Old products (up until the 70's) had a bakelite rotating switch on the back to select different power sources, like 110, 240 etc. Sometimes it was just a round piece of pcb board with pins in it. You had to pull the disc out, turn it, and put it back again. Now that was user friendly!
Peter Pan It was good enough for HP on some five and six figure test equipment. I have a 8657 rf gen, a 8903 distortion box and a 8920a CSM they all use that.
Wamgo C Maybe I have a nice question for your new video: Where have all the japanese audio (Sony, Sansui, Pioneer, Technics etc) gone and where did it go wrong?
For 25 years I worked at a power supply house and I remember working on very early switch mode supplies before control chips like the SG3524 of the 3844 series were developed. They were just terrible, I called them electronic M-80's just looking for a chance to go bang. As time went on between the availability of good control chips and our increasing understanding of switch mode topology the supplies became very reliable and reasonably quiet. For low noise (conducted as well as radiated) you need zero switching and VERY careful PWB layout.
You can use switch,for primary transformer windings, for 110/220VAC. That small switch is usualy on the back, near the mains connector, it is used in lot if products, since 70s-80s...
Precisely. If PS audio manually configure the primary internally for one specific region that is done because they choose too do it that way, not because it is necessary. It's just easier not to have the added switching and instead wire for a specific region. This is quite common in industrial electronics actually.
Solid state units usually have linear or switch mode regulation and a simple dual primary that can be seriesed or paralleled can give good coverage of most standard line voltages. Tube products usually need bogey heater voltages so a lot of primary taps are needed. IIRC Hafler’s ‘mod’ for Japan was to do nothing and just sell the amp de-rated 15 percent or so.
Excellent video! I learned a TON of information. Really, I did not know how important this consideration was. Thank you again for educating me on this matter. I now understand a lot better why you, and your company, are adamant about producing the level of QUALITY that you put into your products. I can clearly see myself owning some of your products when I can afford them. Great job!
Paul explained the different options to generate the needed secondary 60V (for example) but not explain why some manufacturers use one while another manufacturer uses another. I guess the easiest answer is -which countries are they sold to. If your company is selling only to the north american market, there is no need to install a transformer with multiple taps to switch from 120 to 240. if you are a huge company that has distributers sitting in europe and in the US then of course you might produce 2 different irons and install them according to which market the unit goes to, or use the switchable version. (they might have different main jacks for the power cord as they look different in the US and elsewhere, or both jacks wired to differnt taps on the transformer, or only one jack and maybe a manual switch where the user can change the voltage) Not to be confused with the switchmode supply which is a circuit that produces the same secondary output voltage by itself no matter what you put in the primary, it does that by keeping the voltage steady with transistors while changing the available current in the same time, its a network of parts that introduces some disturbance into the signal as Paul points out, why manufacturers might use such a device may be just down to simple economic calculations, which of these solutions is the cheapest and or best suited to the chassis concerning weight and size.
There's a few newer products that use a traditional linear power supply with a detection circuit on the dual primaries to automatically switch between series and parallel operation.
Today the main problem with high end switch mode power supply is current. Unlike big iron transformer can store current in it. Switch mode power supply really need multiple inductors and capacitors in it's output stage to store voltage and current that it has generated. When this done well it will resolve EMI and RFI issues as well. But doing so you basically end up with complex and reasonable sized power supply.
I'm confused. At 6.15 you say that you don't used switched mode power supplies "in general", then you say the the Stellar uses a switched mode power supply, then at the end you again say you don't use them because you "haven't been able to figure out how to do it." and until then "we don't" (use them). Huh???
Simple enough really - The Stellar line can be thought of as a "budget" PS Audio solution; it isn't built to give the same kind of ultimate sound performance their other products do. They use the best in the best, so to speak. So, while they do use them in some products they haven't figured out how to put them in, say, the BHK, without degrading performance in that particular product.
I believe what he meant is they don't use switch mode on the high end gear, but do on the budget products. Switch mode is far cheaper than a big heavy copper transformer, but as Paul said they generally don't sound as good. I agree on that front, I have yet to head a switch mode sound as good. They don't have the reserve power that a big ass transformer and big filter capacitors. They are efficient, and produce little heat. Conventional linear power supplies on the other hand produce gobs of power, but burn a fair bit up as heat in the process.
Hi Paul, manufacturers such as Emotiva have all their hi-end equipment with dual voltage and they use big toroid power supplies. Not sure I understand why your company doesn't do that as well.
switching power sup are lighter and with shielding, grounding and a number of different values caps EMF and RF can be all completely eliminated. The key is to install a psup that can handle double the amperage you will ever use on that amp. This power sup are cheaper to build in large quantities dos eliminating excuses not to use them any more. I was designing radio communications equipment and at the beginning I would not use a switching PS. However we are way passed those days and Switching PS are more reliable and do nor need the massive transformer and those massive pass transistors and heat sinks. PAUL THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX AND TRY THEM. Mario
Not sure I agree with this. I've got huge amps which I can convert voltage with a fuse change, I've also got large amps which have a rear switch to change the voltage. All done economically and effectively.
7:17, i wouldn't relly, Transformers are still the most efficient way os converting one voltage to another, there's thyristor valves that Convert AC to DC and then Back to AC but in a different voltage, but relly is very likely you will use some kind of copper or aluminium coil If you don't wan't to exhaust resources and get something efficient, the ideal thing is keeping up with transformers, you got now things like amorphous steel transfomers, shell type transformers are excelent for handling great electromagnetic radiation without problem, and also most of transformers are reciclable, you melt the steel, copper (or aluminium), you pull out impurities and then you make it again, that doesn't quite happen with Solid state devices that also have things like Arsenic, Mercury and Antimony. Shell type amorphous steel transformers have efficiencies close to 98% making a multiple voltage transformer that switches from 220 to 110V is quite easy really, you make the primary winding with 100 Turns, and the secondary winding with 50 turns, and in the middle of the secondary winding you put a cable at the middle, at turn 25, so with a switch is possible to change from 4:1 to 2:1 step down, they share the neutral but they are different phases
Class D and Switch mode power supply is really the future. But they are not cheap when done well. Other then the clever electronic and control behind it. Class D is very sensible to vibration so top end Class D always use heavy block of metal as base. Also switch mode power supply is very sensible to power fluctuation. That is why most top class D switch mode design a small linear power supply stage before it's switch mode power supply. And come with high end power cable to ensure their user uses a shielded power cable.
Paul points out that in his opinion the biggest mains iron sounds the best, i think that means actually that the universal transformer with one input and multiple output taps would sound the best as this should be the biggest iron because of multiple windings involved. Its not that simple, every transformer has inductance and series resistance which depend on how many wire turns and how thick the wire is and the construction of the unit as a whole and and and. Thicker wire with less turns have less inductance and higher current capability for example. There are differences that you can hear, for HIFI the transformers are overengineered in order the be able to deliver as much current as the amp needs turned all the way up without going into magnetic saturation and or wires getting hot because they are too thin and cannot permanently deliver enough current (the wires inside the transformers). In guitar amplifiers this is used deliberately to interact with the volume, so transformers might actually be undersized so when you hit the guitar hard the mains transformer (and the AC to DC rectifier) struggles to deliver enough power and there is a voltage sag and the sound compresses and all sorts of things that a guitar player might want from the amp in order to get an expressive interactive playing where the amp is part of creating a certain sound and not onlny reproducing what goes in it like in a HIFI unit.
if you use a step down transformer in between the cord and the equipment then you are adding another transformer in the chain, adding another piece of iron and thus inductance, resistance etc. increase., if one can hear these addition is hard to say. it all depends. a good power supply with the input filtering stage at the recitifer is usually designed to store enough energy as to counter any inadequacies in the rectifier or transformers in order to provide a steady flow of energy no matter what. though there are differences in what capacitors are used and so on and so forth, the deeper you go into this the more complex it gets. in general i would not worry about adding a Variac in the chain (step up or down transformer) as they should be engineered to be able to deliver alot of power, more so than your hifi amp, unless you have some watt monster that feeds a radio transmitter designed tube stage with 1,5kV and thousands of watts of output power ;)
I moved from the States to Europe. Some of my electronics will work with 220v, like my flat TV. But my bluray player, A/V receiver didn't. I also brought with me a Marsh P 2000t pre-amp, Parasound HCA 2200MkII power amp, DAC and CD player. None work with 220v. Parasound sent me a schematic to change the power amp to run on 220v. I never did it since I don't know how. So, I shipped several power converters rated at 3000 watts to convert down to 110v before I left the States. I also have a Richard Marsh designed power center to filter a/c after the power converters. Everything has been working great for 7 years so far, but if something goes down, I will look for something that will work 110-220v in the future. Stuff is out there that sounds great. I'm retired on a very fixed, low paying pension, so what I have has to last. If I have to buy something, it will have to be "universal" in operation in case I head back to the States.
okay i see, well as long as it works with the converters i would not worry, it should not have negative impact on life expectancy of the units, enjoy your stay over here in europe :)
It sounds like your engineers are not updated on modern powersupply technologies...electronic PS done right is very good. Iron core is very old school at this point. And don't give me that "sounds better". No it does not with a class D PS input stage done right. ICEPower was mentioned amongst others, no noise etc. Most MODERN products today does 90-265V automatically. Not to mention consumption, old school PS are really bad at efficiency while an electronic PS usually operates from 80-95% efficiency. As power prices rise this is increasingly more important than in the old days. Send your team to reeducation school and learn to produce good sounding electronic PS. :D Like all things it must be taught and learned. (In jest but with some truth to it...) I built my own electronic PS input stage with products from Schneider etc. The monoblocks sounds very nice without any artifacts.
Blood Carver A good line freq transformer and pi section filtering after diodes are still the quietest DC this side of a lead acid battery. And far and away the most field repairable. That said the sealed off the shelf brick SMPS has come a long way.
Mr McGowan, I have noticed that the video's ( Ask Paul ) Segments get uploaded at about 3 AM here in central Canada. Perhaps you can reset them for mid afternoon.. Think about doing that OK... Nice job as always, have a good day team PS Audio...
Old products (up until the 70's) had a bakelite rotating switch on the back to select different power sources, like 110, 240 etc. Sometimes it was just a round piece of pcb board with pins in it. You had to pull the disc out, turn it, and put it back again. Now that was user friendly!
Peter Pan It was good enough for HP on some five and six figure test equipment. I have a 8657 rf gen, a 8903 distortion box and a 8920a CSM they all use that.
Wamgo C Maybe I have a nice question for your new video: Where have all the japanese audio (Sony, Sansui, Pioneer, Technics etc) gone and where did it go wrong?
For 25 years I worked at a power supply house and I remember working on very early switch mode supplies before control chips like the SG3524 of the 3844 series were developed. They were just terrible, I called them electronic M-80's just looking for a chance to go bang.
As time went on between the availability of good control chips and our increasing understanding of switch mode topology the supplies became very reliable and reasonably quiet. For low noise (conducted as well as radiated) you need zero switching and VERY careful PWB layout.
You can use switch,for primary transformer windings, for 110/220VAC. That small switch is usualy on the back, near the mains connector, it is used in lot if products, since 70s-80s...
Precisely. If PS audio manually configure the primary internally for one specific region that is done because they choose too do it that way, not because it is necessary. It's just easier not to have the added switching and instead wire for a specific region. This is quite common in industrial electronics actually.
Solid state units usually have linear or switch mode regulation and a simple dual primary that can be seriesed or paralleled can give good coverage of most standard line voltages. Tube products usually need bogey heater voltages so a lot of primary taps are needed.
IIRC Hafler’s ‘mod’ for Japan was to do nothing and just sell the amp de-rated 15 percent or so.
Excellent video! I learned a TON of information. Really, I did not know how important this consideration was. Thank you again for educating me on this matter. I now understand a lot better why you, and your company, are adamant about producing the level of QUALITY that you put into your products. I can clearly see myself owning some of your products when I can afford them. Great job!
Paul explained the different options to generate the needed secondary 60V (for example) but not explain why some manufacturers use one while another manufacturer uses another.
I guess the easiest answer is -which countries are they sold to. If your company is selling only to the north american market, there is no need to install a transformer with multiple taps to switch from 120 to 240. if you are a huge company that has distributers sitting in europe and in the US then of course you might produce 2 different irons and install them according to which market the unit goes to, or use the switchable version. (they might have different main jacks for the power cord as they look different in the US and elsewhere, or both jacks wired to differnt taps on the transformer, or only one jack and maybe a manual switch where the user can change the voltage) Not to be confused with the switchmode supply which is a circuit that produces the same secondary output voltage by itself no matter what you put in the primary, it does that by keeping the voltage steady with transistors while changing the available current in the same time, its a network of parts that introduces some disturbance into the signal as Paul points out, why manufacturers might use such a device may be just down to simple economic calculations, which of these solutions is the cheapest and or best suited to the chassis concerning weight and size.
There's a few newer products that use a traditional linear power supply with a detection circuit on the dual primaries to automatically switch between series and parallel operation.
Audio Research did have a custom built switching power supply in their DS series, but they have since about 2016 discontinued their DS series.
Today the main problem with high end switch mode power supply is current. Unlike big iron transformer can store current in it. Switch mode power supply really need multiple inductors and capacitors in it's output stage to store voltage and current that it has generated. When this done well it will resolve EMI and RFI issues as well. But doing so you basically end up with complex and reasonable sized power supply.
I'm confused. At 6.15 you say that you don't used switched mode power supplies "in general", then you say the the Stellar uses a switched mode power supply, then at the end you again say you don't use them because you "haven't been able to figure out how to do it." and until then "we don't" (use them). Huh???
Simple enough really -
The Stellar line can be thought of as a "budget" PS Audio solution; it isn't built to give the same kind of ultimate sound performance their other products do. They use the best in the best, so to speak. So, while they do use them in some products they haven't figured out how to put them in, say, the BHK, without degrading performance in that particular product.
unfortunately Paul has not figured out how to not re post previous videos ...
I believe what he meant is they don't use switch mode on the high end gear, but do on the budget products. Switch mode is far cheaper than a big heavy copper transformer, but as Paul said they generally don't sound as good. I agree on that front, I have yet to head a switch mode sound as good. They don't have the reserve power that a big ass transformer and big filter capacitors. They are efficient, and produce little heat. Conventional linear power supplies on the other hand produce gobs of power, but burn a fair bit up as heat in the process.
Hi Paul, manufacturers such as Emotiva have all their hi-end equipment with dual voltage and they use big toroid power supplies. Not sure I understand why your company doesn't do that as well.
switching power sup are lighter and with shielding, grounding and a number of different values caps EMF and RF can be all completely eliminated. The key is to install a psup that can handle double the amperage you will ever use on that amp.
This power sup are cheaper to build in large quantities dos eliminating excuses not to use them any more. I was designing radio communications equipment and at the beginning I would not use a switching PS. However we are way passed those days and Switching PS are more reliable and do nor need the massive transformer and those massive pass transistors and heat sinks. PAUL THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX AND TRY THEM.
Mario
I wonder if a tube based SMPS would produce less noise.
would you say,, a triode is better than an EI?? for audio amps?
Not sure I agree with this. I've got huge amps which I can convert voltage with a fuse change, I've also got large amps which have a rear switch to change the voltage. All done economically and effectively.
All very interesting... But, what about the cleaning woman? What's her name?
7:17, i wouldn't relly, Transformers are still the most efficient way os converting one voltage to another, there's thyristor valves that Convert AC to DC and then Back to AC but in a different voltage, but relly is very likely you will use some kind of copper or aluminium coil
If you don't wan't to exhaust resources and get something efficient, the ideal thing is keeping up with transformers, you got now things like amorphous steel transfomers, shell type transformers are excelent for handling great electromagnetic radiation without problem, and also most of transformers are reciclable, you melt the steel, copper (or aluminium), you pull out impurities and then you make it again, that doesn't quite happen with Solid state devices that also have things like Arsenic, Mercury and Antimony. Shell type amorphous steel transformers have efficiencies close to 98%
making a multiple voltage transformer that switches from 220 to 110V is quite easy really, you make the primary winding with 100 Turns, and the secondary winding with 50 turns, and in the middle of the secondary winding you put a cable at the middle, at turn 25, so with a switch is possible to change from 4:1 to 2:1 step down, they share the neutral but they are different phases
Class D and Switch mode power supply is really the future. But they are not cheap when done well. Other then the clever electronic and control behind it. Class D is very sensible to vibration so top end Class D always use heavy block of metal as base. Also switch mode power supply is very sensible to power fluctuation. That is why most top class D switch mode design a small linear power supply stage before it's switch mode power supply. And come with high end power cable to ensure their user uses a shielded power cable.
So does using a transformer to either step up or down the voltage, say 220v to 110v drastically affect the sound??
Paul points out that in his opinion the biggest mains iron sounds the best, i think that means actually that the universal transformer with one input and multiple output taps would sound the best as this should be the biggest iron because of multiple windings involved. Its not that simple, every transformer has inductance and series resistance which depend on how many wire turns and how thick the wire is and the construction of the unit as a whole and and and. Thicker wire with less turns have less inductance and higher current capability for example. There are differences that you can hear, for HIFI the transformers are overengineered in order the be able to deliver as much current as the amp needs turned all the way up without going into magnetic saturation and or wires getting hot because they are too thin and cannot permanently deliver enough current (the wires inside the transformers).
In guitar amplifiers this is used deliberately to interact with the volume, so transformers might actually be undersized so when you hit the guitar hard the mains transformer (and the AC to DC rectifier) struggles to deliver enough power and there is a voltage sag and the sound compresses and all sorts of things that a guitar player might want from the amp in order to get an expressive interactive playing where the amp is part of creating a certain sound and not onlny reproducing what goes in it like in a HIFI unit.
What about when you take 110v equipment overseas and have to use a transformer to go from 220v to 110v?
if you use a step down transformer in between the cord and the equipment then you are adding another transformer in the chain, adding another piece of iron and thus inductance, resistance etc. increase., if one can hear these addition is hard to say. it all depends. a good power supply with the input filtering stage at the recitifer is usually designed to store enough energy as to counter any inadequacies in the rectifier or transformers in order to provide a steady flow of energy no matter what. though there are differences in what capacitors are used and so on and so forth, the deeper you go into this the more complex it gets. in general i would not worry about adding a Variac in the chain (step up or down transformer) as they should be engineered to be able to deliver alot of power, more so than your hifi amp, unless you have some watt monster that feeds a radio transmitter designed tube stage with 1,5kV and thousands of watts of output power ;)
I moved from the States to Europe. Some of my electronics will work with 220v, like my flat TV. But my bluray player, A/V receiver didn't. I also brought with me a Marsh P 2000t pre-amp, Parasound HCA 2200MkII power amp, DAC and CD player. None work with 220v. Parasound sent me a schematic to change the power amp to run on 220v. I never did it since I don't know how. So, I shipped several power converters rated at 3000 watts to convert down to 110v before I left the States. I also have a Richard Marsh designed power center to filter a/c after the power converters. Everything has been working great for 7 years so far, but if something goes down, I will look for something that will work 110-220v in the future. Stuff is out there that sounds great.
I'm retired on a very fixed, low paying pension, so what I have has to last. If I have to buy something, it will have to be "universal" in operation in case I head back to the States.
okay i see, well as long as it works with the converters i would not worry, it should not have negative impact on life expectancy of the units, enjoy your stay over here in europe :)
Title says "what dont" u mean "why dont" ? 😎
"d'oh", not "doh" :)
It sounds like your engineers are not updated on modern powersupply technologies...electronic PS done right is very good. Iron core is very old school at this point. And don't give me that "sounds better". No it does not with a class D PS input stage done right. ICEPower was mentioned amongst others, no noise etc. Most MODERN products today does 90-265V automatically. Not to mention consumption, old school PS are really bad at efficiency while an electronic PS usually operates from 80-95% efficiency. As power prices rise this is increasingly more important than in the old days.
Send your team to reeducation school and learn to produce good sounding electronic PS. :D
Like all things it must be taught and learned.
(In jest but with some truth to it...)
I built my own electronic PS input stage with products from Schneider etc. The monoblocks sounds very nice without any artifacts.
Blood Carver A good line freq transformer and pi section filtering after diodes are still the quietest DC this side of a lead acid battery. And far and away the most field repairable.
That said the sealed off the shelf brick SMPS has come a long way.
Mr McGowan, I have noticed that the video's ( Ask Paul ) Segments get uploaded at about 3 AM here in central Canada. Perhaps you can reset them for mid afternoon.. Think about doing that OK... Nice job as always, have a good day team PS Audio...
Hmmm... A vacuum tube switch mode supply.
Reddy is an Indian name.
Come on, Paul. You're just small time. That's the only reason.
Bob Nixon Harold Vollum started out small too. As did Dave and Bill.
dejavu
you are full of #BS my sansui's from the 70's sound better as everything you sell there and they have a voltage switch.....