I used a 48V switch mode power supply in the El Estudiante headphone amp and am pleasantly surprised with the quiet background and relative simplicity. When it comes to higher voltages though, you will not find many AC/DC switch mode power supplies at vendors like Mouser or Digikey. While a beefy low voltage DC supply could feed a DC/DC booster (see Millet’s 10W booster project and various eBay listings), I’d like to find something that is more easily repeated by others with parts from major PSU manufacturers.
I came across the idea of stacking low voltage SMPS supplies in a couple places and the idea intrigued me as a scalable and affordable approach to creating B+ (see here and here). The Meanwell EPS-15 48 are regulated and isolated AC/DC supplies that sell for about $8. Stacking six of these would supply 300mA at about 300V.
This schematic shows the general outline of what I’d like to try with a single-ended amplifier. The V1 supplies produce the anode to cathode voltage for the output tube. These are referenced about 100V above ground by the V2 supplies. The input tube’s B+ is a combination of the V2 and V3 supplies. All in all, this would call for seven 48V supplies, plus another low voltage supply for heaters. The final cost would be somewhat less than a traditional transformer and CLC filter, but there are more interesting reasons to try this.
All the supply gymnastics make it very easy to direct couple the two stages. In this example, Q1 is a gyrator load and Q2 sets the reference voltage. This would also allow us to drive the output tube into A2 operation. My choice for output tube here would be a 6V6: a really sweet sounding triode that otherwise doesn’t produce much in A1 operation. Power would still be low (around 2W), but that would be plenty for headphones or enough for high-efficiency speaker systems.
wauwatosa tube factory 
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