Grounding question

Status
Not open for further replies.
Here is the circuit diagram:

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

The T connection on the board was likely a speaker return connection. It used to be quite common for people to return the speaker ground to the amplifier board. This has been shown to be a bad practice, as it adds a lot of noise to the amplifier ground reference. Speaker return should run along the amplifier output wire back to the amplifier board, then continue on to the main audio ground at the supply.

I think we can all agree this is a pretty horrible layout. The grounding on the board should be a star design, bringing signal grounds and filtering grounds to a central point separately. It should have a grounding point for the input signal near the actual input signal connection as well.
 
@number7, you have a long ways to go.... build the boards, build the chassis and psu and then we can tackle your build in more detail...

photos of my actual builds, they are very quiet, no hum.....
 

Attachments

  • IMG_6407.JPG
    IMG_6407.JPG
    470.2 KB · Views: 184
  • IMG_6078.jpg
    IMG_6078.jpg
    989.7 KB · Views: 195
  • IMG_6086.jpg
    IMG_6086.jpg
    989.9 KB · Views: 178
Here is the circuit diagram:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
That looks like a pretty competent design.
One point I am not sure about.
The voltage reference for the VAS cascode is shown coupled to Power Ground.
Should the V Ref be taken from the supply rail? i.e. swap the resistor R17 and Zener D3 and swap R18 for D4.
The two resistors 17 & 18 could be combined without any connection to power ground.
 
Last edited:
Those are great looking amplifiers! Hum can be tough to locate. It's best to take a divide and conquer approach to locating it. First operate the amplifier out of chassis spread out on a work bench, and get it to operate silently there, then put it into the chassis and try to do the same. Spread out on the bench you won't be as susceptible to picking up hum from the transformers, and it will be easier to see if the layout is causing it, or poor PSSR, poor wiring ect.
 
The problem is a faint hum - which I do not know if it is being caused by grounding problems, board layout problems, or the hum gremlins.
How big is the Hum+Noise voltage? A DMM set to 199.9mVac will measure H+N sufficiently well to see how bad, or good, it is and will also let you assess what difference any change you make has to the measurement.
Bad is anything higher than 0.5mVac
Good is <=0.1mVac, if you have normal speaker sensitivity. Those with very sensitive speakers can need less than 0.05mVac to make noise inaudible

If you have checked for zero output offset you can use headphones to assess Hum+Noise, but it's only subjective.
If you have some output offset, then a DC blocking capacitor can be used to protect the headphones. 1000uF+1000uF (back to back) for high impedance phones.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.