Capacitor-less amps

John_tracy...Get real! If power supply capacitors were in the signal path the amp's HF rolloff would be about 0.0001 Hz!

Actually, if the power supply caps were in the signal path (in series), you would have a highpass filter so it would be an LF rolloff. There would be no bass.

There is some confusion: "in the signal path" means in series. Decoupling capacitors are in the signal path. Parallel caps are fine and necessary - cleans up the signal which everyone likes.

"There is some confusion: "in the signal path" means in series."
I agree; that's the definition I always understood.

"Decoupling capacitors are in the signal path."
'Decoupling' usually means a relatively small cap from DC power to ground that isolates one part of the powersuppply 'line' from the next. Decouplers are NOT in series so are not in the signal path. Did you mean COUPLERS?

"Parallel caps are fine and necessary - cleans up the signal which everyone likes."
You'll have to be more specific for me to understand what you mean.
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Yes, you are correct - I meant coupling caps and not decoupling. The input coupling cap is generally the one in the signal path.

Decoupling caps are from power to ground (parallel to the power supply reservoir caps) to remove radio frequency components - hence cleaning up the sound. the power supply caps, being much larger in size, remove the ripple to clean the sound of those frequencies.

Aball...Yep. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess that the point I was making is that the PS capacitors are such huge values, compared with coupling capacitors, that they would look like a short circuit to an audio signal.