Simple Super Shunt and Simple Super Shunt w/CCS vs. JSR03/05 (and other series regs)

[hermanv]

OK. I give up. pppp?

[peranders]

Originally posted by hollowman
In the Feb 2008 issue of AudioXpress (US print magazine) pp. 30-37, the article "Shunt or Not" by author Are Waagbo presents two "sophisticated shunt regulator version[s]":





The author claims that in comparison to his shunts, the JSR03/05 was “a waste of money” (noting a simple zener shunt was better). He also indicates other series-regulator designs (e.g., Borbely and Sulzer) are not much better.

Along with his own, Waagbo does credit Borbely’s shunt regs.

What do you folks think? Can a simple Zener-resistor-capacitor shunt reg. outperform JSR or Sulzer. If so, then the more-sophisticated shunts (above) must be really spectacular – or are they?

Thx for any feedback you can provide.

Anybody who knows how the author came to this conclusion? Outperformed by a simple zener? In cost maybe

hemrmanv, Q3-Q5 is involved with their Vbe togehter with a cosntant current through R10. One way for you to find out is to simulate. Have you done that.

[housing]

Did any member try the Simple Super Shunt w/CCS regulator?

[hermanv]

Originally posted by peranders

Anybody who knows how the author came to this conclusion? Outperformed by a simple zener? In cost maybe

hemrmanv, Q3-Q5 is involved with their Vbe togehter with a cosntant current through R10. One way for you to find out is to simulate. Have you done that.

No I haven't simulated the design. If Q4 is the variable shunt element, then current through R8 will vary and so will current through R10.

If you relay on Vbe of Q3, Q4 and Q5 output V will vary from unit to unit and with temperature. Tempco is a minimum of 18mV/deg C or .18V for a 10C change, likely much larger. Unit to unit variations will be effected by both Beta and Rbe.

It might indeed simulate well, but IMHO it's a bad design at least in the sense that's output V is not predictable. In simulators all transistors of a given type are identical and often ideal.

If you build one and it works, that's fine, I wouldn't recommend you make a hundred or a thousand of them.

Circuits build around a TL431 for example are easy to scale for voltage and current. A little work is needed to make them stable (very high gain), but after that each will perform nearly identically.

TI shunt (pdf)

[peranders]

Originally Posted by peranders

Anybody who knows how the author came to this conclusion? Outperformed by a simple zener? In cost maybe

I have found the article
http://www.borbelyaudio.com/pics/waagbo2863.pdf

Personally I prefer when Walt Jung, Jan Didden or someone else write with some technical approach because somewhere you start with technical issues.

If I read the article:

LM317 as preregulators compresses the music.
A super regulator is no good
A plain zener is really good
A Borbely series regulator is also not particularly good
A Borbely shunt regulator is "toppen".

Quote from the article:

I made a simple zener shunt
from some old zeners I had, and it was
not bad at all. While it was noisy, there
was something different about the musical
presentation, which I thought was
positive.

It hard to argue about personal taste.

So what is the conclusion of this article? I don't know decides he likes Erno's stuff which I also don't mind because it's good engineering.

My personal thought here is what would the result have been if Mr. Waagbø didn't know what he was listning to? I'm pretty convinced that there had been a totally different article.