Does anyone care to ask an amplifier designer a technical question? My door is open.


I closed the cable and fuse thread because the trolls were making a mess of things. I hope they dont find me here.

I design Tube and Solid State power amps and preamps for Music Reference. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, have trained my ears keenly to hear frequency response differences, distortion and pretty good at guessing SPL. Ive spent 40 years doing that as a tech, store owner, and designer.
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Perhaps someone would like to ask a question about how one designs a successfull amplifier? What determines damping factor and what damping factor does besides damping the woofer. There is an entirely different, I feel better way to look at damping and call it Regulation , which is 1/damping.

I like to tell true stories of my experience with others in this industry.

I have started a school which you can visit at http://berkeleyhifischool.com/ There you can see some of my presentations.

On YouTube go to the Music Reference channel to see how to design and build your own tube linestage. The series has over 200,000 views. You have to hit the video tab to see all.

I am not here to advertise for MR. Soon I will be making and posting more videos on YouTube. I don’t make any money off the videos, I just want to share knowledge and I hope others will share knowledge. Asking a good question is actually a display of your knowledge because you know enough to formulate a decent question.

Starting in January I plan to make these videos and post them on the HiFi school site and hosted on a new YouTube channel belonging to the school.


128x128ramtubes
Great posts in here!

i get my info directly from Steve McCormack,
im watching this convo like a hawk.
thak you
Thank you for your interest, Roger. I take your comments in the helpful spirit in which they were given.

You have motivated me to look again at the stock Quads, and think about driving them with my current amps. These amps have proven themselves to be very stable over the years, and don't really need protection circuits in the speakers. I think. So I just may continue to do without. To be clear, I am not using the Quads' protection circuits.

Near to SF is relative. Emotionally nearer than geographically. I did post-graduate work at UC Irvine, but then moved back home. I am now 1000 miles away. But what's that to a man with a thumb, as we said in the 60's.

I would be interested in a DD amplifier, but I am somewhat frightened of the high potentials. The one thing I know about super-KV work is that it's qualitatively different from sub-KV work. Perhaps you could point me to your website?
Just wanted to say that it's great to see you participating on the forums. I've been a fan of yours for a while, and my dream setup is using your amps. Because of your whole philosophy towards audio basically, and I'm part Polish too (I'm assuming you are, but with a Ski at the end. I'm pretty sure you are. Lol). I love that you design to be stable, and avoid failure. I don't have time to go through all this right now, but I almost died at the first question. As far as I know. You make tube amps that are easy to use, and are for the long term. That sounds good to me. The fact that they also sound good enough to keep Stereophile A ratings for years means a lot to me too. 

I wish I lived in California. I would most definitely check out your school. I honestly think it just needs to be pushed more. I'm willing to bet that Burning Amp alone will help. I know you can't just spend, spend, spend, but maybe some directed advertising on Facebook towards people that are very interested in learning electronics would help. You might pick up done young people struggling to afford College? Something different should be tried, either way. Because if the word doesn't get out. No one will ever know. It's that simple. I only found out about the school, because I was on your site, for instance. I think it's a great thing you're offering, either way, and bless you for doing so sir.

Can't wait till I have more time to read what you've wrote about biasing in particular, as it's fresh on my mind. What with buying my 3rd tube amp this past week, and still not knowing how to do it, and even worse, not knowing the theory behind it all. So I'll thank you ahead of time for that, and wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving.

Thank you
Andy B. 
ramtubes
  Hey George, did you see the review of the Cary SLI-100 in the lastest issue?

I think that one comes later for free on line, as I'm such a tight arse, I only read the ones Stereophile drip feeds online for free.
  
But it must be bad to beat the  Leben CS300, check out the HF boost because either the output transformers are ringing or the circuit is oscillating. And it's shown in the 1khz square waves as well.
To me another one, that should not be passed on final inspection to be sold.

https://www.stereophile.com/images/1111Lebfig01.jpg

https://www.stereophile.com/images/1111Lebfig02.jpg

Cheers George
  
Great posts in here!

i get my info directly from Steve McCormack,
im watching this convo like a hawk.
thak you
 say hi to steve for me