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BASH and expired patents

FYI, everyone, the BASH patent is basically expired and that is where ’new’ amplification will very very likely...begin to shift into. Don’t know the exact dates but this is what it looks like is happening..

Just a prediction in potentials, is all...

Basically.....BASH is a class AB or C-ish output stage, combined with a pulsed power supply, where the rail voltages dynamically shift in level, in conjunction with the signal.

This is what class D was trying to side step, one might say -- the BASH patent. The BASH/Indigo patent was considered (by me) the better way but it blocked the path forward.

Now that path is again open and it will very probably be the new thing.

The whole idea is to gain efficiency, but have a non switching output. The BASH patent was the best compromise of quality and efficiency.

For the purposes of high end audio, the ending of the BASH patent will probably spell the end of high quality audio oriented class D amplifier development.

That was a 20 year delay....

The trick about Class D, is to remember or cognate the why of it in the first place. The pulse modulated output is not ideal, the filters can only do so much and create huge complications (The pulsed output and filter as a combination).

BASH sidesteps the worst intractable problems of Class D amplifier design and execution... and gives us the best that a high efficiency compact system can do. The problem of development in that area, was that the BASH patent blocked that entire spectrum of design pathways.

Now that path is open.

I speak a little on it (preliminary realization and musing) over here.
teo_audio

Showing 2 responses by teo_audio

teo_audio OP
2,197 posts
 
Basically, put, I don’t see the long term or even short term potentials for qualitative increases with class D.

I see them minimized more than they are now, but no where near as good as class A/B BJT/FET based output stages.

Also, that digital may now be a modern norm, but still a step backward for all time and the foreseeable future, compared to analog signals. I just don’t see this equation changing.

It is, to me, a game of catch up that is trying to reach zero or equal status. And I don’t think it can get there. Other advantages, yes, but but pure quality - no.

I’m adopting an extremist corner seat for the sake of discussion, only. :)

The filter is not easily made trivial, as we hear via micro changes and micro differentials in complex intermixed tonal structure, via the micro and macro peaks, as a flowing set, though time.

And that is where both digital and class D their associated filters (power or signal) are total screw ups, and --analog has that is spades, right from the get go.

We can make it good enough for most and leave those who are sensitive to the best and desire it..we can leave them in the ditch with nothing, and call them cranks and nut-bars.

Which is what will happen, in another of the endless rounds of dumbing down the world further.

All for the sake of some given "stench of money via mediocrity’s desires being met" form of ease, expedience, or human desire.

teo_audio OP
2,197 posts
 
bump for the bash, due to the whole idea that class D is good.

Bash has, in my thinking,  the potential to be notably better than class d.

small loss of efficiency when going to bash vs class d, but a big opportunity to have no output filter, and much less micro distortions in the resulting waveform coning from the given audio circuit.

Now that the BASH patent is expired, we hope to see some high end audio enthusiast oriented BASH circuits appear.


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