John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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john curl said:
It is impressive that John W. Campbell, BS physics in 1932 (how many were there?) is put down because he became enthusiastic about what another author promoted.
I wasn't arguing with his enthusiasm, but his statements. Does his physics degree mean nobody is allowed to disagree with him? That is not the way most physicists see things.

Now, here is someone after my own heart, John W. Campbell actually LISTENED to his wife's complaints and went back to the drawing board to find out why. He found out WHY as well, TOO many coupling caps improperly loaded, that created a subliminal distortion that he did NOT detect with his trusty IM analyzer or audio oscillator. Then, he had the 'guts' to write an article about it and get it published in 'Audio', to warn others of the problem he had tripped over.
Maybe you have seen a different version of the article. In the linked version he doesn't actually say what the problem was, and how he fixed it. He just makes some inaccurate statements about phase shift oscillators (e.g. that a not-quite oscillating circuit maintains a flat frequency response), and compares them with an ordinary amplifier. He doesn't seem to distinguish between capacitors carefully chosen to create a phase shift and capacitors carefully chosen not to create a phase shift.

It is conceivable that women's hearing is different from men, and they may be sensitive to different degrees of distortion. Your anecdote seems to confirm the importance of careful measurement and good theory to explain what people think they are hearing, because our ears are easily fooled.
 
Well I have to confess, I have TRIED Scientology, and it worked for me, as well.
I shared an office at Ampex Research with a guy who taught it. He put me on an E meter, one day. I was impressed. However, I elected not to go in that direction. AND I do not particularly like the means and methods of the group, and I don't consider it a religion.
 
Thermal/memory distorsions in amplifier input stages

With reference to ( Memory Distortion Philosophies - Part 1 : Theory )

A good candidate to proove the (non-)existence of thermal/memory distorsion of a standard diff input stage is the Schlotzaur voltage follower because bias conditions of its input stage and its output stage can be set independently.

Its best perfomances are attained when having an input stage made of a standard LTP loaded by a CCS and an output stage made of a common collector loaded by a CCS. Input and output stage can have different power supplies.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Using no load at the output, if thermal/memory distorsion occurs in the input stage with varying signals, it is logical to say that varying DC working conditions when fed with a fixed signal would show different harmonic distorsion spectra, implying different voltage transfer functions.

I obtain the following results, expressed as distorsion increases in dB, using a 1 kHz / 4 Vrms sine input signal with a sophisticated Schlotzaur circuit as described above (output stage power supply fixed at 30 V)

Code:
[SIZE=2]varying the current of the CCS,
power supply constant at 30 V

                H2      H3    H4   H5    H7
sine gen disto  -130.5  -130  133  -132  -132
2 * 0.25 mA     3       1     0    0     0 
2 * 0.40 mA     0.5     0     0    0     0 
2 * 0.85 mA     0       0.5   0    0     0
2 * 3.00 mA     2       0     0    0.5   0

Keeping the current constant at 2 * 0.85 mA
but varying the power supply voltage

                H2      H3 
12V             +7      +1 
18V             +2      0 
24V             +0.5    0   
30V             +0.5    0[/SIZE]

We see that more than doubling the current, from 2*0.4 mA to 2*0.85 mA, or increasing the power supply voltage by 6 V, from 24 V to 30 V, barely affect the distorsion components and this, with a signal voltage equal to two to four times the maximum input voltage of power amps. The bias and voltage variations during the test are far larger than those which ever occur in the real life of differential input stages of power amps. No significative misbehaviour which could be interpreted as thermal or memory distorsions has been shown.
 
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Well Scott, I seem to have been given employment for the last 45 years. Charles Hansen, as well. A first degree in physics is a great tool to develop new audio products.

Ploying a trade as a research physicist? I don't think so. You both spend a lot of time throwing stones at some very basic principles, how about backing it up with some experimental physics.
 
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