Power conditioning for computer audio

Paul - you must be very careful about where you use ferrites. They can definitely inhibit dynamic current flow to a DAC for instance. If you are using a sound card in a desktop PC, the ferrites may add significantly to the jitter by making the power supply sluggish.

IMO, these are only useful for protection of a computer against line voltage fluctuations. Keep them away from the audio parts.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"Could you explain why that would be so?

I would expect, given that we are talking about a digital output of the computer (as opposed to an output whose current demands may fluctuate widely) that capacitive energy storage and decoupling on the sound card, and perhaps the motherboard as well, would isolate the sound card circuits from any power supply sluggishness."

Sorry, but there are no voltage regulators out there that reject input voltage variations like this, even the best ones. They are all imperfect. Even lots of power decoupling will not do it. Regulators all have finite response times, so regulating large current transients is a tall order too. All of these things are helpful, but still imperfect.

When it comes to generating a low-jitter digital output, the power must be extremely clean with fast responding regulators, and isolated from everything else.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio