Small Signal Audio Design

Learn to use inexpensive and readily available parts to obtain state-of-the-art performance in all the vital parameters of noise, distortion, crosstalk and so on. With ample coverage of preamplifiers and mixers and a new chapter on headphone amplifiers, this practical handbook provides an extensive repertoire of circuits that can be put together to make almost any type of audio system. A resource packed full of valuable information, with virtually every page revealing nuggets of specialized knowledge not found elsewhere. Essential points of theory that bear on practical performance are lucidly and thoroughly explained, with the mathematics kept to a relative minimum. Douglas' background in design for manufacture ensures he keeps a wary eye on the cost of things. Includes a chapter on power-supplies, full of practical ways to keep both the ripple and the cost down, showing how to power everything. Douglas wears his learning lightly, and this book features the engaging prose style familiar to readers of his other books. You will learn why mercury cables are not a good idea, the pitfalls of plating gold on copper, and what quotes from Star Trek have to do with PCB design. Learn how to: make amplifiers with apparently impossibly low noise design discrete circuitry that can handle enormous signals with vanishingly low distortion use humble low-gain transistors to make an amplifier with an input impedance of more than 50 Megohms transform the performance of low-cost-opamps, how to make filters with very low noise and distortion make incredibly accurate volume controls make a huge variety of audio equalisers make magnetic cartridge preamplifiers that have noise so low it is limited by basic physics sum, switch, clip, compress, and route audio signals The second edition is expanded throughout (with added information on new ADCs and DACs, microcontrollers, more coverage of discrete op amp design, and many other topics), and includes a completely new chapter on headphone amplifiers.

Small Signal Audio Design is a highly practical handbook providing an extensive repertoire of circuits that can be assembled to make almost any type of audio system. The publication of Electronics for Vinyl has freed up space for new material, (though this book still contains a lot on moving-magnet and moving-coil electronics) and this fully revised third edition offers wholly new chapters on tape machines, guitar electronics, and variable-gain amplifiers, plus much more. A major theme is the use of inexpensive and readily available parts to obtain state-of-the-art performance for noise, distortion, crosstalk, frequency response accuracy and other parameters. Virtually every page reveals nuggets of specialized knowledge not found anywhere else. For example, you can improve the offness of a fader simply by adding a resistor in the right place- if you know the right place. Essential points of theory that bear on practical audio performance are lucidly and thoroughly explained, with the mathematics kept to an absolute minimum. Self’s background in design for manufacture ensures he keeps a wary eye on the cost of things. This book features the engaging prose style familiar to readers of his other books. You will learn why mercury-filled cables are not a good idea, the pitfalls of plating gold on copper, and what quotes from Star Trek have to do with PCB design. Learn how to: make amplifiers with apparently impossibly low noise design discrete circuitry that can handle enormous signals with vanishingly low distortion use humble low-gain transistors to make an amplifier with an input impedance of more than 50 megohms transform the performance of low-cost-opamps build active filters with very low noise and distortion make incredibly accurate volume controls make a huge variety of audio equalisers make magnetic cartridge preamplifiers that have noise so low it is limited by basic physics, by using load synthesis sum, switch, clip, compress, and route audio signals be confident that phase perception is not an issue This expanded and updated third edition contains extensive new material on optimising RIAA equalisation, electronics for ribbon microphones, summation of noise sources, defining system frequency response, loudness controls, and much more. Including all the crucial theory, but with minimal mathematics, Small Signal Audio Design is the must-have companion for anyone studying, researching, or working in audio engineering and audio electronics.

Small Signal Audio Design is a highly practical handbook providing an extensive repertoire of circuits that can be assembled to make almost any type of audio system. The publication of Electronics for Vinyl has freed up space for new material, (though this book still contains a lot on moving-magnet and moving-coil electronics) and this fully revised third edition offers wholly new chapters on tape machines, guitar electronics, and variable-gain amplifiers, plus much more. A major theme is the use of inexpensive and readily available parts to obtain state-of-the-art performance for noise, distortion, crosstalk, frequency response accuracy and other parameters. Virtually every page reveals nuggets of specialized knowledge not found anywhere else. For example, you can improve the offness of a fader simply by adding a resistor in the right place- if you know the right place. Essential points of theory that bear on practical audio performance are lucidly and thoroughly explained, with the mathematics kept to an absolute minimum. Self’s background in design for manufacture ensures he keeps a wary eye on the cost of things. This book features the engaging prose style familiar to readers of his other books. You will learn why mercury-filled cables are not a good idea, the pitfalls of plating gold on copper, and what quotes from Star Trek have to do with PCB design. Learn how to: make amplifiers with apparently impossibly low noise design discrete circuitry that can handle enormous signals with vanishingly low distortion use humble low-gain transistors to make an amplifier with an input impedance of more than 50 megohms transform the performance of low-cost-opamps build active filters with very low noise and distortion make incredibly accurate volume controls make a huge variety of audio equalisers make magnetic cartridge preamplifiers that have noise so low it is limited by basic physics, by using load synthesis sum, switch, clip, compress, and route audio signals be confident that phase perception is not an issue This expanded and updated third edition contains extensive new material on optimising RIAA equalisation, electronics for ribbon microphones, summation of noise sources, defining system frequency response, loudness controls, and much more. Including all the crucial theory, but with minimal mathematics, Small Signal Audio Design is the must-have companion for anyone studying, researching, or working in audio engineering and audio electronics.

This book is essential for audio power amplifier designers and engineers for one simple reason...it enables you as a professional to develop reliable, high-performance circuits. The Author Douglas Self covers the major issues of distortion and linearity, power supplies, overload, DC-protection and reactive loading. He also tackles unusual forms of compensation and distortion produced by capacitors and fuses. This completely updated fifth edition includes four NEW chapters including one on The XD Principle, invented by the author, and used by Cambridge Audio. Crosstalk, power amplifier input systems, and microcontrollers in amplifiers are also now discussed in this fifth edition, making this book a must-have for audio power amplifier professionals and audiophiles.

Preface; Introduction and general survey; History, architecture and negative feedback; The general principles of power amplifiers; The small signal stages; The Class-B output stage; The output stage II; Compensation, slew-rate, and stability; Power supplies and PSRR; Class-A power amplifiers; Class D power amplifiers; Class-G power amplifiers; FET output stages; Thermal compensation and thermal dynamics; Amplifier and loudspeaker protection; Grounding and practical matters; Testing and safety; Index.

Electronics for Vinyl is the most comprehensive book ever produced on the electronic circuitry needed to extract the best possible signal from grooves in vinyl. What is called the "vinyl revival" is in full swing, and a clear and comprehensive account of the electronics you need is very timely. Vinyl reproduction presents some unique technical challenges; the signal levels from moving-magnet cartridges are low, and those from moving-coil cartridges lower still, so a good deal of high-quality low-noise amplification is required. Some of the features of Electronics for Vinyl include: ● integrating phono amplifiers into a complete preamplifier; ● differing phono amplifier technologies; covering active, passive, and semi-passive RIAA equalisation and transconductance RIAA stages; ● the tricky business of getting really accurate RIAA equalisation without spending a fortune on expensive components, such as switched-gain MM/MC RIAA amplifiers that retain great accuracy at all gains, the effects of finite open-loop gain, cartridge-preamplifier interaction, and so on; ● noise and distortion in phono amplifiers, covering BJTs, FETs, and opamps as input devices, hybrid phono amplifiers, noise in balanced MM inputs, noise weighting, and cartridge load synthesis for ultimately low noise; ● archival and non-standard equalisation for 78s etc.; ● building phono amplifiers with discrete transistors; ● subsonic filtering, covering all-pole filters, elliptical filters, and suppression of subsonics by low-frequency crossfeed, including the unique Devinyliser concept; ● ultrasonic and scratch filtering, including a variety of variable-slope scratch filters; ● line output technology, including zero-impedance outputs, on level indication for optimal setup, and on specialised power supplies; and ● description of six practical projects which range from the simple to the highly sophisticated, but all give exceptional performance. Electronics for Vinyl brings the welcome news that there is simply no need to spend huge sums of money to get performance that is within a hair’s breadth of the best theoretically obtainable. But you do need some specialised knowledge, and here it is.

The Design of Active Crossovers is a unique guide to the design of high-quality circuitry for splitting audio frequencies into separate bands and directing them to different loudspeaker drive units specifically designed for handling their own range of frequencies. Traditionally this has been done by using passive crossover units built into the loudspeaker boxes; this is the simplest solution, but it is also a bundle of compromises. The high cost of passive crossover components, and the power losses in them, means that passive crossovers have to use relatively few parts. This limits how well the crossover can do its basic job. Active crossovers, sometimes called electronic crossovers, tackle the problem in a much more sophisticated manner. The division of the audio into bands is performed at low signal levels, before the power amplifiers, where it can be done with much greater precision. Very sophisticated filtering and response-shaping networks can be built at comparatively low cost. Time-delay networks that compensate for phyical misalignments in speaker construction can be implemented easily; the equivalent in a passive crossover is impractical because of the large cost and the heavy signal losses. Active crossover technology is also directly applicable to other band-splitting signal-processing devices such as multi-band compressors. The use of active crossovers is increasing. They are used by almost every sound reinforcement system, by almost every recording studio monitoring set-up, and to a small but growing extent in domestic hifi. There is a growing acceptance in the hifi industry that multi-amplification using active crossovers is the obvious next step (and possibly the last big one) to getting the best possible sound. There is also a large usage of active crossovers in car audio, with the emphasis on routing the bass to enormous low-frequency loudspeakers. One of the very few drawbacks to using the active crossover approach is that it requires more power amplifiers; these have often been built into the loudspeaker, along with the crossover, and this deprives the customer of the chance to choose their own amplifier, leading to resistance to the whole active crossover philosophy. A comprehensive proposal for solving this problem is an important part of this book. The design of active crossovers is closely linked with that of the loudspeakers they drive. A chapter gives a concise but complete account of all the loudspeaker design issues that affect the associated active crossover. This book is packed full of valuable information, with virtually every page revealing nuggets of specialized knowledge never before published. Essential points of theory bearing on practical performance are lucidly and thoroughly explained, with the mathematics kept to an essential minimum. Douglas' background in design for manufacture ensures he keeps a wary eye on the cost of things. Features: Crossover basics and requirements The many different crossover types and how they work Design almost any kind of active filter with minimal mathematics Make crossover filters with very low noise and distortion Make high-performance time-delay filters that give a constant delay over a wide range of frequency Make a wide variety of audio equaliser stages: shelving, peaking and notch characteristics All about active crossover system design for optimal noise and dynamic range There is a large amount of new material that has never been published before. A few examples: using capacitance multipliers in biquad equalisers, opamp output biasing to reduce distortion, the design of NTMTM notch crossovers, the design of special filters for filler-driver crossovers, the use of mixed capacitors to reduce filter distortion, differentially elevated internal levels to reduce noise, and so on. Douglas wears his learning lightly, and this book features the engaging prose style familiar from his other books The Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbook, Self on Audio, and the recent Small Signal Audio Design.

This comprehensive book on audio power amplifier design will appeal to members of the professional audio engineering community as well as the student and enthusiast. Designing Audio Power Amplifiersbegins with power amplifier design basics that a novice can understand and moves all the way through to in-depth design techniques for very sophisticated audiophiles and professional audio power amplifiers. This book is the single best source of knowledge for anyone who wishes to design audio power amplifiers. It also provides a detailed introduction to nearly all aspects of analog circuit design, making it an effective educational text. Develop and hone your audio amplifier design skills with in-depth coverage of these and other topics: Basic and advanced audio power amplifier design Low-noise amplifier design Static and dynamic crossover distortion demystified Understanding negative feedback and the controversy surrounding it Advanced NFB compensation techniques, including TPC and TMC Sophisticated DC servo design MOSFET power amplifiers and error correction Audio measurements and instrumentation Overlooked sources of distortion SPICE simulation for audio amplifiers, including a tutorial on LTspice SPICE transistor modeling, including the VDMOS model for power MOSFETs Thermal design and the use of ThermalTrak(tm) transistors Four chapters on class D amplifiers, including measurement techniques Professional power amplifiers Switch-mode power supplies (SMPS). design Static and dynamic crossover distortion demystified Understanding negative feedback and the controversy surrounding it Advanced NFB compensation techniques, including TPC and TMC Sophisticated DC servo design MOSFET power amplifiers and error correction Audio measurements and instrumentation Overlooked sources of distortion SPICE simulation for audio amplifiers, including a tutorial on LTspice SPICE transistor modeling, including the VDMOS model for power MOSFETs Thermal design and the use of ThermalTrak(tm) transistors Four chapters on class D amplifiers, including measurement techniques Professional power amplifiers Switch-mode power supplies (SMPS). the use of ThermalTrak(tm) transistors Four chapters on class D amplifiers, including measurement techniques Professional power amplifiers Switch-mode power supplies (SMPS).