Step 7: Voltage regulating

While checking the blockdiagram of our power amplifier designs, you'll notice that there is a part called Voltage Regulator board inside the Power Supply block. In this section we explain what you can do with that part.

Under basic operation, the Voltage Stage module is powered directly from the ± high current voltage rails of the amplifier. This works fine, due to the wide range Current Regulator Diodes (CRD's) on the VS-input boards.
But: as always, it can be done better, so we made our CS-boards in a way that you can decide to power the connected VS-input board in two ways:
  • Normally (and as supplied) we power the VS-module over a jumper pair close to the large horizontal Power Supply connector
       on the CS-board. In that case, the VS-module is receiving unregulated supply voltages, degrading the sound a bit.
  • By removing those jumpers, the VS-module's power lines are disconnected from these massive power lines.
       While doing so, we can add a Voltage Regulator module, receiving input voltages from the same power lines,
       yet regulating it down to a stable and lower voltage, feeding this to the VS-input module.

By adding a VR-module the sound quality will increase AND in some cases the amp's supply voltages can be increased.
VR-3/30 module

In those cases where you decide to use a VS-20 input module, the voltage rails have to be < ±63Vdc, otherwise this VS-20 will be damaged due to overvoltage.
In the cases where you plan to build a high-power amplifier (with according high power rail voltages) and a VS-20 input module it is NECESSARY to use one of our Voltage Regulator modules and regulate the VS-module's voltages down to below ±63V. Note that the voltage over these VR-regulator modules cannot exceed 37Vdc, so while powering the amp with ±100VDC (= max voltage with top modules), you have to align the VR-module to ±63Vdc output indeed. In cases where you use lower voltages, you can lower the VS-module voltages accordingly. The VS-20 will work fine from around ±25V already.

While using a VR-10 input module, you can use a Voltage regulator module in the same way. However, there is a slight difference in the suppply chain compared to VS-20.
On the VS-10 module you can select it's voltage range from ±25-63V or ±60-100V by a pair of jumpers on it, so using a Voltage Regulator module is just an option and not neccessary.

As shown in the picture, most of our VR-voltage regulator modules have screw connectors on board, where you can take this regulated voltages as well for other low current circuits.