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Re: The color of my parachute!

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James,
Wow, I have to say I'm pretty much in agreement this time. One thing about university-taught engineers in the U.S. is that, no, if an engineer has the passion for what he/she is designing, then there are no limits. I believe that we have some of the finest engineers and finest minds on the planet in the U.S. Unfortunately, unless those bright engineers can dump a limitless amount of money into their own hobby or their own business, they are controlled by the business world. It impresses me to see how much you know about audio electronics being self-taught -- my hat's off to you. But, from an engineer's perspective, please understand that it is EXTREMELY frustrating to work for a company doing design work. It is not that engineers don't think outside the box; they do. If engineers were turned loose to compete against each other, then companies would start making products that simply can't be beat, because product development would be driven by engineers instead of business majors. Either the companies would unfortunately go under because nobody can afford the high quality products, or the companies' marketers would suddenly have to step into overdrive to keep their company competitive. It's that employers, like you said, are trying to churn out mass-produced, mediocre-at-best quality products. I know how the American buying public is. They don't want the best in one or two categories, they want to have everything, and get as much for as little as possible. I think this sort of makes America the great place that it is. If I had to buy all Ping to get into golf, buy all Theta and Classe to get into power amps, and buy all Ferarri to get into cars, then I'd never have it all. But, give me some Wilson clubs, a Sony receiver, and a Chevy Cavalier and suddenly I'm the American that has it all, even though I might not have the best. Does that sound right? Audio is an area where I personally put more emphasis into quality however, yet perhaps not as much emphasis as others, including yourself. If I could have the opportunity to listen to some of your designs, I would probably save up and stand in line to purchase an amplifier from you. You heart is certainly in the right place with your audio likes.

Now, about operating in pure class A... ouch, pure class A limits the amount of output power you can have naturally. I know that Krell uses some gigantic tubes to make a respectable amount of power from pure or quasi-class A designs. But, is it reasonable to expect 300W per channel from a class A design? About the topic of negative feedback, please share, what are your dislikes with using negative feedback? My BGW amp sounds more open and musical than my Crown amp most likely for the reason that it uses very little negative feedback. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on neg. feedback. Regarding the input drive stages you mentioned, most pro audio products feature a discrete class A drive stage. Many even use opto-couplers to control the gain knobs so that the pots don't get into the signal path. I would bet that most home products (beyond the run-of-the-mill receivers) use a discrete drive stage. Some pro amps have power factor correction features, but those are typically on the multi-kilo watt models. All I have considered in my personal designs for power supplies is: use a huge, well-wound, clean power transformer, beyond the rectifier use a generous amount of capacitance. Please share thoughts you have along these lines.


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