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

Thanks atmosphere!!
I'm being a bit lazy in getting around to changing the tubes in my CJ pre, but I'll see if I can note any difference other than (hopefully) lowering of noise floor.
 For the price, I wouldn't hesitate to go with Yamaha again after all those years ago. When I was struggling, I owned an inexpensive Yamaha integrated that really surprised me to be as good as it was and flexible as well. Like I have stated before, 'some' tone controls are flexible enough to be practical, at times anyway. The bulk of them just don't do it for me.
yes, I would be happy to pay for coursework on the subject. What do you offer?
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@rollintubes  I am sold on tubes for analogue audio but am confused by all of the information on power. I see from many posts that tube power need not be very high or as high as the speaker manufacturer claims as a requirement, i.e. a 200 WPC SS amp is needed to drive a speaker with 85db sensitivity (the manufacturer requires a minimum of 75 WPC, but likes at least 100 WPC), yet I have used a tube power amp with 40 WPC on the speakers and it sounds terrific. I have read that it is in the output transformers and SS amps are generally direct coupled.
Will you please explain this phenomenon?


It is my understanding that 200 watts per channel is a maximum to not blow up the speaker. That is a lot of power for a voice coil to absorb. Almost everyone has too big an amplifier in my opinion. I know this as I have measured power at listening levels in customers homes to be only a few watts. To say 200 watts is "needed to drive a 85 db speaker" means that the speaker will be putting out 105 db SPL. I listen at 85 db, anything higher is for short periods. Do you listen at 105 db?

Your 40 watt tube amp sounds terrific because thats all the power you need. Small amps generally sound better than big amps. In designing big amps, certain sins are committed. Small amps can be more responsive and delicate. 

I am currently designing several 30 watt/channel amps for those who agree with what I have said above.