Simplest & best power supply

Power quality efficiency and quality depends greatly on minimizing impedance (having minimal path + least resistive components and best conductor) and headroom.
What’s a theoretical diagram for the simplest and most efficient general purpose power supply for a given required power draw?

Sorry, the question might be a bit blunt, but as said, I’m looking for a theoretically correct answer.

i’m gonna go with multiple lead acid batteries in parallel :wink:
anything doing dc power from mains will have a variety of (small) compromises to trade off dependent on the use case :slight_smile:

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It’s a question based on a premise about impedance that may or may not be valid. The question is a bit like asking what’s the best fuel to put in a car. It depends on the design of the car, might be diesel, nitro or electricity. Same with electronics.

The power supply that Tony Stark puts in his chest is the best though probably not the simplest

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Yep and Crown batteries have a wonderful line of
agm batteries waiting just for you !! :grin: :grin: :innocent:

Well, let’s say I want to build general purpose linear power supplies that I would use as after-market upgrades to my components.
They would always employ at the very least: oversized toroids and more microfarads than necessary, point-to-point silver wiring with attention to gauge, etc. I know there are general-purpose “audiophile-grade” linear power supplies available, I just want to make my own because I frankly just want to do something.

Okay I agree. Can’t not to agree.

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I just realized…
Power supplies give DC…

Could someone enlighten the matter of how we get clean AC from amplifier outputs though the device is coupled to DC rails? There’s no regeranator in the amplifier so how does it couple the DC to the outputs?
Or does the AC travel along a different route with the DC “battery pack” of a power supply giving it its strength to power a load? In essence?

Now I’m confused. I feel stupid, though electricity is a fundamental element to me and even an obsession but… how an amplifier really works isn’t clear yet.

Check out
Elliott Sound Products - The Audio Pages (Main Index) (sound-au.com)

in particular
DIY Audio Articles - Power Supply Design (sound-au.com)
and
DIY Audio Articles - Amplification (sound-au.com)

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We get clean AC from dirty DC rails because of the way an amplifier works. Take a simple amplifier circuit on 1 transistor. Power it from dirty DC rails. Feed its input with a small, clean AC music signal and the output will be an amplified version of the input. Bigger but still clean. This happens as long as the output signal is not so big that it gets close to where the “dirt” is riding on top of the DC.

Here’s another way to think about it. The “dirt” you refer to in a DC supply is AC. That AC rides atop the DC. Kind of in the same way if you were pumping seawater. As long as the input to your put stayed below the waves you would get a perfect flow. The waves in this analogy are the AC riding on top of DC.

Hope that helps.

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An interesting analogy, and helpful.

“Hope that helps”

It does. Now what about if the rails, and everything was impeccably clean from any undesireable ripples and distortions, let’s say we have in essence regenerators internally integrated into multiple stages of an amplifier if necessary, with the regenerated outputs tailored for the circuit. So a huge complicated bulky unpractical construct.
Could we now freely “overdrive” its efficiency in various ways now that there’s no floating gap where we’d start getting a bad output (before the output stage gives in)? Is there any merit in doing this? I guess not.

Btw, can a regenerator be configured to work as an audio amplifier and how’d it fare doing that if possible? Since it is an amplifier after all.

Also from where does a regenerator take its perfect sine input? A signal generator?

Thanks, Elk!

So should I get a smaller pack of higher industry standard batteries or just hook up a good bunch of used car batteries?

Of course I want the best conditions for the capacitors, is this more dependent on the battery “quality” or how I mix and match more capacitors for the capacitors to work smoothly?

Hmmm - something I’ve often thought of, but the modifications to the individual equipment PSUs carries risks of damaging audio quality in itself.
New batteries, I reckon, and as many as possible.

Batteries can be dangerous. This is often forgotten.
Data Centre UPSs for example can be very dangerous beasts if not handled, maintained, and managed correctly, and even then have been known to explode (in some form or another).
Hot sulphuric acid spraying around a room is not fun…

The new generation of voltage regulators from linear technology is amazing! LT3045 / 3094 this in combination with OScon caps!
Do not understand why so many in the hifi industry still use 78xx / 79xx they sound really gray …
Check out these pages.

https://www.ldovr.com/

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