All,
There have been very long and tedious threads on regiulated IGC and to avoid having to wade through the noise to get to the relevant, I have the following question:
To those who have tried the regulated GC, be it NIGC or IGC, with or without pre: I expect that bass performance would have improved (tighter, more detail, maybe more weight), but did the amps DETAIL retrieval improve, especially the LOW-LEVEL information. Also, what impact did regualtion have on highs and mids-were highs more deleicate and mids more immediate?
Thanks for sharing
Ryan
There have been very long and tedious threads on regiulated IGC and to avoid having to wade through the noise to get to the relevant, I have the following question:
To those who have tried the regulated GC, be it NIGC or IGC, with or without pre: I expect that bass performance would have improved (tighter, more detail, maybe more weight), but did the amps DETAIL retrieval improve, especially the LOW-LEVEL information. Also, what impact did regualtion have on highs and mids-were highs more deleicate and mids more immediate?
Thanks for sharing
Ryan
The reg
Ryan,
Bass is better, tighter, more impact, dynamics, slam.
To put it simple, when you get a tighter bass everything gets better, including midband, treble, detail.
It's what happens when you change to a good amp that drives your speakers better.
You can "follow the tune" more easily.
It is more obvious on demanding musical material.
Anyway, with or without "easy" to drive speakers it's always obvious, shockingly obvious or just obvious.
Ryan,
Bass is better, tighter, more impact, dynamics, slam.
To put it simple, when you get a tighter bass everything gets better, including midband, treble, detail.
It's what happens when you change to a good amp that drives your speakers better.
You can "follow the tune" more easily.
It is more obvious on demanding musical material.
Anyway, with or without "easy" to drive speakers it's always obvious, shockingly obvious or just obvious.
Re: The reg
If you can hear it, you should be able to measure it. Why no empirical evidence?
From what I've read, the only benefit to supply regulation is lower odd order harmonics when the amp clips.
carlosfm said:Ryan,
Bass is better, tighter, more impact, dynamics, slam.
To put it simple, when you get a tighter bass everything gets better, including midband, treble, detail.
It's what happens when you change to a good amp that drives your speakers better.
You can "follow the tune" more easily.
It is more obvious on demanding musical material.
Anyway, with or without "easy" to drive speakers it's always obvious, shockingly obvious or just obvious.
If you can hear it, you should be able to measure it. Why no empirical evidence?
From what I've read, the only benefit to supply regulation is lower odd order harmonics when the amp clips.
Easy...measurements don't tell the whole story.
Ever seen a measurement that measures dynamics? Considering that dynamics is such a large portion of music, it's unfortunate that there's no meaningful way to test performance in that realm.
I'm not saying that some clever person can't come up with a way to render such information in numbers, but they haven't done so yet. Over-reliance on specifications is a seductive path, but one that ultimately dead-ends short of its goal--at least for now. The trick is to be patient while someone comes up with a new test.
Mind you, I'm not holding my breath. I've got too many ideas to try out to sit around waiting for the next True Test to come along.
Grey
Ever seen a measurement that measures dynamics? Considering that dynamics is such a large portion of music, it's unfortunate that there's no meaningful way to test performance in that realm.
I'm not saying that some clever person can't come up with a way to render such information in numbers, but they haven't done so yet. Over-reliance on specifications is a seductive path, but one that ultimately dead-ends short of its goal--at least for now. The trick is to be patient while someone comes up with a new test.
Mind you, I'm not holding my breath. I've got too many ideas to try out to sit around waiting for the next True Test to come along.
Grey
Re: Re: The reg
The unreg. GC has 1000~1500uf caps on the PSU.
It's the only way that it sounds good, increase capacitance and it will sound bad.
With this so small capacitance, there are voltage variations on the PSU with the amp playing music.
And what I listen is to the music, not test tones.
Those voltage variations kill the bass.
With the reg. PSU that doesn't happen at all, and you can have big caps before the regs without mucking up the sound of the amp.
Simple, isn't it?
But the more important is: it sounds better.
jackinnj said:
The unreg. GC has 1000~1500uf caps on the PSU.
It's the only way that it sounds good, increase capacitance and it will sound bad.
With this so small capacitance, there are voltage variations on the PSU with the amp playing music.
And what I listen is to the music, not test tones.
Those voltage variations kill the bass.
With the reg. PSU that doesn't happen at all, and you can have big caps before the regs without mucking up the sound of the amp.
Simple, isn't it?
But the more important is: it sounds better.
An interesting question Ryan. I have still not tried regulation with the GC, probably as i stopped listening to it months ago.
It's no longer entertaining
Regulated circuits tend to have better bass, macro dynamics, cleaner and more organised sound. As you delegate more of the PS functions from the caps to the regulators, the regulator 'sound' becomes more prominent. It will greatly depend upon the regulator topology if this 'sound' is pleasing or not and if it improves the perception of mid-band immediacy and low-level detail. For a regulator to achieve these goals it needs, among other things to be faster than the amp it feeds (if feedback type) or to have consistently low impedance within a wide band of frequencies if open-loop. No 3-terminals IME are good enough for this.
Then again, low level excellence seems not to be a top sonic priority to everyone.
analog_sa said:
Not only the regulator, the cap you use after it may kill the sound completely.
Use the values recommended by the datasheets and you won't like the sound of the amp...
Although with LM338 PSU the sound is better for me compared to unregulated, I'm sure that this is not the ultimate regulated PSU to use here.
Discrete is probably (or certainly) better.
Pedja has been there, done that, long ago.
Dr.H said:
Take two good amps, one with limited power (A) and the other one with good current and power (B).
Both are good sounding amps.
Test them with a pair of speakers.
These days speakers are hard to drive (that bass reflex thing and complex crossovers
), so you'll struggle to put amp A singing.Amp A, can't drive most speakers, bass is not tight, it swamps all the rest (as it always happens).
Amp B has tight bass, dynamics, and everything else is right.
In my experince, you can detect if an amp is not driving the speakers properly, even at low volumes.
So what's the amp that has more detail retrieval, and more low level information?
Don't forget, when bass is not right, it kills this.
Now a question: does anyone expect to have around 50 watts RMS out of the unregulated GC with 1000~1500uf caps? Really?
I'm following this and find it interesting. Whilst I am more objective than subjective, I agree that we don't have measurements for everything yet and we must listen to stuff.
What's on my mind is, how can we resolve that increasing the caps above say 1500uF makes the sound worse? What could the problem be?
Something to do with nasty power factor on the supply?
Excessive current spikes caused by charging huge low impedance caps just for a tiny part of the cycle?
Can all this be read across to a normal discrete power amp?
What's on my mind is, how can we resolve that increasing the caps above say 1500uF makes the sound worse? What could the problem be?
Something to do with nasty power factor on the supply?
Excessive current spikes caused by charging huge low impedance caps just for a tiny part of the cycle?
Can all this be read across to a normal discrete power amp?
richie00boy said:
This happens with these LM chips, I also would like to know why.
But the fact is that they don't sound good with big caps.
A test that I may do with an unreg supply is use some big caps on the PSU, and small ones on the chip.
I don't hope much, but after all the tests I made with the reg. PSU, it seams more likely to perform better than using just some big caps on the chip, or changing the 1000uf caps on the chip for bigger ones.
I meand 33~100uf on the chip, no more than that.
Carlos
I cannot completely share your experience with my regulated amp: the bass is back since I inserted 2x470uF nearby the LM3875.
With a 50Hz sinusoid testsignal the amp began clipping at 12V/8 Ohm, using just 33uF nearby the chips.
With 503uF clipping starts at 18V, same at 1kHz.
Maybe, the reason in my case is the pcb layout, and the regulators are to far from the chips or the connecting lines are to small.
I want to test it and I am building now an unregulated, noninverting, unbuffered amp, with 2x18000uF for the main supply, and per channel 2x12200uF (all c's out of my hobby-box).
Details will follow.
BTW: my regulated amp, built from the schematics from Carlos, is an absolutely great sounding amp!
Franz
P.S.
A big difference to the configuration from Carlos must be: I use just fullrange speakers in backloaded horn enclosures with a high efficency (>92dB/W)
I cannot completely share your experience with my regulated amp: the bass is back since I inserted 2x470uF nearby the LM3875.
With a 50Hz sinusoid testsignal the amp began clipping at 12V/8 Ohm, using just 33uF nearby the chips.
With 503uF clipping starts at 18V, same at 1kHz.
Maybe, the reason in my case is the pcb layout, and the regulators are to far from the chips or the connecting lines are to small.
I want to test it and I am building now an unregulated, noninverting, unbuffered amp, with 2x18000uF for the main supply, and per channel 2x12200uF (all c's out of my hobby-box).
Details will follow.
BTW: my regulated amp, built from the schematics from Carlos, is an absolutely great sounding amp!
Franz
P.S.
A big difference to the configuration from Carlos must be: I use just fullrange speakers in backloaded horn enclosures with a high efficency (>92dB/W)
analog_sa said:
Which are the ones you consider entertaining, just to have a reference?
It would be interesting to know if someone ever tried a sophisticated high current regulator, like the version proposed by Sulzer in The Audio Amateur or the one built by Christopher Paul in TAA 2/84. They are probably the highest feedback designs around with the lowest impedance.
Carlos
Franz G said:
I recommend anything from 33uf to 100uf on the chip.
1000uf on the chip sounded bad to me, with reg. PSU.
Of course it may have to do with layout, thin PSU lines, etc. but concentrate in listening to the amp with 503uf (??
) and then with 33~100uf (go for 100, it also works fine for me).Independent on clipping, you also have worse measurements with 1000uf than with 10000uf with unreg. PSU but the lower value sounds better...
I'm curious, do most chip amp builders/listeners indeed agree that these amps (when built without regulators) sound better with between 1KuF and 2KuF total power rail capacitance per rail?
I'm looking for info, not war ...
I'm looking for info, not war ...
carlosfm said:...
But the fact is that they don't sound good with big caps.
...
mlloyd1 said:
Ryan, why don't you try it for yourself?
It's really easy.
mlloyd1 said:
I don't want war too.
I just give my oppinion, others may disagree, but no problem for me.
Believe who you want or who you feel like to, but ultimately you'll have to test if you're interested in finding what works better for you.
I would guess a CRC supply works better with tube amps than solid state. The power supplies in the former are high voltage and low current, meaning you can get away with higher R's and smaller C's to the benefit of of the CRC's filtering action. What's a small capacitor for a Gainclone - 1000-1500 uf - is massive for a tube amp's B+.B.VDBOS said:
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