Sinrace Power Supply Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.

A typical linear power supply of the type found in most audio equipment includes a line power transformer which converts the 115/230 VAC 50/60 Hz to other (usually lower) voltages (now that most equipment has done away with vacuum tubes except for CRTs, more on that later). The power transformer also provides the isolation between the load and the line. The outputs are rectified by a diode bridge or other solid state configuration. Filtering is accomplished with electrolytic capacitors and sometimes inductors or resistors arranged as a low pass filter C-L-C (pi) or C-R-C or other configuration.

The regulator circuit essentially compares the output (possibly only one if there are multiple outputs in the same package) with a reference and adjusts the current flow to make the output(s) as nearly equal to the desired voltage as possible. However, a significant amount of power may be lost in the regulator especially under high line voltage/high load conditions. Therefore, the efficiency of linear power supplies is usually quite low - under 50% overall is typical.

Notable characteristics of LPSs are excellent regulation and low output ripple and noise.