher frequency. This does two things. Since power distribution is a product of voltage and current, we can reduce the current demands significantly if we increase the voltage. Power output remains the same. If we reduce the current draw by 8 to 10 but still provde the same power, we have reduced the heat dissipation problems. On top of that, by using a higher frequency, there's a much shorter time interval to filter between peaks.
(very simple explanation not all encompassing).
this was awesome ! felt like being back in electronics class during uni days ages ago lol more pls Paul ! :)
I know a lot of the theory behind how amps work but these videos are still a learning experience. This was an especially good technical explanation!
A fantastic expaination of a linear power supply! So well and simply explained!
I like how I always learn something from these videos.
The Quad 303 power amplifier is intended to drive Quad ESL 57s, it has a regulated power supply because ESLs are intolerant of being overdriven. An unregulated power supply allows for higher transient voltages at the amplifier output stage which could easily mean death to electrostatic loudspeakers. Thanks for the video, Paul.
Thnx Paul, for answering my question with an amazing explanation. As always, I do appreciate your help. :)
Great explanation of how an amp works. Thanks
I can't give enough thumbs up for these answers. Thanks Paul!!!
Thanks, Paul. Very helpful.
Thanks Paul that really explains a lot of things
Paul you're a star! Always tune in for your vids.
Very good explanation. Thanks.
I've watched a lot of your videos and they're all top notch. I never really understood how transformers work, I'm that much closer. Thank you!
I don't recall McGowan explaining the pronciples of power transformers? I don't think he could.
At 4:12 Paul says "AC" and my iPhone reacted to "Hey Siri" 😂
I'd love to have a teacher like you.
Paul. I believe you blew a golden opportunity to 'plug' P S Audio's AC Power Regenerators! :)
"We regulate the *AC* going into the unit!"
As I recall from my AC electrical class, the bridge rectifier flips the negative part of the sine wave into a positive voltage, so all the blips are positive, and the capacitors reduce the resulting ripple voltage to create what looks like DC to the rest of the circuit.
Thanks for the explanation. Do you know an amp with output voltage regulated ?
I learned the answer after 6.00, thx Paul.
Building a 10 times larger power supply for a Mission Cyrus 1 (with components from Russ Andrews) decades ago was a fun project. 30w without clipping was much easier on the ears!
Tell us about the purpose of bypass caps on the reservoir caps please Paul.
Regulators are such a pain to use, and like you said the power losses are massive. Dropout is such a big problem when Vin is close to Vout, like as in automotive applications where you need a straight regulated 12volt from an input that may only be 13-14.4volts. Yes, you can buy the low drop out types, but they are usually only around 1amp rated. This is one area where I feel that semiconductor manufacturers have let us down badly, I feel they should have done more research and by now we should have super efficient and easy to use regulators, that do not require external capacitors or protection diodes for driving inductive loads, or to protect from back surge off decoupling capacitors. It is the 21st Century now, and the off the shelf regulators I see advertised have changed little since the 1980s.
Maybe some company has already invented my dream regulator, I bet even if they have they have put it in a pain to use, nasty T03 package and made the bloody case Vout so that fiddly insulator washers are needed. And if any manufacturers are reading this, let us have a 10 or 15 amp device with mosfet gates inside to reduce power losses.
Richard Sandwell: I dont think manufactures have let us down, its just physics; you cannot integrate large inductors or capacitors on silicon, as for packages there are so many options now other than the To-3. BUT I share your frustration at power regulation.
I must comment on this old video , Bob Carver used a regulated power supply with his "Magnetic Field " amps back in the 80 and 90's . He used a triac driven by thus tracking the music , He did not need a "big ass " transformer and his amplifiers ran cooler than most other brands of the same power.
Anybody remember the John Linsley Hood 75W Power Amplifier? The regulated power supply was larger and more complex than the output stage.
I thought Paul was going to mention HEADROOM. In order to be able to burst, is desirable for power amps to be able draw more power than a supply stead state can provide. A better topic, why not use more efficient switching power supplies?
Well the high frequency switching noise from the SMPS is generally seen as undesirable, with the advent of the GaN fet though they might be more accepted for high end use.
It's not what you mean, but "rail-switching" Class G power amps designs date back to the late 1970s. You use multiple tiered power supplies and only tap into the higher voltage supplies when needed. The downside is that the implementation makes for a very complicated circuit. But those amps do what you are describing. They have headroom in reserve to avoid dissipating a lot of heat when it's not necessary.
I am using it as of now no problem so far
Another aspect that is not mentioned in the video is that the amplifiers are designed in such a way that they are not sensitive to power supply voltage variations.
For example, if an amplifier is powered with an unregulated voltage of +/- 60Volts, there could be variations of +/-5 Volts due to the variation of the output current, but the ear would not notice changes in power if the amplifier is well designed. This property of amplifiers is known as "power supply rejection ratio" (PSRR). The higher the PSRR of an amplifier, the more independent its output level will be from variations in the supply voltage.
Designers, instead of designing complicated power supplies, prefer to use simple power supplies with amplifiers that have a high PSRR.
Thanks for a truly enlightening presentation! Your descriptions of admittedly complex processes are exemplary in their ability to inform your audience without overwhelming those of us without training in electronics/electrical engineering. Thanks again and keep up the great work you do!
Paul
You have a wealth of knowledge as a former AV bench Tech for 20-plus years I think it would be great if you could add a second Channel will you get into the real meat and potatoes of the knowledge of the AV industry keep the videos coming.
I'd eat that stuff up too.
Thanks for explaining how an amp works so simply. Isn't the Powerplant essentially serving as a voltage regulator?
This got me thinking about the power amplifiers in my car. The JL Audio slash amps are regulated but I'm not sure which side is regulated. In order to make these deliver rated power I know you have to have equal impedance on all channels as voltage/watts change depending on impedance. If two channels were at 4 Ohms and two channels at 2 ohms, the channels at 2 ohms would receive half the wattage if I remember right. What would be the point of doing this in an automotive environment? Would it just be the ability to deliver the same power at 12 volts or 14 volts input?
I think car amplifiers have regulated supplies because they all use switching supplies which are regulated by design.
In a car amplifier, the power supply section is very much a switchmode supply, but it's known as a DC-DC converter. It takes the 12V (or 13.8V) from the battery and steps it up to split rails of around +/- 30-40v or so. Then you have that same supply rails as you do in a home amp, and the amplifier outputs stages are generally class AB. Also because of the design principle of a switchmode supply, the output voltage is regulated, yes.
In a car amp that is capable of driving 2 ohm loads or 2 ohm loads bridged without damage, generally you get close to double the output power for the 2 ohm load compared with the 4 ohm load. Both the amplifier stage and the powersupply have to be designed to achieve this without hurting the amp and popping your output transistors. So for example, an 2 ohm stable amp may be rated at 150W RMS into 4 ohms, but can output 300w into a 2 ohm load. Things get a bit more complicated with actual power output when you bridge 2 channels of an amp, but generally you get about double the output power if it's a well-designed amp.
In the situation you have described having a 4 channel amp, with 2 channels driving 2 ohm loads, and the other 2 channels driving 4 ohm loads, as long as the amp is 2 ohm stable and the power supply is up for the job, you will get, again, about double the output power into the 2 ohm load, not half. Hope this makes sense.
The reason car power amps use DC-DC converter powersupplies to step up the voltage for the amplifier is precisely to get more power output in watts. It's very difficult and impractical with only a 12 volt rail to get much than about 30W RMS output into a 4 ohm load. But with higher voltage rails, and also split +/- rails, much higher outputs can be achieved.
Loved that one 👍🏻
I assume this is were external power conditioners, etc, come into play. An entire chassis built around the regulation of input that includes larger heat sinks and such to provide constant input level. This would be in an effort to reduce the work on the amp keeping heat lower and therefore "cleaner" output. Is that a correct statement?
Am I correct in saying if you have enough current from the transformer and it's a big one you don't necessarily need such big reservoirs on the capacitors? The capacitor's only there to give the power supply the omph it needs when the transformer hasn't got enough current, is that correct?
No, if you didnt have the capacitors you would end up with a low frequency hum on the output (which is always 2 x mains frequency), so if you live in the UK you would hear a strong 100Hz tone.
not quite right, a small reservoir capacitor is able to lower the background hum noise depending on low ou high magnetic flux (tesla) the transformer was calculated (high tesla more noise), however the speed that empties the reservoir depends on the signal frequency, very low frequency empties the reservoir very fast, the bass note played change from a real bass sound ending up in a humm noise. If the amplifier is a guitar amplifier capacitors dont need very high microfadys because the frequency dont go so low.
ASR integrated amps have separated power supply. They sound UBER relaxed and noise free.
very interesting pauly
if i leave my EXPOSURE X on power ..does this use much ££££ cost in the long run as i like to keep check of my SMART mitre cost ..
Does that mean that preamps are usually regulated? Asking because a Bow Walrus(power) connected to Bow Warlock(pre) there is a hum coming out of the speakers without a singal fed into the pre. I bought the amsp from a dealer who’s trying to convince me that that hum is part of the design philosophy to accomodate for dynamics. On the other hand, when I connect the same power amp with a Gato Audio pre the hum is non existent. That points to an issue with the Warlock pre. In my mind those dynamics are direcrly connected to the power amp and not the pre amp. I believe the issue in the pre amp is not due to an unregulated power supply but due to a grounding issue. Can anyone weigh in on this please. 🙏
There have been power amplifiers with regulated output stages -- but they were bulky and expensive. The preceding gain/driver stages in most power amplifiers are regulated. McGowan explains this fairly well.Transistor output stages are generally followers, and their gain doesn't vary much with supply voltage. So regulation isn't as important.
I don't think anyone minds the technical aspect
we want more we want more ;)
One huge benefit of not regulating the power amp is dynamics. Amplifiers are often (and properly) rated to their maximum clean power before clipping with both channels driven. This is done with a continuous sine wave signal. This really taxes the power supply, bringing the voltage down. This gives you a good baseline of power output. However, music isn't a continuous sine wave. It is (usually) more of a pulsed beat. This taxes the supply much less, allowing a higher average voltage and more possible output power with music. This is commonly known as dynamic headroom.
Sorry; so how does this change if power is regulated.
Somehow I was having trouble parsing Paul's explanation, and now I don't seem to understand your explanation of regulated power's affects.
TIA.
As Paul mentioned, the voltage regulator can only "cut" voltage from the power supply. The disadvantage of a regulated power supply would be that there is always some voltage loss; otherwise, it would just be an unregulated power supply. Even if you could put a large enough regulator circuit between a power supply and an output stage that could handle the high current demands, there will always be less dynamic headroom, because the rail voltage ultimately determines when an amplifier will begin to clip and distort. Lower voltage = earlier clipping, assuming the load (speaker) impedance is the same.
you can compensate the loss by using multi tap transformer and use the higher voltage to have an additional headroom. but again, it adds costs. another thing is how fast the regulator can regulate? most linear regulator couldn't cope with transient on music and causing more voltage sag on the output
This stuff is going over my head. But, then why was the question brought up to begin with? Why would you want a regulated power supply if a task-appropriate one was available?
additional PSRR. by having a regulated supply, you will have better ripple rejection
Would an internal SMPS regulated power supply for an audio output circuit be that cost prohibitive? Would/could it improve overall THD and sound quality?
That will be cost prohibitive for ps audio. They do sell "power conditioners" and all of those are no more needed when amplifier is powered by regulated SMPS.
Howdy.
In another video You describe how an amp. sounded awful fed from a regular supply but great fed from a big mama supply.
I believe regulating a power amp. would introduce the same "mystery" degrading effects. In my mind the series regulating transistor would introduce "mystery impedance" to non-linear current demands.
In regular Hi-Fi apps. I don't think these ghost parameters have any relevance but in High End they seem to have.
Regards.
a lot of the british ones do ... naim, linn, exposure to name a few - some of the very best amps on the market
I agree with having the power amplifier stage unregulated. It leaves room for dynamics in the amplifier; instead of leaving it sounding "compressed" for lack of a better term during peak transients. Also as far as I know there's no commercially available linear regulator that could handle the current required for a high power amplifier (50W and higher) so you would have to design the regulator yourself out of discrete components, costing not just money but like Paul said heat sink real estate, chassis real estate, and I would like to add board real estate. I also see a lot of folks saying "why not use switch mode regulators?" Switching regulators are great for certain things but their switching noise gets on the voltage rail and could negatively affect performance of the amplifier. Additionally that noise increases as the current draw increases. The high frequency switching noise may not be heard but its effects could cause non linearity in the amplifier that could increase distortion (THD and IMD) which will be heard.
Eric- great post- sicne you are obviously knowledgeable and keen on thsi subject, do look at Sanders Magtech. He is a EE engineer who doesnt disagree with your observations but appears to found a way around these issues to produce a fully regulated, very efficient class AB amp, and with very competitive durability and cost to manufacture. Worth checking out hsi white papers for a maven like you.
There is a reason why no one makes lineal regulators for power amplifier power stage: swithing regulators. Top designers can design proper power stage with switching power supply. Ps audio doesnt sell those properly designed anplifiers.
Dear sir,
How about 120Vac in to 24Vdc back to in 120Vac ?
Thank you
Warm regards
Anderson
Hmmm. I have a dual regulated power amp. Exposure IV Dual Regulated MASSIVE toroidal transformers. This was the whole ethos of Exposure way back when these amps were developed. They still sell for upwards of £750+ today despite being from the early 80s and the headroom is immense.
I still think regulated route is the best as this will be DIY in my case, you can build 60V+ regulators @ 5A/10A using LM338K, now I heard the LM338K/LM317 regulators are unsutable for audio voltage regulation, anyone know why?
Are not most Class D amps regulated? I suppose their efficiency allows the use of regulated wall warts rather than big transformers?
Those use switching regulated power supplies, not lineal one's. Regulated switching power supply uses varying pulse width to chop power and averages those pulses with inductors.
great video, but as an electronics engineer who is getting to audio, it's sad that everyone who talks about it in youtube don't want to 'get to technical'. Great video though!
Hi Paul, thanks for the videos! I have always wondered why you never see a switched mode power supply used in an amplifier. Modern ones for the computer industry are very power efficient, and offer very stable voltage regulation, and incredibly low noise. Is this something you could talk about?
computer doesn't change its current draw dynamically while music is dynamic. it's more difficult to build a switch mode PSU that could cope with dynamic load
S. Kojina - I’m sorry, but I beg to differ. Throw a modern gaming PC on a power meter, and you will see the power draw moving from 30w to 500w or up to 1.2KW or more in a multi GPU setup during gaming, in an instant, and the power draw is completely dynamic, depending on what is happening from millisecond to millisecond. CPUs and GPUs are very high current, power dynamic devices. It’s not 1979 anymore.
i do have power meter but so sorry i don't do games. mine is pretty much constant on my kind of workload
Quite correct! Any computer or CPU has a very wide load current swing. Just run a spread sheet and see it swing. Perhaps the only exception was the Cray super computers. They used all balanced ECL logic so the same amount of current was drawn for a one or zero. In fact their power supplies were unregulated and dind't even have filter capacitors. They ran on 3 phase 400hz
through a 12 phase rectifier so the ripple was very low. They handles the line regulation in the MG set that produced the 400hz AC.
It is a very common mis-conception by audiophiles that audio is a fast high bandwidth signal. In reality audio is at the very bottom end of the entire EM spectrum. It is in fact slow and low bandwidth.
Tone P my understanding though is PC power supplies, even the most expensive ones $500 and up are NOISY. I believe Paul actually has a video explaining when he tried this once.
Great explanation of how a power supply works. I have not thought of it like that.
Nice
Hi Paul.... it's me again..!
You struggled hard with this question... but in the end you kinda summed it up !!
Wish you had a really tech channel so you can talk about the real nitty gritty of power supplies ...
The best power supplies for high power amplifiers are not regulated ( as you say they are lossy ) I have an Australian made amplifier made by ME .. it's an ME 1500 .... it's a monster ... 750 European watts per channel into 8 ohms .. DC to over 40 Hz .. it utilises a 5 Kva E and I transformer ( not toroid) and uses heaps of low ESR caps for each rail ... it uses split secondaries for each channel ..
Regulated supplies do provide a level voltage .. agreed .. but they are only any good for low power amps .. often used as a sales gimmick and also to remedy a transformer with very poor regulation ...
I am totally addicted to your channel .. you seem to cover every possible subject relating to high end audio .. please keep it up ... most interesting Paul ... hugs ..😊
The explanation is only one side. Goal mustn’t be lowest impedance but right impedance.
Naim, Onix, especially John Farlowe Exposure Electronics did regulated power supplies in power amps in the 1980s to 2000s.
In the British 8 Ohms world with limited damping factors this works very well. Take an Exposure X/XV integrated or Exposure IV Dual Regulated. „Simple“, well seasoned Zener & transistor regulated PS. Sound is amazing.
You don't need frank voltage regulation. Instead, you should have large enough filter caps to provide sufficient _dynamic headroom_ to handle _peak power_ demands. BTW: I prefer choke input on my power amp Vcc supplies [for CMOS output stages]
Wait....is a switching power supply a regulated one also?
Cost, complexity, reliability and stability makes it not too impractical for implementation in high power amplifier IMHO. NAD sold a lot of 3020 back in the days I believe that regulated PSU made a significant contribution to it's sonic characteristic.
I think that the price is the problem. PS audio is pretty affordable in USA taking into account average income but where I live that is at least half of it and that is only half of the problem since the PS audio products are twice the price comparing prices in the USA. Sprout costs around 1000$ for start.
The output stage of a power amplifier actually IS a voltage regulator (in its simplest form an emitter follower transistor topology). It tries to achieve an instantaneous desired voltage (as dictated by the input gain stages) across the output terminals (assisted by the negative feedback loop). So, as long the power supply is higher than the output voltage, the output stage accurately produces the desired voltage, even if the power supply has fluctuations. Therefore power regulation is practically unnecessary.
I think there is some truth to your argument, it all comes down to how well designed the circuit is; lets face it there are some shabby designs out there; particularly in 'high end' audio.
Carver attempted overall power amp voltage regulation in the 1980s with his Magnetic Field amps, using a triac to control the primary AC voltage on the power transformer, but whether or not this actually provided major sonic benefits is an open question.
Mark Levinson ML-2 and No.20 Class A poweramplifiers are fully regulated.
most users in home cinema sound requires--max 5.1 channel=50w*6=300 w ---so easily smps can handle that--cost of smps is really cheaper than transformer-but my question is --does regulated power cuttof any frequency bands of sound or distortion ?
SMPS does cut power conditioners out of business, including ps audio "power regenerators".
Why not use switching regulators?
Beacouse that cuts out power conditioners out of business, including ps audio "power regenerators". They cannot sell better amps that does not require "power regenerator" type of additional expenses.
In essence, it's cheaper to make expensive unregulated power supply.
Another way is to use a switch mode power supply that regulates voltage by varying the ratio of on-to-off time minimizing the energy loses. This can enable much more power vs size also. Why not use that?
EMI and RFI is one of the reason
The Benchmark AHB2 uses a switching power supply and has overcome EMI (RFI is EMI).
Yes, it's not really so tough to eliminate audible EMI from a switch mode power supply as they usually run on frequencies well above the audible range.
Switch mode power supplies are quite common on professional power amps. QSC, Crown, and many more use them. This is not to be confused with class D. The QSC and some Crown units are still class B amplifiers but with a switch mode power supply. They work very well and there are no EMI/RFI issues.
My own DIY 20W class A tweeter amps use two 300w switching power supplies for +/-24v at 15a. I too have no EMI or RFI issues. It simply comes down to RF systems engineering knowledge which includes proper circuit grounding and shielding.
The short answer is they could, BUT you need a switching frequency much higher than the audio range and SMPS suffer from EMI and RFI. Still they are used; but the purists would spit feathers.
good explanation yes usually a large transformer rectified filtered with capacitor and ready to go :)
I'm afraid I don't agree with your idea of the importance of a regulated power supply for power amplifiers.
Maybe you could compare the power amp performance using a battery bank power supply versus an unregulated power supply, in a double blind test of audio quality?
If you don't regulate the amplifier power supply, how can you guarantee that the least significant bits of a 24-bit signal are accurately reproduced? If you're using negative feedback, won't that compensate for rail fluctuations on the output?
Regulating these power supplies is a piece of cake using an LM7915 or 7815 TO-220 regulator ..
That's all woffle.. go and study power supply technology
It's not possible to get any true signal above 21bit in analogue domain. 1 degree C temperature change will produce noise bigger then 21th bit. Expect we start to use 2 RCA/XLR connection per channel then we can add those two as LSB and MSB in power amp to get the result. Or doing everything in digital domain output via Class D amplifier by sending a DSD like control signal to regulate the amplifer.
L Lee Actually, I don't think anything above 18 bits is really practical in real life. I know, heresy!
If we design the amp to run slightly below rail-to-rail at peak, then if rail sag is detected on the output stage, increase input stage gain to compensate. We may then briefly hit rail-to-rail, but mostly be regulated.
Agree, but you have to design you amplifier to work at lower in coming voltage. Voltage fluctuation can also be overcome by having huge capacitor bank on output stage. So effect of voltage drop on output stage of PSU won't be seem by amp. You will need this either way because same sort of thing will happen when amp is under max load, and you don't want to regulate amp output. That's what they used to do with so call "feedback control", they still do that with cheap amps these days. Feedback can work magic when use correctly, but in most cases they just use it to keep the cost down. At the end of the day it's all about value and cost.
You said diode :)
Actually, some superlative amplifiers, like Benchmark's AHB2, have regulated power supplies. PS audio and lot's of other audiophile oriented amps do not.
Mico-the AHB2 is an great , supremely quiet and undistorted amp, but I dont think it’s power supply is strictly regulated in the way Paul is discussing.
Audiophiles do also want to sell power conditioners. If an amplifier uses regulated power supplies, those power conditioners are no longer necsessary.
Impractable = Costs too much
Only necessary for weight saving when SMPSU's are used. Amplifiers "regulate" themselves.
Seems like you could side-step a number of those problems by using a switching regulator, if not a switching power supply.
This was covered in another video from Paul, but in short, switching power supplies are rather noisy and getting one to work properly in an audio amplifier application is a serious challenge.
very true. it's not only the switching noise conducted through the cable but also the noise being induced by the switching module. it's do-able but it's challenging
Somehow, the auto sound people seem to do it. Given how close they sit to their speakers, they must have handled the noise issue.
you can't hear them. the switching section runs at 50kHz afaik
A high switching frequency doesn't guarantee noiseless output
I think power of reg. will go down cause by thermal runaway of power transistor regulator. This is my opinion .
some are.
The simple unregulated power supply does sound better because of the faster slew rate. :)
And that slew rate is everything for high frequency speed and accuracy.
I used to use a Switch Mode Power Supply and a FET charge pump on a pentode line level buffer. Squeaky clean, except for a little bit of volume pot hum, but that's it.
this. most linear regulator can't cope with the transient. with unregulated PSU, the only thing matter is how big the transformer headroom and how much the energy being stored by the capacitors.
This is not correct. The guy from India was asking about regulated power stages not traditional linear that are then linear.
High End JL Audio amps use regulated power supplies. I have 4 of them. 2x JL300/4, JL HD750/1, & HD600/4.
they guarantee the same power no matter of the range of battery voltage or range of impedance the driver.
reason manufacturers don't do this very often is because it's more expensive. But it is by far a better power stage. Those who claim unregulated power supplies have better Dynamics and headroom don't understand the definition of distortion. If I send a signal through an unregulated power supply and it can supply that signal as long as it's momentary but can't supply that same signal cleanly if it's sustained then that is distortion. Period.
BTW: Have you ever considered doing a show for the Science Channel? You're waaay better than most of their show hosts. Just sayin'...
last time I checked, the Science Channel was more or less about science and less about partial truths, lies and marketing
Musical Fidelity make choke regulated solid state amps
U r talking about old fashioned transistor based DC regulation like in old TVs... But i guess the guy meant SMPS.
Simple answer- Amplifier lobby!
as per usual the video actually STARTS addressing the question about 75% of the way through. I suspect this is true for most of his videos
not speed,,, or impedance or wave front huh
What is your stand on the need or lack thereof of an outboard ac mains filter for audio equipment? There is much debate on this platform over this issue. One person in particular says it is unnecessary to use mains filtration on audio equipment. Keep in mind that I am not an engineer, but I am not deluded into thinking that mains voltage coming into the house is free of noise and voltage spikes. How can anyone believe that there is no need to filter that out or that all equipment is unaffected by it in the operation of particularly audio gear. I think anyone who believes this has no affect on audio gear performance is delusional, but I am willing to listen to someone who knows that things like switching noises and even 2kv spikes do come in on line voltage coming into houses and this is detrimental to that equipment. How can anyone believe that the equipment is supposed to not get influenced by this nasty power through the equipment’s power supply eludes me. There are others that understand this. I need a detailed explanation because I am convinced that the power supply in equipment is incapable of getting rid of this and an external filter is both needed and should be used. Thank you for straightening this out as others are curious also.
How good/ effective a standard amplifier power supply is @ filtering noise on its pri. side ...try something simple yourself...
...set your amp. volume/gain setting to the level you normally listen to...but do not provide any source input...
run some suspected noise generating gadgets elsewhere in the house....
( tv/ any lamps on dimmers..inverters etc. brush motor mixer grinder etc.)
If your amp is good you should not hear anything from the speakers...& confidence will prompt you to slowly increase that volume to a higher levels and check again...
judge the outcomes for yourself...
I couldn't care less about Sonic benefits. Subway has a better deal. ;-)
Nice. Now rest up, get some diner and a cold beer.
I wish you would change to switching power supplies.
SMPS are fine for lower current amplifier applications and other things, but in an class A or AB stage power amplifier, the high frequency noise from the SMPS gets into the amplifier stage. And the noise level increases with more current draw. While this high frequency itself can not be heard, it will affect the performance of the output stages and introduce distortion which can be heard. The way they do it with simply a mains transformer, bridge rectifier and filter capacitors is the best way.
@@marcusfred4480 absolutely ridiculous. Outher manufacturers have this figured out. Also outher manufacturers dont have power condioners to sell.
This video is standard of why you are Too Hipp, Paul.
That's absolutely ridiculous
Because waste of energy and money.
An Indian with a TECH question?
Is that a problem?
No. I'm used to it the other way around.
Michael B. 😂
Power amps and receivers should be 100% regulated..........by the government, because most of them best buy products are lies and your lucky if you get half the power it says on the box 😂😂😂
They all lie. Its a joke.
Tell the truth, Paul from ps audio.
You do like an revenue stream from selling "power regenerators" so you only sell amplifiers without regulated power supply.