Hello All,
I'm getting sucked deeper and deeper into the DIY hole. As a physics major, I've been imprinted with the desire to know every facet of a system, the why's as well as how's, so to speak. So when it comes to sound hardware (especially amps), the lure of schematic philosophies is just as attractive to me as the ultimate goal of a proper sound system. This leads to endless theoretical wanderings and lots and lots of research. I've seen a lot of the accepted DIY designs in theory, specifically the Pass brethren, but I've not been blessed with a wide personal hands-on experience.
So, what I'm wondering is, is anyone else out there spending time in the theoretical bent? Specifically, who here has done any SPICE simulation for all or part of any amplifier design? The achieve a precise, reliable result, are there any pitfalls that should be observed? How hard is it to get distortion characteristics from a sim that match the real-world circuit output? Are there any reasonably complete compenda of various stage designs, and if so where can I find such a source? Which sub-circuit schemes are accepted as refined and perfected, and which are considered open to opinion? And above all, where can I find a wide assortment of SPICE netlists to demonstrate real-world amplifier results? I would like these in order to get a feel for distortion characteristics, frequency response, and all the other characteristics of an amp design, and also to experiment with various combinations. If anyone has any personally-developed SPICE netlists they would like to share, I would whole-heartedly welcome them and the author's experience. I would prefer to stick to solid-state (I'm a new breed student that doesn't trust components that incandesce), but as I'm also interested in electrostatic speakers, I'm not completely close-minded to high voltage-output tube designs. Thanks everyone.
- Jonathan
I'm getting sucked deeper and deeper into the DIY hole. As a physics major, I've been imprinted with the desire to know every facet of a system, the why's as well as how's, so to speak. So when it comes to sound hardware (especially amps), the lure of schematic philosophies is just as attractive to me as the ultimate goal of a proper sound system. This leads to endless theoretical wanderings and lots and lots of research. I've seen a lot of the accepted DIY designs in theory, specifically the Pass brethren, but I've not been blessed with a wide personal hands-on experience.
So, what I'm wondering is, is anyone else out there spending time in the theoretical bent? Specifically, who here has done any SPICE simulation for all or part of any amplifier design? The achieve a precise, reliable result, are there any pitfalls that should be observed? How hard is it to get distortion characteristics from a sim that match the real-world circuit output? Are there any reasonably complete compenda of various stage designs, and if so where can I find such a source? Which sub-circuit schemes are accepted as refined and perfected, and which are considered open to opinion? And above all, where can I find a wide assortment of SPICE netlists to demonstrate real-world amplifier results? I would like these in order to get a feel for distortion characteristics, frequency response, and all the other characteristics of an amp design, and also to experiment with various combinations. If anyone has any personally-developed SPICE netlists they would like to share, I would whole-heartedly welcome them and the author's experience. I would prefer to stick to solid-state (I'm a new breed student that doesn't trust components that incandesce), but as I'm also interested in electrostatic speakers, I'm not completely close-minded to high voltage-output tube designs. Thanks everyone.
- Jonathan