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Battery power

Paul's Posts — 28 June 2012

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Battery power

For a long while there was a trend towards battery powered source gear.  Advantages were many: lower noise, no cords to deal with, better isolation.  But in general they did not succeed because they sounded worse.  Why?  Because of what made them special, the batteries themselves.

We know from years of experience that the lower the power supply impedance the better the sound quality.  It’s a demonstrable fact and one that we spend a good deal of money on in all our products: bigger transformer, more power supply capacitors etc.  Batteries – at least the ones in typical use on battery powered equipment – have much poorer regulation and therefore higher source impedance.

A battery doesn’t have to have this problem but to overcome it you need a relatively large battery.  So, the fact that many a battery powered unit sounds wimpy isn’t an accident.

I wish I had more time to investigate all this as much of it doesn’t make sense.  For example, why would a class A amplification stage care about power supply source impedance when it has a constant current draw?  Good question and if only we had more time to answer it.

For now it’s good enough that we know what works and address it as such.

But still – a battery powered unit is ultra cool.  Love the no wires.

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About Author

Paul McGowan

Paul McGowan is the CEO and co-founder of PS Audio Inc. a Boulder Colorado design and manufacturing company of high-end audio products and services. McGowan has been designing and building high-end products for nearly 40 years. Hobbies include skiing, music, hiking, artisan bread baking, kick boxing and cooking. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his 4 sons.

(5) Readers Comments

  1. adam75

    June 28, 2012 at 2:30 am

    Nice to see you posting on home territory, as opposed to the recent, and rather brave, excursion into philosophy of science and epistemology.

  2. June 28, 2012 at 8:58 am

    I’ve been making recordings using dedicated batteries since 1994 for my label, Epiphany Recordings Ltd. That and a unique microphone allows me to capture and replay much more musically information than if I used a convention wall driven power supply, or even precise AC inverter system.

    Cheers -

    Jeremy

    http://www.EpiphanyRecordings.com

  3. Adolf

    June 28, 2012 at 10:44 am

    I think you should differentiate about power supply. Probably you know ASR Audio a famous German factory, well known for its Emitter series. There is a huge power supply of the battery and an extreme board of capacitors of about 1 million µF!!! in the biggest extension.
    Music ist great from that amp. Look forward to hearing your reply.

    • June 29, 2012 at 6:14 am

      Well I am not familiar with this German brand but as I mentioned in the article – IF you use a lot of batteries and then work hard (as apparently they did) to keep the impedance low then by all means this is a good way to. The problem I have with this approach would then not be from a sonic standpoint – as it may actually sound better than an AC supply in this case – but the bulk of what you’ve done, the fact that the batteries would have to be replaced every few years and the sheer insanity of this course of action – truly overkill in its finest moment.

  4. oliver T. Finch

    June 28, 2012 at 9:48 pm

    Maybe some day you will have more time to explain this interesting phenomenon. Highly unlikely but then hope sustaineth life. Regards.

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