Big capacitors in PSU?

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Hi,

There are no real technical reasons for the preference

Yes and no...naturally what you prefer is ultimately your business.

Technically though any engineer would argue against too small PSU capacitance...I know I would.

Less capacitance will sound faster at the expense of sustained bass response. Low frequencies tend to drain PSU heavily.

So, it's well worth trying out what suits your system best acccording to your taste in music etc.

Peter,

If you ever experimented with the size of cathode bypass caps you'll have noticed the phenomenon at work already...

Remember that phono stage, well it's a preamp alright, I post some time ago?

Those cathode decouplings caps drove me nuts...going from a calculated 47µF polyester cap through tantalum caps 10 times that value to even thousands of µFs altered the perceived bass response yet also invariably seemed to affect transient response for the worst.

Truly mindboggling...:cannotbe:

Maybe lots of very fast caps in the PSU is the answer?

Cheers,😉
 
Frank

Every particular case has to be judged on its own merits. Excessive capacitance in a phono stage, especially in a cathode bypass sounds different. Believe it or not, i lived for years with a phono which used 3300uF in the PS and didn't sound any the worse for it.
The GC, otoh, is disproportionately sensitive to the amount of PS capacitance; you exceed a certain limit and all the outstanding 'GC' qualities go. And yes, it then copes better with sustained bass notes, but what a price to pay.

cheers
peter
 
Considering recommended maximum ripple voltage for the amp, I would decide the size of PSU caps based on:
  • Ripple voltage = I (load)/fC (Half wave)
  • Ripple voltage = I (load)/2fC (Full wave)
and with about +20% tolerance.

:yingyang:
 
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