All Linear Power -- Possible?

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Is building a PC or streamer working on all linear power, ie, no switching regulators, possible? Do you need to buy a streamer designed like that?

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16 hours ago, marce said:

Not really and why would you when SMPS's are the best option, heat, size, locality (critical), power density, speed of response etc. Getting an understanding of the requirements of building a power delivery system for a digital, digital/analogue or a digital/analogue/rf  design would help understand the complexities. 

 

Switching power is the enemy of audio.

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Just now, Ralf11 said:

 

 

yes, and that is why it is never used for sensitive laboratory research equipment, or for important medical equipment.

 

 

oh wait.... !!!

 

Did you know that hearing is our fastest sensory input?

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10 hours ago, marce said:

No it isn't, with digital you need small footprint point of load supplies can supply the required power and more importantly not add excessive heat to the design. You have numerous power islands on a correctly design digital digital/analogue boards, some can have 20+, digital/analogue boards even more. A typical board will have a 3V3 SMPS for general supply and IO, from this separate low noise LDO supplies will provide the various voltages required by the main devices, 1 - 1.2V core voltage, 2.5V for other processing areas. You don't daisy chain multiple SMPS's, you will have one main SMPS feeding several LDO sub supplies and general digital, such as gates etc. The on board SMPS's are also run at different frequencies and more often theses days spread spectrum. On the analogue side on instrumentation/medical/space of design the main analogue supplies are from linear supplies, the current requirement is less  for analogue (usually 1-2A regs) with again any local supplies provided by low noise LDO's. Analogue supplies are usually +/- 15, 12, 5 or 6 for lower voltage stuff and sometimes quite high voltages depending on the output requirement, though high current output is preferable on a separate board as the design requirements are different...

So its not SMPS vs LPS is designing the power delivery system to fit the design, minimise interactions between the sections, separating sensitive areas of design from the digital core and also generic IO (Ethernet, USB).

😃

 

Switching power is the enemy of audio because it gets high-frequency hash into the audio circuit and AC mains, has problems with ground loop formation, etc.