F5 power amplifier

For those that are interested the noise that I get from my switchmode power supply before the RC filter is 7.82 mV pk-pk and after the RC filter is unmeasurable.
The noise floor of the equipment is 1.97 mV pk-pk.
Does anyone know how to do measurements down to microvolts?
I have the equipment, I just don't know if there are any special techniques required to do ultra low noise measurenements.


Anyway I have a picture of the results
 

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@thanh: Assuming 2mV P-P and 0dB PSRR, this would mean (I think) between 0.5 and 12.5 uW (microwatts) into the speakers, at that frequency. Which would be inaudible, I assume. Interesting. Maybe SMPS would be a feasible option for some other builders (I have already purchased my supplies).
 
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At 1m distances, the 40dB could possibly be audible, but the noise floor in my room is 38dB. At listening position, we're talking 24/34dB, well below noise floor except in the dead of the night. And that's at 0dB PSRR, even 10dB of PSRR will knock this well down below the noise threshold of most rooms.

I still think they're not a problem. The F5 notes that

raw supply with two 29,000 uF capacitor and 70 mV ripple will give about 100 uV noise (measured in the band from 20 to 20,000 Hertz).

We're talking 1/35th part of 70mV, so I assume it is not a problem at all, and much quieter than a linear supply.
 
Does anyone know how to do measurements down to microvolts?
I have the equipment, I just don't know if there are any special techniques required to do ultra low noise measurenements

Linear Technologies has a number of application notes on low noise measurements -- you can search through the archives. Texas Instruments also has an easy to implement design on the product descriptor for the TL431 shunt regulator.

Noise measurement is most relevant when you specify the bandwidth over which it is measured, and the filter topology of the measurement. TI builds a filter in analog for you while Linear uses their switched cap filters. Myself, I prefer CCIR-486 with a 2kHz peak -- but that's beyond the scope of this discussion.

Dennis Colin has an easy to use amplifier using JFET's -- i believe it is archived on the AudioXpress website -- he uses "A" weighting.
 
We're talking 1/35th part of 70mV, so I assume it is not a problem at all, and much quieter than a linear supply.


Well in reality it might even be 1/100th part of 70mV.
2mV is the noise of the equipment not of the supply. I need to amplify the noise of the supply to be able to measure it.
At this point in time, I only know it is better than 2mV pk-pk.