Power Supply Sag This "noise" is the collapsing and expanding of the rail voltage in response to the demands made on the power supply during the playing of music. The sag is caused by the greatly varying current demands the output stage makes on the power supply, which when multiplied against the effective series resistance of the power supply, create a varying power supply rail voltage. At full output a 100 watt amplifier draws a peak current of 5A, which results in a 5 volt sag in power supply voltage, if the power supply's ESR is 1 ohm; and 25 volts, if the power supply's ESR is 5 ohms. (The latter figure is more likely in an OTL amplifier.) The ESR is the sum of the diode and transformer winding resistance; and the higher the power supply voltage, the greater the ESR. So even a perfectly quiet power supply can cause trouble. If the fluctuations in power supply voltage are not matched in the drive signal for the bottom device, gross distortions occur. Imagine a loud passage collapsing the negative power supply rail, but the DC value of the drive remains at the idle value. In this scenario, the cathode or source or emitter has effectively been made much more positive than the grid or gate or base, which in turn turns off the bottom device altogether. Yes feedback will work to correct the problem, but this means that the feedback must ease up on its correction of bandwidth limitations and general distortion cancellation.
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