Anyone used a Power opamp as a voltage regulator ?

[Shoog]

I have some spare OPA544 and was thinking could I use them as voltage regulators in my next Gainclone project. Any sujestions of a suitable circuit.

Shoog

 

[Christer]

That is one of the suggested applications for it according to
the datasheet, which also contains a schematic for a
programmable power supply, which may, of course be overkill
in you case.

 

[Squalish]

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

That's part of a design for the PS of a headphone amplifier by Kevin Gilmore.

 

[Shoog]

That looks just the job.

thanks

Shoog

 

[Shoog]

Though looking at it i'am not certain I want to go to quite that level of sophistication. There must be a chopped down version.

Shoog

 

[purplepeople]

That's part of a design for the PS of a headphone amplifier by Kevin Gilmore.

Wow! That's not just a power supply... that's a DC amplifier.

ensen.

 

[Circlotron]

How will this sit with the "Gaincones must have 1000uF filter caps" crowd? Regulated power supply rails will appear like infinite uF caps. According to them this will make it sound inferior. I think it could only improve the sound, although not much.

 

[SY]

For low-level circuits (preamps), I've successfully used buffer amps like the NS 0002. Haven't tried this at power amp levels yet. Neat idea. I wish the Apex hybrids were cheaper...

 

[jackinnj]

APEX has a line of high power high voltage op-amps -- these are very expensive but there is a fellow who sells them on EBay from time to time.

 

[Christer]

How will this sit with the "Gaincones must have 1000uF filter caps" crowd? Regulated power supply rails will appear like infinite uF caps. According to them this will make it sound inferior. I think it could only improve the sound, although not much.

I am dissapointed with you. I would really have expected you to
come up with some exotic unorthodox alternative solution.
What's happening to you? Have you started drinking bottled
water?

 

[analog_sa]

Regulated power supply rails will appear like infinite uF caps. According to them this will make it sound inferior.

Not necessarily. You may like calling certain circuits 'capacitance multipliers' but the subjective effect is very different than using large capacitance. Not necessarily better, but certainly different. It may turn out to work really well. If i were to try it, i'd definitely give the 317 preregulator a miss - it's sonic flavour (flavour? more like a stench) would be difficult to mask.

 

[Shoog]

What I don't fancy is the preliferation of voltage levels in the circuit. I don't see why a simple zener referenced to the opamp inputs wouldn't do the trick. I don't understand how to set up the negative regulator and would like assistance on component values.

I read somewhere that the main benefit of using only 1000uf was the low resistance it offered. An opamp regulator would hopefully have a similar charaturistic. I also saw it sujested that the regulator might be followed by a 1000uf cap. I don't think most people understand fully why 1000uf sounds best, so its difficult to speculate what effect the regulator would have. Its main sujested benefit is in cleaning up noise in the higher frequencies, which the 1000uf cap and chips PSRR doesn't cope with well.

Shoog

 

[purplepeople]

It's obvious that the 24V taps are for driving the 548s. I'm guessing that the 48V taps are for some kind of phantom power if it's ever needed.

ensen.