Square wave testing......a guitar amp

jjman · 17th December 2010, 12:04 AM

I've done some testing and adjusting components using sine wave testing on my guitar amps. Mostly checking for clipping and crossover distortion. Are there any particular uses for square wave testing in a guitar amp that's intended to clip at appropriate locations and circumstances? Anyone use it?

Enzo · 17th December 2010, 12:32 AM

One man's opinion:

As I see it, square waves are good for checking the ends of the audio response spectrum. COnsidering that the guitar amp is designed to be anything but flat, and is not concerned about anything that might be considered tweeter frequencies, and doesn't care about the real bottom, I can;t think of any time in the last 25 years I have fed square waves into a guitar amp or felt a need to.

nigelwright7557 · 17th December 2010, 12:37 AM

You could look for ringing on the square wave output as this might point to high frequency instability.

SemperFi · 17th December 2010, 04:42 AM

As pointed out by Enzo, a guitar amps very limited and tweaked response makes squarewaves useless. Even for ringing.

DF96 · 17th December 2010, 10:59 AM

Ringing on square wave tells you as much about the rise time of your sig gen as it does about the amp. Don't forget that you can introduce ringing by subtracting some ultrasonic frequencies from a perfect square wave, which the amp is supposed to do anyway unless it has infinite bandwidth.

17th December 2010, 12:04 AM	#1
jjman diyAudio Member Join Date: Jan 2009	Square wave testing......a guitar amp I've done some testing and adjusting components using sine wave testing on my guitar amps. Mostly checking for clipping and crossover distortion. Are there any particular uses for square wave testing in a guitar amp that's intended to clip at appropriate locations and circumstances? Anyone use it?

17th December 2010, 12:37 AM	#3
nigelwright7557 diyAudio Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Carlisle, England	You could look for ringing on the square wave output as this might point to high frequency instability. __________________ http://www.murtonpikesystems.co.uk PCBCAD50 pcb design software.

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17th December 2010, 12:32 AM	#2
Enzo diyAudio Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Lansing, Michigan	One man's opinion: As I see it, square waves are good for checking the ends of the audio response spectrum. COnsidering that the guitar amp is designed to be anything but flat, and is not concerned about anything that might be considered tweeter frequencies, and doesn't care about the real bottom, I can;t think of any time in the last 25 years I have fed square waves into a guitar amp or felt a need to.

17th December 2010, 04:42 AM	#4
SemperFi diyAudio Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: nowhere	As pointed out by Enzo, a guitar amps very limited and tweaked response makes squarewaves useless. Even for ringing.

17th December 2010, 10:59 AM	#5
DF96 diyAudio Member Join Date: May 2007	Ringing on square wave tells you as much about the rise time of your sig gen as it does about the amp. Don't forget that you can introduce ringing by subtracting some ultrasonic frequencies from a perfect square wave, which the amp is supposed to do anyway unless it has infinite bandwidth.