Fast Amplifier

trelja: my experience doesn't quite match yours. with relatively inefficient speakers (< 87 db), like those iv'e owned in different versions for the past 10 or 12 years, high power/current amps are required. when i listen to different amps by the same manufacturer, they tend to have better and better transient response (rise/decay) as the output/current increases. brands i've experienced this with include accuphase, boulder and jrdg.

If Euro amps are indeed faster than American amps it's probably because they've found a way to apply a tax based on the power output or even the diplacement (number of tubes, size of transformers, etc) of amps in the fashion as used for automobile engines. Why do you think there are so many high revving, small displacement engines in Europe? Hot hatch amplifiers? ;-)

I think that most everybody has hit upon certain design aspects that are all quite valid. Macm brought up some simple yet good observations. Gmkowal also mentioned an interesting viewpoint that has proponents on both sides of the fence. This stance differs with the designer of one of my preamps. His feelings were that the only reason that a pre / power amp has problems with RF is that they are TOO slow to respond to them. He was designing audio circuits that slewed at over 350 v/ Usec and had rise times in the area of .01 Usec back in 1974. Then there is the fact that ANY filter causes phase shifts, impedance bumps, increased noise and circuitry, etc.. to deal with. My thoughts are to make the unit as fast and simple as possible, the theoretical "straight wire with gain" school of thought. Using that school of thought, Trelja's observations that smaller ( and therefore simpler ) amps sound better would be logical. In most cases, i would say that this is PROBABLY true. I think that it boils down to the fact that the larger amps have more circuitry and output devices. This requires a tighter tolerance for all parts involved with much greater care necessary in matching active components. This takes a great amount of time and is therefore probably neglected in most production based situations. The result is good sound with high power but not quite as good as what could be done if EVERYTHING were extremely tightly matched. While this could be said of smaller amps also, there is simply more parts in a bigger amp and more to go wrong in terms of parts tolerances, making the effects more noticeable. Another factor to all of this as mentioned above is speaker efficiency. Modern technology has raised the efficiency of speakers to the point that less power is now required to get the job done. To follow suite, designers have therefore put more attention into making very good sounding small amps. Once that is achieved, they simply expound on that curcuit to increase power output while PROBABLY not paying quite as much attention to parts tolerances. That is the very reason why some of the small to meduim amps sound slightly sharper and more detailed than the bigger amps with more parts and circuitry. Sean >

I was just going to post a similair thread, GOOD TIMING. I was playing around with different footer and shelf materials and was amazed at how the pace changes with different combinations. I don't get it, I see how the electronics can play a part, but why cones and base material?

I must admit to placing a bit of a teaser re my question about "Fast Amplifier" I have always felt, and demonstrated by this by listening tests that an amplifier where the bandwidth of the input signal is deliberately limited by a simple two stage passive RC network to be say 1 dB down at 25 KHz, and say 3 dB down at 35 KHz sounds better on actual music program than amplifiers not so bandwidth limited. The RC network should preferably be inside the amplifier, directly at the input, ahead of any active amplification. This network, presuming that the amplifier power output stage is a quality one, and have a respectably high slew rate would serve to limit the bandwidth of the input signal to something that the actual power stages can handle. Overtaking or exceeding the bandwidth of the power output stage will cause switching problems at crossover, and feedback phase problems leading to bad quality sound. Any comments.