I am sure there are areas of circuit design that Cyrill is more competent than I. I am also pretty confident there are areas where I am more competent, and again, that ludicrous GHz comment makes me question who is the high powered technical talent at Soulution. A link to a website proves nothing. Let’s do a little digging ...
When Audiolabor went under, Cyrill and Roland hired its chief designer Christoph Schürmann to develop their own series of amps, preamps, and CD players. Costs were no object; bullet-proof sonic excellence was. What the boys from Dulliken were after was the inherent musicality and low time-related distortion of tubes combined with the high current/drive capability and low THD of solid-state. What they wanted, in a nutshell, was an amp with all the virtues and none of the vices of both technologies. What they wanted was an amp with no pronounced sonic signature of its own.
It took Schürmann better than half a decade to pull off this little trick.
Darn, I must be clairvoyant! ... or just experienced enough to know people who really know what they are talking about and those that do not?
Then again, based on his work experience which has been more on the business side, less on the technical, maybe I was giving too much credit?
Experience
- Business Unit Manager
soulution
Dates Employed Aug 2002 – Present Employment Duration 18 yrs 6 mos Location Dulliken - Owner
Company Name
Spemot AG
Dates Employed Jan 1997 – Present Employment Duration 24 yrs 1 mo Location Dulliken - Project Leader
Company Name
The Boston Consulting Group
Dates Employed Aug 1997 – Aug 2002 Employment Duration 5 yrs 1 mo Location Zürich - Mitglied der Geschäftsleitung
Company Name
SWISS COMBI - W. Kunz dryTec AG
Dates Employed Aug 1992 – Jul 1997 Employment Duration 5 yrs
I will give him props, even if just repeating what his designer said,
Cyrill Hammer: For a “solid-state” amplifier design the speed (e.g., bandwidth) of amplification is one of the most important criteria. This speed or bandwidth has nothing to do with the MHz-range frequencies that can be reproduced by such an amplifier; the bandwidth is required to make the “feedback loops” of solid-state designs work properly.
Hey @atmasphere , sound familiar? ... of course, I take exception to their claims to be pioneers in either recognizing this or designing with this in mind. A friend did an app-note in the 90’s on a current feedback audio power amp topology that accomplished this. Of course op-amps have been doing this for quite a few decades as well.