[laevi]

I was recently thinking about the viability of using a PC's power supply as the power source for an amp. It's not uncommon to see various computer retailers selling 300 W power supply units for $20 or less. I understand that such a power supply already has some inherent filtering/switching capabilities.

As I am quite the newbie, I don't know if such a power supply could deliver the type of clean power that audiophiles demand. With +12 and -12 V rails, it might be possible to deliver 24 V and enough current to drive most applications. So would such a thing work in some of the larger, non-portable amps?

I'd appreciate your comments. Thanks.

 

[Dreamslacker]

PC PSU's are switching power supplies. THey can add quite some ripple and noise.
300w is not purely for the 12v line. It's the total power over the 3.3v, 5v, 5vsb & 12v lines.

The -5 & -12v lines generally do not take much current either.

For bigger amps, it's still better to go with a transformer + linear regulators design, I guess.