2. amps-preamps
  3. 140029-80294

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.


ramtubes

Showing 1 response by musicpod

musicpod
192 posts
 

Roger,

Thanks for your offer of help. We met about 3 to 5 years ago at Brooks Berdan's retail store. You made a presentation that included your background, your audio philosophy and one of your amplifiers.  It is nice to reconnect with you.

I have several questions for you:

 

  • Slew rate. Some people feel that this is a significant amp spec. Would you please give your thoughts on the importance of slew rate.

 

Amp power. You mentioned 100 watts should be adequate unless the user listens at loud levels or has inefficient speakers. I read an interview with Mark Levinson. In it he stated that when     he was designing amplifiers he conclude that 400 watts was the optimum power level. (Unfortunately, I do not remember the context for his comment).

  • At what db level do you consider a speaker efficient?  At what level inefficient?

  • Would it be possible to provide context to where Mr. Levinson may have been coming from regarding the 400-watt optimum power level?

 

The return of tubes (in terms of popularity and use) to audio.  I own some McIntosh products and note that they actually, at one time, had a marketing campaign focused on denigrating tubes and praising solid state.  Within the McIntosh world, the lore is that it was their Asian owners – Clarion – that pushed them to bring back tube-based products.

  • What market forces contributed to the return of tube-based audio components?

 

Thank you.

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