Simplest Linear PSU?

Hmm, no love here for SBooster?

s boosters are excellent, cost effective, very very well built and terrific performers

smd vs smps -- 🤣

that is hifi nerd-dom conflation at it’s nadir!

what the heck are we talking about here????? 🤔

on a slightly more serious note, i think one needs to bear in mind that some judicious component designers may choose smps for their compactness and economy, and could well build in power feed filtering within the main body of the component... doesn't solve the problem of the cheapo smps dirtying the shared ac power line other gear takes from, but the particular unit in question could well run beautifully with the smps delivering the dc at its input

@charles1dad @lewm

smps have two problems as i understand it

1) they can produce an output that has nasty digital switching noise, if the output is poorly or is not at all filtered to deliver a pure dc output

2) smps are also notorious for putting noise back into the ac line, which in turn can affect other components on the house circuit

there are industrial and medical grade smps units that address both these issues as they are engineered and built with this in mind - smps units for portable medical and lab/scientific instruments

for hifi, my understanding that ifi of the uk makes several relatively inexpensive upgrade power supplies that are still of the smps variety (not classic transformer driven linear ps’s) but with onboard filtration/noise management

i power 2 with active noise cancellation

i power x (higher version)

there is also this very pricey one which according to its marketing script has both ps technologies on board...

i would concur that teradak in china builds excellent, low cost lps's.... not blingy, but quiet, clean reliable dc power...