I'm trying to design a power amp to drive my speakers
must be stable into 4 ohms
able to push at least 15watts
I'm not wanting to go tube yet being this is my first power amp and all I have worked with so far are preamp designs using jfets or ic's
right now I'm trying to choose between mosfet or ic base though I am leaning to the mosfet side due to it's clipping being a little smoother then most IC's I have seen when overdriven.
only problem is I haven't seen any schematics for mosfet power amps and I'm trying to keep this simple again as it is my first project
do you guys know of any mosfets I might be able to try as well as schematics to put this together as I have never worked with mosfets before.
other things I am wondering about is heat and power supply issues again being I haven't built a power amp or dealt with power supplies since most my preamps have been batt powered
please help guys and sorry about being vague.
must be stable into 4 ohms
able to push at least 15watts
I'm not wanting to go tube yet being this is my first power amp and all I have worked with so far are preamp designs using jfets or ic's
right now I'm trying to choose between mosfet or ic base though I am leaning to the mosfet side due to it's clipping being a little smoother then most IC's I have seen when overdriven.
only problem is I haven't seen any schematics for mosfet power amps and I'm trying to keep this simple again as it is my first project
do you guys know of any mosfets I might be able to try as well as schematics to put this together as I have never worked with mosfets before.
other things I am wondering about is heat and power supply issues again being I haven't built a power amp or dealt with power supplies since most my preamps have been batt powered
please help guys and sorry about being vague.
If you want only 15 watts, and it is for musical instruments, a very simple solution is a chip amp like the TDA2030 or one of National Semi's large selection. A power supply and a few support parts and you have a power amp. There are chip amps all the way up past 100 watts. For a low power amp, I am not so sure discreet parts will yield better results.
Chip amps can sound very good. A friend got a pair of nice Genelec powered studio monitors and we took them apart expecting some fancy amp circuit. it was just an STK series chip. Great sounding speaks, simple amp.
I can't think of any MOSFET low power amps in the music amp area offhand.
What speakers are you driving and what is the signal you wish to amplify?
Chip amps can sound very good. A friend got a pair of nice Genelec powered studio monitors and we took them apart expecting some fancy amp circuit. it was just an STK series chip. Great sounding speaks, simple amp.
I can't think of any MOSFET low power amps in the music amp area offhand.
What speakers are you driving and what is the signal you wish to amplify?
as far as speakers I would be driving a have a cheapo speaker I would test on first just to make sure nothing blows 
but after that I have a 10" speaker that came out of my randall jaguar that I would use which is I think an 8 ohm speaker.
as far as chip amp's go well aware of them and how easy they are to work with and that will be tried further down the road.
right now I'm not really trying to build something for perm use just rather trying to build something low power and simple more as a learning project but haven't seen any mosfet designs really for musical instrument use.
and I know it isn't going to be tubish sounding but I would assume it would be smoother then a chip/bipolar transistor style amp if it does get overdriven
again though it's not for best results or anything rather for learning part of the reason I am choosing discrete parts
but after that I have a 10" speaker that came out of my randall jaguar that I would use which is I think an 8 ohm speaker.as far as chip amp's go well aware of them and how easy they are to work with and that will be tried further down the road.
right now I'm not really trying to build something for perm use just rather trying to build something low power and simple more as a learning project but haven't seen any mosfet designs really for musical instrument use.
and I know it isn't going to be tubish sounding but I would assume it would be smoother then a chip/bipolar transistor style amp if it does get overdriven
again though it's not for best results or anything rather for learning part of the reason I am choosing discrete parts
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