I've noticed upon disassembly of some high end units that some manufacturers are using switching power supplies for servo section of disc drives and regulated power supply for audio output sections.Swicthing may also be used in digital-it's hard to tell without schematic on some of these. What I was wanting to know is there any sonic benefit for this or are manufacturers just saving money vs building a bigger regulated supply. A couple examples of this are Krell SACD standard and Denon DVD-5910.
Yes but not the el cheapo wall wart type.
They tend to be specifically designed with expensive complex filtering in order to make them suitable for high quality audio.
They tend to be specifically designed with expensive complex filtering in order to make them suitable for high quality audio.
No, a well laid out SMPS with normal (ie not mega expensive) filtering will do...
some Wall warts are quite good, but the majority are designed down to a price to be given away with a product.
I was looking through my collection of notes and design guides for SMPS's and have a few linear notes that go back to 1988 and earlier... It is interesting to see how far we have come in 20+ years of using SMPS's, todays beasts done right should not pose a problem, a lot of knowledge has been learned over the years, a lot to do with layout which is critical (and I would like to think SMPS's are laid out properly these days, the design and layout guides that every chip usually has these days is to combat bad layout, unfortunately bad layout does still prevail0. So a modern well designed and laid out SMPS will have no more or less effect than a linear supply, with the advantage you don't have noise in the 50-60Hz range...........
some Wall warts are quite good, but the majority are designed down to a price to be given away with a product.
I was looking through my collection of notes and design guides for SMPS's and have a few linear notes that go back to 1988 and earlier... It is interesting to see how far we have come in 20+ years of using SMPS's, todays beasts done right should not pose a problem, a lot of knowledge has been learned over the years, a lot to do with layout which is critical (and I would like to think SMPS's are laid out properly these days, the design and layout guides that every chip usually has these days is to combat bad layout, unfortunately bad layout does still prevail0. So a modern well designed and laid out SMPS will have no more or less effect than a linear supply, with the advantage you don't have noise in the 50-60Hz range...........
Last edited:
Thanks for replies-I was trying to find out why they(switching) are used in servo circuits/digital circuits. Most all high end players still use regulated for output section but use switching for servo/digital. Many receivers are following suit- regulated for amp section & switching for digital/control section.
I'll take a linear psu over a wall wart smps any day of the week. In fact I have a pile of the things I've replaced at home. They have no place anywhere near my hifi.
Now if we are talking chord power amps or audio aero CD players then that's another thing altogether but nothing anyone says will make me put a cheap wall wart smps into my system ever.......they are the devils work 😀 😉
Now if we are talking chord power amps or audio aero CD players then that's another thing altogether but nothing anyone says will make me put a cheap wall wart smps into my system ever.......they are the devils work 😀 😉
- Status
- Not open for further replies.
- Home
- Source & Line
- Digital Source
- Regulated vs Switching power supply for CD / Universal Players