Hello ! I agree completely with you analysis.
But I was wondering if this is in the end the correct approach, to stay simple and select quite complicated and expensive auxiliary components.
One thing is sure. Speakers establish the limits that can be achieved.
We cannot expect and get powerful and clean bass from a minimonitor I mean.
And some full range speakers cannot be driven adequately by simple but nice amps.
Thanks and regards,
gino
Again and again, we DIY. We build what we want according to our needs, budget and laziness. We live with our amps, we carry the burden of our own mistakes.
Minimalism works with DIYers because we have to solder less, buy less and because most of us don't have a clue anyways. There's also the fact that simple amps can sound pretty good, at least mine does. Over-engineering is for engineers.
Minimalism works with DIYers because we have to solder less, buy less and because most of us don't have a clue anyways. There's also the fact that simple amps can sound pretty good, at least mine does. Over-engineering is for engineers.
that´s true
it´s ok to add protection circuits.
but is it ok to throw more components at problem ?
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imo, tube circuits have physics+electronics working together
how many people when designs or works on semi-conductor circuits, is "forced" to think about voltage ratings of resistors,
transconductance and linearity of components (why should care, if that fat fb will "cure" it🙂), quality/price of components..
smd comes in 2-50k reels, components alone have almost no value .
i cannot put faith to product made from thousands of these
, everywhere ceramic caps or tantalum, foil caps rarethat is just beginning..
todays electronics is "more advanced" than yesterday, but magic and joy of using it is lost.😡
just like todays cars, ah well..
It is popular IMHO because of:
1) simple to build
2) Streophile grade pseudo-logic
Personally now I wouldn't consider playback system without DSP for room correction in it. Hardly a minimalistic way
maybe not but I have a question
An amp able to "play rock on Magnepan 3.6 loudspeakers" must be very complex ?
I do not think so
Maybe it should be push-pull a with a lot of paralleled output transistors to get the needed current for the though load
and a very strong power supply of course
But very complex maybe not
Only rightly sized ?
Well, some people will consider "a lot of paralleled output transistors" already being too complex 🙂
Is for example Krell[Clone] KSA100MKII artificially complex amp? I don't think so - it has what it should to do the job right.
There need to be a definition of "better" - is an amp transparent, or someone looking for a musical instrument that makes every crappy record sound "nicer"? Minimalistic designs, especially the tube ones are often the second.
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I don't think that in general things need to be terribly complicated, unless you're just wanting to play numbers games or showing off your design chops.
Here's a very simple circuit that was designed to serve as a headphone amplifier as well as a preamp. If you just want it to serve preamp duties, you can simplify it a bit further by eliminating the bipolar device and using just the one JFET. The current source is just a bipolar biased with a current regulator diode and a zener diode and an emitter resistor to set the current.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
se
It doesn't seem all that simple to me! A bit exotic... And the PSU and the current regulator's complexity are 'hidden'.
When you turn it on, do you get a thump at the output? If so, the commercial designer would immediately have to start thinking of ways to eliminate it, with attendant extra complexity.
Certainly you have done your reading on the audibility of distortion and harmonics. It goes back almost a century. Some types of distortion simply are not audible. I trust you know that already.
Indeed. It was not.
Interesting... is this described somewhere in a different thread in more detail?
Never said it was the absolute simplest you could get away with.
But if you'd like, you could pare it down to this:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
No thumps.
se
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For me it's about the process of engineering the amp that makes simplistic approaches enjoyable. I actually like to see a simple schematic and I care a lot about how it is drawn. In some cases I really like to see a schematic drawn a particular way - a kind of art. EVen choice of circuit symbols is relevant. It makes no difference to the sound or performance at all. The pcb layout and wiring is the same. The shapes of the pcb traces are part of the aesthetic for me - if it is a good technical layout and also a pleasing to look at layout then I have achieved what I wanted. Component layout the same, choice of parts, their shape and colours is also relevant. For tube amps there is an art to how the parts are placed on the chasis, not only for good electrical results but also how they look. Simple clean and elegant lines. It's an art form.
That doesn't mean I don't also appreciate more complex products. They can also be enjoyable for different reasons.
That doesn't mean I don't also appreciate more complex products. They can also be enjoyable for different reasons.
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For me it went even further. There was a style of lettering commonly seen in old schematic drawings, other drafted drawings as well as things like engraved nameplates.
I figured for something as ubiquitous as that and that spanned decades, there had to be a font out there that duplicated it. But after searching through thousands of fonts, I simply couldn't find one. There were some that were pretty close (such as Technical), but none of them really nailed it.
I got by with Technical for some time, but I'd finally had it. I WANTED THAT LETTERING STYLE!
I discovered that it was commonly produced by the old pantograph engraving machines. I'd recently started working with an engraving company over in the UK, who were producing some engraved brass plates for us. Turned out they still had an old pantograph engraving machine and the plates for that lettering style.
So I had them engrave the entire character set onto some black over white laminate. Scanned it in at a high resolution, and used that as a guide to create vector shapes for each of the characters.
Now I FINALLY have the lettering I always wanted.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
se
Thanks, Pano.
No, I haven't made it into an actual font yet. I'd purchased an inexpensive font authoring program, but it wants the outlines drawn a certain way that makes it rather difficult to do it right.
Instead I used my vector graphics program (Xara, which is similar to CorelDRAW) and used round-end lines to draw out the characters. Then I converted the lines to shapes and added the shapes together (such as the crossbar on the "A") to create a single vector shape for each character.
Unfortunately, when trying to import those shapes into the font authoring program, they get all screwed up because the font software translates them differently.
Perhaps someday I'll just hire someone to do it. Also, even though for my application everything's done with upper case characters, it would be nice to add the lower case characters as well.
se
Lets not forget amplifiers like Susan Parkers "Zues" power amps. Amplification does not really get any simpler and they are by all accounts very good amps. These amps should compete in a double blind, side by side comparison against the very best amps that are drooled over on this forum to see what a difference a very low active component count amp has to offer.
It is only the cost of the transformers that prevent me from building them. Unless anyone knows a cheaper way of implementing her design using considerably cheaper transformers.
They very nearly represent "a wire with gain", and apparently with a source playing and the power amps switched off, you can still just hear the source material playing through the speakers.
It is only the cost of the transformers that prevent me from building them. Unless anyone knows a cheaper way of implementing her design using considerably cheaper transformers.
They very nearly represent "a wire with gain", and apparently with a source playing and the power amps switched off, you can still just hear the source material playing through the speakers.
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