John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

Status
Not open for further replies.
Member
Joined 2014
Paid Member
Looked up Gerzon and found it quite interesting, it hits on a lot of things I’ve been coming across in my rampant attempts to understand sound as it relates to audio reproduction......phase changes and the affect on soundstage,psychoacoustics,recording process,etc.

This ‘Ambisonics’ thing he was working on got him gold medal recognition from AES, seems like he worked with meridian on dvd development.......
He was a brilliant* mathematician with some of the issues that can come with that. He did indeed do lots of work before he died on MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) which was Bob Stuarts first attempt to hold the audio world to ransom. DVD-A didn't really take off so he's had a second attempt with MQA.

*Other real mathematicians may not agree and my maffs is not good enough ot be sure I am correct here.
 
/But I don't understand the conclusion you have made re back-emf as an impedance?

You said it, "Back-EMF = 25 Ohms Part B of impedance". The amplifier sees 42 Ohms pure resistance there is no back emf by any normal understanding.

Is see now 42 is the answer.

I have a question for you. Take a speaker, crossover, and an ideal voltage amplifier (you used it twice now so I can) that has a flat SLP vs frequency as best you can do. Now take that same speaker and add parallel networks to flatten it's impedance keeping the output the same. Now looking at nothing but the two outputs how do you tell them apart?
 
and? How and why does my simple 1980's mod Reduce THD from the loudspeaker driver?

THx-RNMarsh

This is intriguing, it lowers THD?

I maybe have a possible explanation, but I don't want to sound dogmatic about it. Being passionate can get you into trouble.

But it is an intriguing thing you are pointing to. So what we are seeing is an increase in source Z of the amplifier and moving it down the road of the current drive, just a Terry said. That is what the circuit looks like doing.

When I see things like that, I think there must be a mechanism that explains it. Maybe that is unconventional, I don't know, only that it sounds logical to me.

Before long we may have an explanation, but we know an increase in source Z limits the current phase angle of the amplifier. Eventually, that impedance becomes high enough and you get to full-blown current drive. By then the phase angle goes completely to zero.

I think this is the key. My intuition somehow tells me that if you get the current phase angle to zero, this is the actual reason why current drive sounds better? I think there are strong clues there. Pavel (PMA) has already shown that current drive decreases at least some distortions at some frequencies.

I am above all asking questions. Maybe there are answers?
 
It is known that constant current amplifier reduces speaker distortion at higher frequencies/inductive frequencies ie above the Z min (Z valley) which is above the driver resonance frequency. This is the frequency range of investigation to compare amplifier types, resistive flattening or RC flattening for distortion changes and is area of maximum hearing sensitivity, ie 300Hz-3.5kHz or so. Pavel's test graph of 40Hz>300Hz is driver non/low inductance region so in this case is not useful test to differentiate measured distortion or subjective distortion.

Dan.
 
www.hifisonix.com
Joined 2003
Paid Member
If you are trying to force current and voltage out of the amplifier to be in phase by adding some sort of flattening network across the load you can do the same by using current drive.

But, on my limited understanding of amplifier operation, any decent amp has no problem in supplying power with very large phase angles (to within the power handling capability of the OPS) with no effect on distortion other than those mechanisms that are well understood - like LSN for example. As discussed in a previous post, you would need an extraordinary amount of return energy (back EMF) to force an amplifier to lose control of the load. As JN has pointed out, this would be exemplified by the inductive return energy from the load driving the amplifier output beyond its rails. Not really something that will happen under normal circumstances.
 
Not really something that will happen under normal circumstances.

Not that hard, take Joe's example with a 42 Ohm peak in impedance. On 20V rails a voltage amplifier would have no problem with 6V out (don't know if that's rms) while a 1A out current amp on 20V rails would clip.

Transformer out valve amps have that pesky problem of transforming impedance, you know like some blow up if you yank off the load. I had a friend who had to pad the outputs of his amps because at parties folks that wanted to chat near a speaker would just disconnect it.
 
Joe Rasmussen said:
Before long we may have an explanation, but we know an increase in source Z limits the current phase angle of the amplifier. Eventually, that impedance becomes high enough and you get to full-blown current drive. By then the phase angle goes completely to zero.
The sound will go to zero too, as to get current drive by adding series resistance you need an infinite resistance otherwise known as an open circuit. Distortion will be zero, though.
 
www.hifisonix.com
Joined 2003
Paid Member
Not that hard, take Joe's example with a 42 Ohm peak in impedance. On 20V rails a voltage amplifier would have no problem with 6V out (don't know if that's rms) while a 1A out current amp on 20V rails would clip.

Transformer out valve amps have that pesky problem of transforming impedance, you know like some blow up if you yank off the load. I had a friend who had to pad the outputs of his amps because at parties folks that wanted to chat near a speaker would just disconnect it.

Yeah - tube amps are a bit different because of the OP transformer. Any decent SS amp will do short term current peaks of 30 A (my big one does 60A for 20ms - I actually test it with a fixture I built) - the amp will just sink return current.
 
We already discussed caveats of acoustic distortion measurements before, several times. Room reflections plus directionality. As the measurement was done close to the woofer (15cm), for the reason to minimize room effect though not overloading the microphone, useful and meaningful frequency range is heavily limited by cone diameter and driver acoustical interactions. Measurement of distortion at distance 1 - 2m in the room makes no sense. However, I can make you sure that even the "full bandwidth" distortion measurement, regardless its imperfections due to microphone position, is again almost same with and without the "flattening" resistor.

It is known that constant current amplifier reduces speaker distortion at higher frequencies/inductive frequencies ie above the Z min (Z valley) which is above the driver resonance frequency. This is the frequency range of investigation to compare amplifier types, resistive flattening or RC flattening for distortion changes and is area of maximum hearing sensitivity, ie 300Hz-3.5kHz or so. Pavel's test graph of 40Hz>300Hz is driver non/low inductance region so in this case is not useful test to differentiate measured distortion or subjective distortion.

Dan.

Dan, I have already explained why I have shown the range 40 - 300 Hz, just because of the microphone placement near the woofer to prevent incorrect measurements. Please re-read above.

I have shown 40 - 300Hz, however I measured 20Hz - 20kHz. Though the plots are not nice above woofer cone critical frequency and due to crossover frequency and phase interactions between woofer and tweeter, distortion is same for the speaker with and without "impedance flattening" in the whole range 20Hz - 20kHz. This procedure of impedance flattening is the dead horse in case that a standard solid state amplifier with voltage output and very low output impedance is used and of course capable to drive the complex load.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.