Starting point
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsWhere you start matters. For example, when it comes to designing a new amplifying circuit, if your starting point is first the amplification path and second the power supply, you’ll get a very different amplifier than if you reversed the two.
If instead, your starting point focused first on building the perfect power supply and second adding the best means of modulating that supply (in cadence with the incoming audio signal), your design would likely be very different than the first example.
It’s all a matter of viewpoints and priorities.
An amplifier is a valve at the end of a power supply but also a valve fed from a power supply. The difference is one of perspective.
In my experience, designers who understand the critical role power supplies play in sound quality make far better sounding designs than those that just tack on a decent regulator and call it a day.
Where you start always defines where you end.
I think this is well understood, in particular in relation to Class D amplifiers, and for several companies making quality Class D amplifiers their proprietary power supplies is at the absolute core of their technology and around which all their amplifier design is focused. See for example Primare’s UFPD amplification technology:
http://www.primare.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PrimareUFPDDesignBrief082815.pdf
There are plenty of of brands that use OEM power supplies, in particular from Hypex, which is all well and good, but long term there seems to be merit in proprietary designs.
The analogy in this paper with electric cars, compared to petrol cars, seems a good one, in relation to the ability to get large amounts of instant power with an extremely low level of noise, really no noise at all. Stock Class D power modules can be quite noisy.
As our main car is fully electric and our main audio Class D, I appreciate where this is coming from.
As soon as I have options, I tend to want it all (on the level I can afford it) 😉
‘Where it starts’, I leave up to the designers.
‘Where it ends’, if it’s lucky, is in my listening room.
Paul – Isn’t this similar to HiFi system building, surly the approach should be the same (they are both systems). In HiFi system building, you recommend starting with the loudspeakers because they are the source of the most distortion and variability. Other components in the chain follow with diminishing returns. At the end of the day, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, therefore, all parts end up being important to a greater or lesser extent, it’s a matter of getting the order prioritised, that’s the skill. In this analogy, the power supply in the amplifier equates to loudspeakers in a HiFi system.
Not mention the great fun of it all when building a sound chain. 🙂
I think that is one of the most interesting and incredible aspects of this hobby of ours. Various companies in Audio all in your living room working together to give you the best. 🙂
Paul makes some terrific points, but David I think having different products from different (hopefully reputable companies) is the best and the most adventurous way to discover what is truly out there. 🙂
Personally having believed that the power supply is the key to any good audio component today’s post comes as no surprise.
But not being a designer I never gave much thought to the order. My initial reaction though is I would have thought it would be more of a parallel process. Or at least a back and forth process. Since the signal side of the equation depends on the power supply side.
Live and learn.
Since I design power systems for a living among other things I do I have some insight. The first thing you do is define a goal. It might be to address shortcomings of existing designs. It might be to see how well a new idea performs. Whatever it is, that’s the first order of business. Next comes the design of the circuit you want to try out. Finally you have to calculate the power requirements of that circuit. That’s when you build the power supply or if you breadboard your design and you have a laboratory power supply you use that to test your design. How can you design a power supply when you don’t know what your power requirements will be? This is why when I have to design a power distribution system the first order of business is a load study. How much power will I need and in what form? Generally my designs are in kilowatts or megawatts but the principle is the same.
If you get a hernia trying to lift a amp or preamp then I think the designers got off to a good start.