<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hi Neil,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Depends if you can tolerate the noise. I’ve used quite a few products from Mean Well, and although their price if very good, their noise and EMC performance is terrible.<div class=""><br class=""><div class="">There is orders of magnitude in difference in noise between these kinds of DC/DC converters and a good low-drop-out analog regulator. I’m currently looking at a LT3088 LDO (3-pin, needs one ext resistor to set output voltage) at <a href="https://www.analog.com/en/products/lt3088.html#product-overview" class="">https://www.analog.com/en/products/lt3088.html#product-overview</a>. It has 27 uV RMS noise. The Mean Well has 3 orders of magnitude more. So if you have the budget, go for some SMPS to generate pos and neg and followed with some analog regulators. Maybe even put a point-of-load regulator on each board.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">BTW, do you have to use a wallwart? Regular transformers are plentiful.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">On the other hand, there were similar awful DC/DC converters in Buchla 200e boats and nobody complained…</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Ben</div><div class=""><br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 30 Oct 2019, at 21:45, Neil Harper <<a href="mailto:metadata@gmx.com" class="">metadata@gmx.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">so i'm putting together a new diy modular system, it's been over a<br class="">decade since i built my last ones. my knowledgebase is firmly in the<br class="">horowitz & hill era, so my previous psu was an lm317/lm337 based affair<br class="">that took a 16VAC wallwart to power.<br class=""><br class="">that psu worked fine, but i'm noticing the 16VAC wallwarts are<br class="">increasingly hard to find, almost impossible in europe. more of my gear<br class="">is now coming with a switchmode dc wallwart and an internal switchmode<br class="">power supply to generate internal bipolar (+/-12VDC) supplies.<br class=""><br class="">i was always told that switchmode power supplies suck for audio, so<br class="">taking a switchmode dc wallwart and then putting it into another<br class="">switchmode powersupply seems like it would be a recipe for noise - but<br class="">this seems to be what is inside almost every product now. the forgiving<br class="">input voltage range (9 to 18VDC for example) is very appealing and so is<br class="">the availability of dc supplies.<br class=""><br class="">there's a lot of these encapsulated supplies, delivering +/-12VDC:<br class=""><br class=""><a href="https://www.jameco.com/z/DKE10A-12-MEAN-WELL-Power-Supply-Encapsulated-DC-DC-2-Output-12-Volt-12-Volt-0-42A-0-42A-10W-5-PIN-DKE10A-12-MEAN-WELL_217092.html" class="">https://www.jameco.com/z/DKE10A-12-MEAN-WELL-Power-Supply-Encapsulated-DC-DC-2-Output-12-Volt-12-Volt-0-42A-0-42A-10W-5-PIN-DKE10A-12-MEAN-WELL_217092.html</a><br class=""><br class="">anyone successfully using these things in synths? how are they comparing<br class="">to old school rectified linear regulated power supplies? what's your<br class="">favorite pizza toppings? are you doing anything special on the rails to<br class="">filter for switching noise, etc?<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class="">--<br class="">/// Neil Harper<br class="">/// Every Wave is New Until it Breaks<br class=""><br class="">_______________________________________________<br class="">Synth-diy mailing list<br class="">Synth-diy@synth-diy.org<br class="">http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></div></body></html>