LM 317 Buzz Issue/Design

I tried all kinds of values and nothing seemed to help. Any ideas?
I think you are going down the wrong rabbit hole. Your PSU LM317 regulator is probably not the culprit here. I told you in your other thread (in the Tube section) that my same 12AU7 amp runs dead quiet also using a simple LM317 regulator circuit (and I gave the schematic from Pete Millett), BUT – I feed the regulator with a 19V laptop smps. You are most likely dealing with a ground loop issue and unless you describe your complete setup it will be very difficult to solve your problem here. Another cause could be a USB connection if you are using a computer as source. So, give us more details maybe.
 
I think you are going down the wrong rabbit hole. Your PSU LM317 regulator is probably not the culprit here. I told you in your other thread (in the Tube section) that my same 12AU7 amp runs dead quiet also using a simple LM317 regulator circuit (and I gave the schematic from Pete Millett), BUT – I feed the regulator with a 19V laptop smps. You are most likely dealing with a ground loop issue and unless you describe your complete setup it will be very difficult to solve your problem here. Another cause could be a USB connection if you are using a computer as source. So, give us more details maybe.


I was using veroboard with the PSU jumped to a breadboard with the amplifier circuit. I just wanted to make sure I get a really solid design and can veroboard that before I start rebuilding again. I will definitely give the Pete Millet design and post the results of that here. Do you think the SMPS has anything to do with the issue at all? I plan to use the design I have in post #39 as my next build to see if that fixes the problem. I am sure my veroboard layout had to do with some of the problem.



> my latest design

You actually need THREE power supplies. While the original assumed you had a good clean 12V supply (not a hard thing to find or build), somehow you are stuck on it.

1) heater: does not need real-clean or regulated.
2) MOSFET: has huge PSRR so does not need real clean or regulated
3) 12AU7 plate has low PSRR. Its supply needs to be clean. It does NOT need to be regulated; and will work better at higher voltage. And this is a SMALL load. A simple RC will clean it slicker than Clorox hand-soak.


I will build this one as well and see how that goes.
 
> section on filtered output ripple injection

Wouldn't it be simpler to build a boiler, a steam turbine, and a DC generator?

Or a very large fire and thousands of thermocouples? (It's how Ohm's Law was developed.)
 
Wouldn't it be simpler to build a boiler, a steam turbine, and a DC generator?

Or a very large fire and thousands of thermocouples? (It's how Ohm's Law was developed.)
😀 Or, build a battery charger and just run the amp from rechargeable batteries.

Do you think the SMPS has anything to do with the issue at all?
Yes – because of the grounding scheme. But, there is nothing magical about switched mode power supplies and you can build one yourself if you wish. They are so cheap and abundant it is probably not worth it. Most folks around here would probably use a linear supply for such an application. So, there are alternative options to supplying power to your amp, and as you have discovered – every audio device you are going to build in future needs the correct and a quiet power source, be it your next headamp, power amp, preamp, dac and even a Raspberry Pi if you use one. I have been using what is called Capacitance Multipliers lately with great success. I use them (feeding from SMPS supplies) for my power amps, preamps, DAC and Raspberry Pi streamer. There are many designs on this forum, but here is one for example that is suitable for running your headamp as quiet as a church mouse:
GB for Simple Cap-Mx Regulated Low-Noise PSU

I would suggest you do a simple test and report back:
1. With your amp connected but no music playing – turn up the volume. Do you hear a buzz and does it get louder as you turn up the volume?
2. Now unplug the input signal cable and repeat the above. Do you still hear the same happening?

If your amp is quiet after you unplugged the music source, then your LM317 regulator is NOT to blame for the buzz. It is most likely the circuitry feeding the regulator, and more specifically the grounding scheme that is causing a ground loop issue. Unfortunately, I am not knowledgeable to help you with that.
 
+1

3. Test with only one channel connected.

Posting some photos of your build will help us to help you.


Amp is up and running sounding wonderful even as a prototype with wires running everywhere as it is not in a case yet.


LM 317 PSU.PNG
 
That's great news! :cheers:

I'm not LT Spice-expert enough to know what the simulator will think of your "12V" and "-12V" labels on the transformer secondary leads, but the resulting story it tells may not be what you think.

If super-silence is what you seek, I'd also recommend replacing the 0,01 uF caps across the MURS120's. Mark's Quasimodo and Cheapo-modo projects on this site are long-running, well-supported, and work great! It'd be worth borrowing an o'scope to do it, if you need to.

Regards
 
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That's great news! :cheers:

I'm not LT Spice-expert enough to know what the simulator will think of your "12V" and "-12V" labels on the transformer secondary leads, but the resulting story it tells may not be what you think.

Regards

That was just me being lazy and calling out what I wanted the DC value to be. Upon checking my DC voltage out of the PSU it indeed was regulated down to 12.6VDC.