it's just me, i never used it in any of my amps, never missed them..
but if you want to use them, by all means go ahead...
That's the reason for the BAV - low reverse leakage. get that leakage down to pA's -
no THD rise.
(below) both ways ... active clamp (Q14) and diode (D4) method are available.
That depends on use ! Party house sub or club use - please use it
Either the speakers ( HF garbage - dead tweeters) ...
or the amp (blown VAS beta enhancer - a992 on badger) will fail prematurely without "something".
Badger has the 220R R25 , but Q9 will eventually fail.
For a casual amp that will not be clipped - omit at will .
OS
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way i understand it, baker clamps prevent the VAS from hard saturation,
since to come out of saturation takes longer amount of time..
the clamping diodes then steals some of the base current drive'
away from the VAS trannie so that collector emitter saturation
voltage will not be as low as without the diode in place...
i agree this is a good thing......the LM3xxx uses baker clamps,
otoh, i have seen a lot of amps in my shop without those....
fix those brakes, it can cause you your life....this is a safety issue not open for debate....
since to come out of saturation takes longer amount of time..
the clamping diodes then steals some of the base current drive'
away from the VAS trannie so that collector emitter saturation
voltage will not be as low as without the diode in place...
i agree this is a good thing......the LM3xxx uses baker clamps,
otoh, i have seen a lot of amps in my shop without those....
fix those brakes, it can cause you your life....this is a safety issue not open for debate....
Is running up to the point of clipping with a sine wave and dummy load attached abusive? And here I just considered it a way to test whether or not the amp was working properly.
If I was to loan my amp to some friends , a diode on this design would be included.
They WILL clip it - because it is not theirs .
On my sub , LF energy (especially in movies) will clip it. Diode is included.
Have a V/I limiter on the protection board , but it will shutdown the amp after many milliseconds.
The diode will "clean up" any short term- short duration saturation.
Behavior during saturation can also be a "magnifying glass" for any instabilities or
shortcomings in the design.
In this case , the behavior is inherent to the design .... just as lousy offset / lousy
PSRR is inherent to a CFA design.
OS
The first amp I saw this behavior on was the Honey Badger. This TT amp is the second. None of my other amps do it and I have build a couple. Silly me, I thought it was an indication there was something wrong. I don't ever clip my amps. I don't even play square waves through it either unless I'm testing it. Ooo, same thing here.
I also have a amplifier with beta enhanced ("Darlington") Vas with a CCS for its load.
I have not found anyway to tame this beast when it comes to clipping, except for the diode clamp.
I'm just a hobiest, and have tried to hear the differences with the diode in circuit and out of circuit while listening to music at normal levels, and with my ears and my speakers, I can't hear the difference, so I decided to just keep the diode in circuit.
Regards
I have not found anyway to tame this beast when it comes to clipping, except for the diode clamp.
I'm just a hobiest, and have tried to hear the differences with the diode in circuit and out of circuit while listening to music at normal levels, and with my ears and my speakers, I can't hear the difference, so I decided to just keep the diode in circuit.
Regards
I'm concidering building a pair of Honey Badgers. What's generally being discussed here, is way beyond my knowledge about electronics. I could probably manage to build the Honey Badger amp and fine tune it, following the instructions. But, what I understand from the last two pages of this thread, is that the design does not have clipping protection. If I read all of this correctly, that could easily be fixed by including a diode. Am I correct?
I have marvellous (although power-hungry) speakers that are quite valuable to me. Though I don't play them very loud (not more than 95dB peaks at 2,5m), I'd like to not expose them to any form of harmful signals. I don't expect to clip the amp during normal, everyday use. But I'd still rather have some form of protection built in. Will including any form of clipping protection alter the amp's sound in any audible way?
Also: will the 4U deluxe case from the DIY-store be big enough to house two channels and two discrete PSU's, with a 800VA transformer each? If I were to setup the amp to a +/- 30W class A window, will the heatsink surface of the 4U deluxe chassis be enough?
I have marvellous (although power-hungry) speakers that are quite valuable to me. Though I don't play them very loud (not more than 95dB peaks at 2,5m), I'd like to not expose them to any form of harmful signals. I don't expect to clip the amp during normal, everyday use. But I'd still rather have some form of protection built in. Will including any form of clipping protection alter the amp's sound in any audible way?
Also: will the 4U deluxe case from the DIY-store be big enough to house two channels and two discrete PSU's, with a 800VA transformer each? If I were to setup the amp to a +/- 30W class A window, will the heatsink surface of the 4U deluxe chassis be enough?
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clipping protection is your "ears"
You "hear" when it is too loud.
Professional equipment often have limiters and compressors. these can be adjusted so that a damaging signal never gets sent to an amplifier.
But that is way beyond what domestic music reproduction requires.
Most of us just turn it up enough to sound right and to suit the "mood".
Sometimes that "right" is quite loud, but we don't hear how loud it is until we have a reference loudness for comparison, like someone rings the doorbell and they come in and say "anything". Suddenly we hear a reference and realise the stereo is quite loud, "I'll need to turn it down to hear you".
Why did we not realise the stereo was loud?
Because the signals were clean, especially there was no clipping.
it's the excess distortion that tells us the stereo system is "too loud", not how many SPL there are.
It's the excess distortion that tells you "turn it down a bit".
Listen to that message, your ears are not daft,
You "hear" when it is too loud.
Professional equipment often have limiters and compressors. these can be adjusted so that a damaging signal never gets sent to an amplifier.
But that is way beyond what domestic music reproduction requires.
Most of us just turn it up enough to sound right and to suit the "mood".
Sometimes that "right" is quite loud, but we don't hear how loud it is until we have a reference loudness for comparison, like someone rings the doorbell and they come in and say "anything". Suddenly we hear a reference and realise the stereo is quite loud, "I'll need to turn it down to hear you".
Why did we not realise the stereo was loud?
Because the signals were clean, especially there was no clipping.
it's the excess distortion that tells us the stereo system is "too loud", not how many SPL there are.
It's the excess distortion that tells you "turn it down a bit".
Listen to that message, your ears are not daft,
I agree, Andrew. However, there are still these somewhat "unguarded" moments when the stereo plays loud, while I'm in another room taking care of some short task (not very wise, of course). Or, simply, movies played louder than normal. With a 85-90dB RMS level, transients and loud passages can go up to 110+ dB. This rarely happens in my house (if ever!), if I can help it. Short transients normally won't immediately harm a loudspeaker, but when it's possible to avoid them at all, that's even better. If limiting affects the quality of the sound, I might leave it out.
Since this amp will be primarily used in a domestic environment, I have no distribution amplifier or x-over/processor with built-in output limiting in use.
Since this amp will be primarily used in a domestic environment, I have no distribution amplifier or x-over/processor with built-in output limiting in use.
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