Germanium in the World of solid state (preamps)

[Bojan Hajdinjak]

When musicians plays with amplifications, vacuum tubes are very respectable. Some musicians knows, that germanium transistors sounds better (Hammond ). What do you think about germanium in preamplifier circuits? HL made some experiments with and results are absolute gorgeous….

[PMA]

And how about selenium in rectifiers?

[Bojan Hajdinjak]

Rectifiers isn't so important like transistors who amplified audio signal. "Sound" of the rectifiers depend on supply construction also. Rectifiers are important because of the (unpleasend sound) distortion in the audio signal. Germanium in output transistors is interesant because of his internal ressonant signature...
Tray do find sound of old Hammond organ with silicon transistors It's efect but....
Sound of the solid state amplification depend most od dizajn of the amplifier, but different transistors (like different tubes) sounds different...

[destroyer X]

They are a little noisy...but wonderfull sound....i remember one Open Rell tape recorder, one Englishman that lived here put it to work. I became crazy!..... and still crazy... and this is very good feeling!

All germaniun units.... some 3 or 4 stages... condenser coupled, one oscilator... and some switches...but the sound was impressive..in those english speakers completely sealed... wonderfull.... tell us some... do you have those components in your country?

Carlos

[Circlotron]

People usually like old stuff only when they have access to new stuff as well. Ask anyone who was around when there were no silicon transistors available. Were they really that nice?

Edit -> Tubes have *always* been nice.

[thoriated]

I haven't really listened to germanium audio gear such as it has existed but intrinsic germanium has a higher dielectric constant than silicon does which is not a positive sign.

Btw, is there any gallium arsenide audio out there? For lower voltage applications, e.g. line level audio, I always got the impression that it has the potential to sonically outperform both silicon and germanium, everything else being equal.

[phase_accurate]

Many Germanium audio transistors don't even have an f-beta over 20 kHz. Now imagine what happens with more than one stage in use !

Regards

Charles

[Bojan Hajdinjak]

Originally posted by destroyer X
They are a little noisy...but wonderfull sound....i remember one Open Rell tape recorder, one Englishman that lived here put it to work. I became crazy!..... and still crazy... and this is very good feeling!

All germaniun units.... some 3 or 4 stages... condenser coupled, one oscilator... and some switches...but the sound was impressive..in those english speakers completely sealed... wonderfull.... tell us some... do you have those components in your country?

Carlos

Those components you can easy to find in selling program of Bürklin (one of the cathalogue electronic supplyer in Germany). It's nothing special to find this... Those components are normal thing in electronic ewen today

[Bojan Hajdinjak]

Originally posted by phase_accurate
Many Germanium audio transistors don't even have an f-beta over 20 kHz. Now imagine what happens with more than one stage in use !

Regards

Charles

One stage in use, for the preamp is enough. For the High End audio amplification, it is very important to do all of amplification stages with a little different resonant signatures. In other case, you'll get a tipichal silicon sounding amp (far away from live performance.. )

[Bojan Hajdinjak]

Originally posted by thoriated
I haven't really listened to germanium audio gear such as it has existed but intrinsic germanium has a higher dielectric constant than silicon does which is not a positive sign.

Btw, is there any gallium arsenide audio out there? For lower voltage applications, e.g. line level audio, I always got the impression that it has the potential to sonically outperform both silicon and germanium, everything else being equal.

One is a technical and another is a sonical vuew on electronic component (and on electronic circuits also)