One of must have software when simulating power supply is PSU Designer II or PSUD II. This amazing freeware could simulate your power supply behavior, before you start to assembly your circuit. Off course, not all looked good means good for ears, but at least we can try 😉

Below is my current Aikido PreAmp power supply circuit. The rectifier actually should be RGN, but I can’t find it on the list. So let’s roll with similar one, the common 5U4-GB.

The chokes are various from Sowter, Electra-Print, and Lundahl. Plan to take another amorphous one from Tamura, but we’ll see. Capacitor also varies, with V-Cap, Jensen, ASC, and the last minute acquisition, Black Gate WKz.

Below is the simulated result. It seems that PSUD II doesn’t like if we use small capacitance on the end of the rail, which actually I prefer to do so to ‘speed up’ the slow electrolytic (well, you can’t say ‘slow’ to Black Gate WKz actually). As you can see, the simulated result somehow got pulses on the first 2 ms. The power supply also considered ‘very slow’ as it starts to stabilize after 5 ms. Well, after some experiments, I can make the power supply becomes faster, less than 2 ms settling time. But I don’t really like the combination and/or the sonic produced.

We’ll see how the circuit will perform in the real world and its contribution of the final sonic of this Aikido PreAmp.