Vinnie, speaking for the tech newbie, I remember reading your earlier post about ESR and electrolytic capacitors and thinking: Wow, but what does that mean? Is it a newer form of energy storage/release similar to a bank of Ultracaps where you isolate music power from the home AC, or is it just a new form of direct-from-AC music power supply?
Hi Mikeg77,
ESR = Equivalent Series Resistance.
It is the resistance inside the capacitor. Using a water analogy, a power supply capacitor is like a storage tank:
- The
lower the ESR, the
higher the instantaneous current (
water flow) the capacitor can output.
- The
higher the capacitance value, the more water can be
stored in the tank.
- The
higher the voltage, the
more water pressure is available.
So we want high storage (Capacitance), high flow (Amperage, flowing through a very low resistance "pipe"), and in order to get more output power, the amplifier needs high enough DC voltage rails (pressure).
Typically, the more output power you want to output, the higher the voltage rails need to be in order to recreate an amplified signal of the input. The output signal must "swing" (go cycle positive and negative) between the voltage rails but cannot get too close to them or else the waveform gets "clipped" = distorted, as the output cannot go higher than the rails that are being modulated to create it).
I hope this makes sense, but if not, maybe we can start a new thread about it? I'm sure there are already many good threads on Audiocircle and various forums about topics such as this.
Vinnie
