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 4 responses by wolf_garcia

wolf_garcia
6,767 posts
 
Dennis Had (alive and well in Apex or Cary or someplace) hand built the best sounding amp I’ve owned over many decades of owning things. The amp’s 2nd birthday happened recently (he signs and dates these things), and I rewarded it by giving it a new tube. Although mine is one of the extremely high powered versions of his "Firebottle HO" (it’s a HO...says so right there) SEP at a massive12 watts pc (hide the children, batten down the hatches), his stuff, other than the well regarded headphone amps he makes for Moon, is subject to his whim of making one a week maybe and only selling ’em on Ebay. He currently seems to be making only a 2 to 4 watt SE version (8 watts with KT150s?), but I hear he might make something else if you ask nicely. There are no specs published by him for the Ebay stuff, and he’s nothing if not enthusiastic. I am consequently tied to highly efficient speakers, but the bondage works for me.

On another note, neither of my current fave tube guitar amps has a "standby" switch as they’re relatively low powered (18 and 15 watts respectively), so the question is: When can I get my beer? Another question I’ve asked elsewhere is how do Premium Fuses work? What do they do and why? Thanks in advance for the answer (or answers).
wolf_garcia
6,767 posts
 
You cleverly dodged my (lame and silly) question so I STILL don’t know when I can get my beer, but the answer you provided to the question I didn’t ask is, of course, still relevant. Also, having carped (that’s right...carped!) here about how silly Magic Fuses are for years and engendering some resistance (to put it mildly) from athletic supporters of the things, your reasoned response about them was much appreciated.
wolf_garcia
6,767 posts
 
My name has zero to do with Jerry Garcia...I borrowed the last names of two people in my office (Tom Garcia and Dave Wolf) around 20 years ago for an open mike thing I was doing, and I kept the name for professional use and to disguise my identity as an international celebrity. As far as the Dead goes, I recently found a ticket I didn't know I had kept (I don't keep stuff like that) in a bag of papers from my late mother's stuff...3 bucks for a Dead show I saw in Honolulu on Jan 3rd 1970...framed it! There's a recording of that show someplace that I should try harder to find, just to complete the set.

I like the fact that my Dennis Had amp is relatively "unmeasured," although I'm sure somebody has looked into that...if measurements for the thing were available, I still would not care one iota as the thing simply reproduces music so beautifully among my gear pile it's earned its place several times over.
wolf_garcia
6,767 posts
 
I'm another who has compared garden hose sized power cables to more modest but appropriately sized "stock" cables and found that both work fine with no audible differences. I do use a relatively gigantic PS Audio AC cable for a REL sub, but that's simply to impress people although no people have yet to be impressed...still...it wasn't expensive since it was "previously owned"...gotta say it looks cool...maybe thickness isn't so important after all (really? you're thinking THAT?).
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