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Point to Point vs Circuit Board

I just read this about point to point wiring:

First, there’s the music’s signal. You spend a lot of money on interconnects. So why have the signal go right from the RCA jacks or speaker terminals into circuit boards with copper traces so thin you can hardly see them? What’s high-end about that?


I've now heard about point to point wiring in the case of tube amp companies (Jadis, PrimaLuna) and my question is does point to point wiring exist for solid state amps? When I look at images inside amps online all solid state amps seem to use circuit boards. Is there such thing as a point to point transistor amp or must they necessarily have circuit boards? If so, which companies?

Thanks

gmercer

Showing 1 response by erik_squires

erik_squires
15,861 posts
 
It's the size of the pins my friend.

You don't need giant traces for low current signals. More important is how you route them and the capacitance/inductance caused.  Even with these tiny signal paths most designers will use far bigger traces for power and ground traces or even use the entire board as a power or ground.

There's also arguments to be made for the superior behavior of surface mounted devices vs. pinned IC's in terms of capacitance and inductance at the connectors themselves, making them impossible to be point to point.


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