Mono Block Power supply

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I have zero interest in valves they can do what they like. Both Stu and I are talking solid state and that should be read into all our comments.

And apart from OTL then the output valves are regulated by the output transformer. People should look up the meaning of the word.

[hillsanddalesrover]

Well, surely one would design the PSU to supply the current needed, not run an existing supply in excess of it's design limits ?

No one ever said trying to achieve the "best" was easy or inexpensive.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

That statement makes no sense. It is certainly not what I do.

[hillsanddalesrover]

Well, surely one would design the PSU to supply the current needed, not run an existing supply in excess of it's design limits ?

In reply to this,

"Seems like a lot of power wasted as heat and more ripple on the raw supply due to increased demand."

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Ah! OK

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

My point is so called required or current needed. This cause the idiocy of wall plug power supplies on phono stages et al, "well it doesn't*need* anymore" yes in many way electrically but musically it will benefit from as much headroom as you can give it, and there seem no limit apart from size and weight.

[karatestu]

Well, surely one would design the PSU to supply the current needed, not run an existing supply in excess of it's design limits ?

No one ever said trying to achieve the "best" was easy or inexpensive.

Yes i agree 100 %

My point was that the extra load (housekeeping) that a shunt regulator puts on the psu introduces more noise / ripple or whatever you want to call it on the raw supply.

[karatestu]

My point is so called required or current needed. This cause the idiocy of wall plug power supplies on phono stages et al, "well it doesn't*need* anymore" yes in many way electrically but musically it will benefit from as much headroom as you can give it, and there seem no limit apart from size and weight.

I have added some very small 6VA EI transformers in my cdp, one for the fancy clock i put in it and the other to power the dac chip only. Very small current draw for both the clock and the dac. The improvements i got from giving those things a dedicated psu each (rather than run off the large toroid which powered everything else too) was amazing. I used them because the were the only things i could find to fit in the available space within the case. I did try a 100VA for the dac psu but concluded at the time that it was no better. It does go to show that isolating things that can be powered separately and giving them their own psu is well worth the time and effort involved.

I might have to revisit that little experiment and see what an old 500VA toroid (from a naim hicap) can do on the dac. I wasn't so switched on to the whole "muicality" thing back then so my findings may be different. What i did find was that playing about with the digital psu (transport, decoder, ram chip etc) had next to no effect on sq

A big psu is indeed heavy. When you isolate parts of the circuitry and give them their own psu, the weight can soon add up to hernia inducing levels. If japanese DD turntables can be assessed by their weight before even seeing or hearing them then do you think that can apply to amplifier psu's as well ?