Amplifier designer on the importance of power supplies to hifi audio quality

Learn why respected hifi amplifier designer and physicist, David Berning, says that the "power supply is half the sound of the amplifier."
David also discusses why he uses parallel resonance converters in his power supplies and the pros / cons of linear power supplies in hifi audio design.
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Learn more about David Berning and the ZOTL technology: davidberning.com/technology
Discover Linear Tube Audio products, which incorporate David's groundbreaking ZOTL technology: www.lineartubeaudio.com/
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[@PassionforSound]

Great to hear from the experts behind the products! Thank you for sharing these videos.

[@LinearTubeAudio]

Thank for watching, Lachlan. We hope to share more like this.

[@Unpreeeedictable]

Thanks David and LTA. My LTA UL integrated is eerily quiet, not just for a tube amp, but for any amp. I wonder if the switching power supply has something to do with that?

[@LinearTubeAudio]

It definitely helps!

[@LVeAV]

I've always said this myself. The power supply stage is as important as the amplification stage. Although for my own systems I generally avoid tubes because, first it's not what I grew up with, I grew up in the zenith of A/B amplifiers right before the industry switched over to class D amplification. But the principals remain the same as tubes but instead of high voltage power supplies you now have to design for high current. But after having repaired literally hundreds of pro audio amplifiers, it just really bugs me that the number one failure point I regularly see is power supply failures. Although I am interested in your ZOTL technology. I've experimented with making the high current low voltage output of a class D mini amp sound more "tubelike". The class D amp chips like the Tripath TA2020 let go of their negative feedback when approaching their voltage limits, creating the tubelike soft clipping, instead of the hard clipping like A/B amps. When combined with an output transformer the mathematical conversions very much mimic the harmonics of tubes on an output transformer down to how speaker system resonances are amplified because negative feedback is greatly reduced by the transformer. But it would be nice to eliminate the darker tone typically caused by the inductance of the audio transformer while keeping the tubelike sound of the class D amp. I've built some custom 4 watt 5 volt guitar micro amps for some guitarists who loved my demo amp. Ironically just as a joke I put a fake tube with an led light on it just to satisfy them because that way they can show off their 5v "tube" amp where they can show off the variable overdrive system I designed, it makes the woofers bloom and the tweeters crunch just like the real thing without having to resort to digital emulation. It's simply analog emulation of tube distortion.

[@LinearTubeAudio]

Very cool. Thanks for watching!