A recent question has gotten me thinking as to what power supply advice should be given to audio circuit beginners. 

There are 100s of matches for a "dual rail" search in this forum. There are many "Similar Questions - single rail problem\*\*\*\*\*" coming up on the right hand site of my screen. People regularly ask for the pros and cons and we tell them. We're also always correcting beginner's circuits who have failed to adequately bias transistors or create effective virtual grounds. And endless corrections to circuits that can't drive the output to near zero. This confusion is multiplied by circuits with several decoupled stages.

Isn't it simpler to just recommend something like a dual rail DC-DC converter as below (arbitrary example):-

[![dc-dc converter](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3XVLL.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3XVLL.png)

So it's £6. Most members here should be able to afford that and it kinda pays for itself with reduced paracetamol and component count. It runs off anything from +3.3V to +24V and can produce +/-3V to +/-24V. They'll easily manage 100mA /rail. They even have zero minimum load requirements these days. A converter would solve many of the question issues posed here for transistor and op amp based circuits. It's one component, professionally designed and manufactured hence very reliable. Noise is not at issue at audio frequencies.

Personally this the first solution I reach for with anything op ampy. I operate on the principle of *build what you must, buy what you can*. I'm not suggesting a treatise on the pros & cons of DC-DC converters, but rather might this be a form of beginner's best practice advice?