2. amps-preamps
  3. 140029-80294

Does anyone care to ask an amplifier designer a technical question? My door is open.

I closed the cable and fuse thread because the trolls were making a mess of things. I hope they dont find me here.

I design Tube and Solid State power amps and preamps for Music Reference. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, have trained my ears keenly to hear frequency response differences, distortion and pretty good at guessing SPL. Ive spent 40 years doing that as a tech, store owner, and designer.
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Perhaps someone would like to ask a question about how one designs a successfull amplifier? What determines damping factor and what damping factor does besides damping the woofer. There is an entirely different, I feel better way to look at damping and call it Regulation , which is 1/damping.

I like to tell true stories of my experience with others in this industry.

I have started a school which you can visit at http://berkeleyhifischool.com/ There you can see some of my presentations.

On YouTube go to the Music Reference channel to see how to design and build your own tube linestage. The series has over 200,000 views. You have to hit the video tab to see all.

I am not here to advertise for MR. Soon I will be making and posting more videos on YouTube. I don’t make any money off the videos, I just want to share knowledge and I hope others will share knowledge. Asking a good question is actually a display of your knowledge because you know enough to formulate a decent question.

Starting in January I plan to make these videos and post them on the HiFi school site and hosted on a new YouTube channel belonging to the school.


128x128ramtubes
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
ramtubes
Yes, lots of people assume that they will continue to get more power as they continue to advance the volume control.
One can be at full undistorted volume at any position of the volume control. That is just a setting of gain not power. In Asia an amplifier must play very loud at 9 o’clock or it will not sell.
I hope most of you know that volume control position has nothing to do with power or headroom. Might as well close your eyes.

I always post this one up by Nelson Pass, and some here "hate it" when I do, so just for them, here it is again.

Quote from Nelson Pass

"We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.

Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.

Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.

What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.

And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp."


I must state, before all the haters start.

The above is correct ( should have been included by Nelson Pass). If a 1:10 or more impedance ratio is met by the source and by passive to the the power amp, and in nearly all cases it is.

Save for some a small scattering of high output impedance (>1kohm) tube output sources and low input impedance (<33kohm) poweramps.


Cheers George


amb3cog
21 posts
 
Sorry. I don't know how to use quotes and all that on this forum. No offense to anyone, but it's beyond outdated, and I've been into computers since the mid 90's.

Anyway. Thank you @ramtubes. I agree that Facebook, and Z, both suck. But you can still effectively use their ads I feel. That being said. Google Ad-sense is a great alternative.

And thank you 10 times over about the OP-amps! I've been told a million times, that it's not OP-amps, it's how they're implemented. When I say I won't buy anything with them. BS! I've got very sensitive ears. It's definitely the OP-amps. They suck arse, period! And I'll have nothing to do with them.

Hope your Thanksgiving was half as good as mine was. God bless! 
Andy B. 
danvignau's avatar
danvignau
935 posts
 
Youe are really great for doing this.  I have read that James Parker (Is that the right name) of Audio Research seems to design in a bit of added second harmonics to his designs. When I consider that some bands, most notably The Grateful Dead with their Wall of Sound array of MacIntosh amps, use tube amps for voices to add harmonics, this seems plausible.  Your thoughts?
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,511 posts
 
Thanks for all you do as it is greatly appreciated! As a DIY tube enthusiast I would love to hear your suggestions on a good tube amp kit to build. Looking for at least 20 - 30 watts per channel. Can you point me to a place where such a kit is available for sale or at least a parts list and general instructions? A kit you would approve of in terms of sound quality and design. It would be great if you offered such at kit? Perhaps you do, but I missed it? 
gnaudio
53 posts
 
Thank you Roger. Had many techs look at my issue. Isolation transformer had a 3 prong plug. It was a Torus unit. I ran the system single ended and balanced, floated the ground on all and only some units and used a structured process of elimination, had them all connected to one Shunyata power bar therefore only one outlet used, connected them to a complete different circuit in the house etc. Interestingly, the hum sounded different than a ground loop, it was loud as in you could hear it 30 feet away. Like the noise when you plug an RCA cable into a powered up subwoofer. A loud buzz. My new amplifier is a stereo unit. When I connected the monoblock amplifiers to the speakers and powered them up they were silent, when I plugged a balanced or RCA cable to either one the hum/buzz started even if the preamp was off! Never have a had this problem in 30 years of high end audio.... the only thing that made me post here was how the VP of this company spoke down to me when I explained my issue... never will I buy from them again. 
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