DCAudioDIY.com

Is there no need for smoothing cap after voltage regulator?

Pelliott321 wrote:Is there no need for smoothing cap after voltage regulator?

Just my $0.02

Smoothing cap, no.
Filtering cap, yes. Small caps, mounted very close to load, used for filtering RFI......
Some might say that "reservoir" caps, mounted very close to the load, improve dynamics. This one is debated ad nauseum.

Also, some regulators balk at driving too large of a cap at the output.

It is best to have lots of energy storage feeding the audio stages. The presence of regulation is not as big a factor, although regulation may be necessary if the circuit has a lot of gain at low frequency. Many regulators cannot handle much energy storage because they are unable to start up because they have fold-back current limiting or they are unstable, or they simply blow up. I use an unusual type of switching regulator for the things I make called a parallel resonant converter. While more expensive to make than the common pulse-width regulator, it can drive short circuits forever making it great for charging large energy-storage banks.

David