About make an audio power amplifier.

[large_ghostman]

I know you are only having some fun, but Nikolai is 14 years old and is currently a student. His family, culture, and ties are in Vietnam so that is where he is likely to want to live. Yes, he does chop and change and sometimes gets things out of balance, but he is keen to learn and is way ahead of me at that age.

In those days I too relied on my parents for dosh and went to all sorts of shenanigans to do things on the cheap while still trying to get good quality reproduction from valve amps (no transistors in those days). It is a great shame that I did not know then what I know now because I could have built a fabulous system with the junk I had accumulated. For example a hugely expensive Parmeko ultralinear valve output transformer that was simply being chucked out and a massive mains transformer rescued from some military test equipment.

I also had access to any number of valves, including 6V6GT, KT66, ECC83 etc. But I simply did not know what to do with this stuff, especially as there were no freely available data sheets in those days and the valves were all identified with military CVxxx nomenclature. The only data I had was the Mullard application report for their 5/10 amp. One example is that there was multiple 6.3V winding on my mains transformer and the 5/10 amp only had one and non had the same current rating of the 5/10 data sheet. They were all a lot more. I thought that this extra current would simply burn out the valve heaters or cause some other problems. It was a similar thing with the transformer HT winding too. And I had no idea that CV type valves were actually superior to their commercial equivalents. The 5/10 circuit was labeled with various voltages and currents. I thought that these were absolute and if not spot on the amp would not perform properly and so on.

I even had a nice Stentorian base driver that was also being dumped, and rescued a massive 18 inch speaker from a cinema that was being refitted. But I had no idea how to design a suitable enclosure, although I could have done the woodwork. The Stentorian had an impedance of 16 Ohms, but the output transformer had a 15 Ohm secondary so I thought they were incompatible and would generate gross distortion. If someone could have put me on the right track here and there I would have progressed much better.

So, I say good luck to Nikolai and others in the same position and I for one am only to pleased to help in his endeavors where possible.

Not sure of the point of all that, also what makes you think he swaps and changes his mind? Seems fairly fixed to me and good at sticking to what he wants despite times where others want to change his mind. Being 15 whos side do you think I am on?

 

[spec]

We are in different universes here LG. I think you misunderstand me and have not fully read the associated Transistor Equivalent thread.

spec

 

[large_ghostman]

We are in different universes here LG. I think you misunderstand me and have not fully read the associated Transistor Equivalent thread.

spec

I did read all the thread, I dont think your comments are really aimed at me though............. Its a shame he dosnt have access to the kind of parts we take for granted, I have little audio stuff so cant really help, plus shipping would be a killer. I do think he should listen more but I have been doing this ~5 years and it took me a very long time to listen , I still dont always . While I like radio Audio such as high quality amps etc is not my thing, I dont have the worlds best hearing and top of the range equipment would be utterly wasted on me!

 

[spec]

I did read all the thread, I dont think your comments are really aimed at me though............. Its a shame he dosnt have access to the kind of parts we take for granted, I have little audio stuff so cant really help, plus shipping would be a killer. I do think he should listen more but I have been doing this ~5 years and it took me a very long time to listen , I still dont always . While I like radio Audio such as high quality amps etc is not my thing, I dont have the worlds best hearing and top of the range equipment would be utterly wasted on me!

Well put LG; my comments were definitely not aimed at you.

Because you consider that you don't have the best hearing, does not mean that you would not benefit from a good audio system. I would not say that we are discussing a top of the range system on this thread- good system would be a better description.

The human ear/brain system is much more complex than you would imagine and is not fully understood. There is an awful lot of inverse snobbery about HiFi but no end of times people who say that they could not tell the difference are shocked when they hear a half decent system. I will stick my neck out and go as far as to say that listening to music on a good system will possibly even improve a person's hearing. I would not be able to quantify this though. The other point is that, in general, it costs little more to configure a good system than a poor system, especially if you buy used equipment.

 

[Mikebits]

say that listening to music on a good system will possibly even improve a person's hearing.

Applesauce...

 

[large_ghostman]

Well put LG; my comments were definitely not aimed at you.

Because you consider that you don't have the best hearing, does not mean that you would not benefit from a good audio system. I would not say that we are discussing a top of the range system on this thread system on this thread though- good would be a better description. The human ear/brain system is much more complex than you would imagine and is not fully understood. There is an awful lot of inverse snobbery about HiFi but no end of times people who say that they could not tell the difference are shocked when they hear a half decent system. I will stick my neck out and go as far as to say that listening to music on a good system will possibly even improve a person's hearing. I would not be able to quantify this though. The other point is that, in general, it costs little more to configure a good system than a poor system, especially if you buy used equipment.

Audio people take what they hear for granted. I will give you a different example I learnt very recently, I have a form of dyslexia which means I read right to left and my brain inverts everything, some times this gets all messed up. However I also 'think' in 3D, I can visulise pictures I have seen in 2D in 3D in my head.

Its a strange thing and I always assumed how I see images in my head is how everyone does, apparently its only around 60% of certain types of dyslexia that have this ability. So what has this got to do with sound? I was used in a study 2 years ago at the Uni my dad was doing some research for, they were testing my visual response (its also how I first found I had eye damage) and tested my hearing as well. I have low hearing in one ear and roughly average quality hearing overall with poor high frequency response. Sound is a bit muffled to me but to people into Audio they often have much much better tone separation, the person tested with me could tell frequencies that were very close together apart, I couldnt distinguish the same frequencies. Its a trait many people that into Audio share, they are often into Audio because they search to get rid of the 'imperfections' they can hear, what many dont realise is a great many of us cant hear those imperfections nor can we hear what you hear, alot of sound to us is pretty bland. My dad liked Audio despite a hearing problem (work accident) and we had a really good Bang and Oulfson Stereo from the late 80's with the most enormous speakers I have ever seen. He would often point out instruments etc in music that I could barely hear let alone pick out on my own!

So I might be tempted to be jealous of your hearing but I have skills many dont, I dont yet know the full extent of what I can do, but I do intend to find my limits and then move them a bit

 

[Mikebits]

Applesauce...

Just a side note Spec. I know that you often think people here are trying to bash your credibility whenever they bash something you designed. FYI, i'm not doing that and it is not personal, I just think your comment is untrue, hogwash, poppycock, nonsense, bologna, etc...
No offense meant towards you brotha And to LG, if you think I overuse emoticons, tough, deal with it, get over it, I like to use em to convey emotions umkay?

 

[large_ghostman]

Just a side note Spec. I know that you often think people here are trying to bash your credibility whenever they bash something you designed. FYI, i'm not doing that and it is not personal, I just think your comment is untrue, hogwash, poppycock, nonsense, bologna, etc...
No offense meant towards you brotha And to LG, if you think I overuse emoticons, tough, deal with it, get over it, I like to use em to convey emotions umkay?

LMAO???? EAH where did I say you overuse emoticons? or is this lets take our ETO frustrations out on LG day to day??.

You are all barking mad, that should be number ONE on the engineer list!! BARKING,round the twist, up the pole MAD!

 

[Mikebits]

I was really just joking, but you mentioned your disdain for emoticons in the general discussion thread. I mean members lounge.

 

[Mikebits]

I was really just joking, but you mentioned your disdain for emoticons in the general discussion thread. I mean members lounge.

Honestly I try to avoid taking out my frustrations on you fine people, I think it is mean, hence why I purposely pointed that out to spec as I do not want to offend.,, and mean people suck. Like you, my sense of humor is often misunderstood.

 

[spec]

Audio people take what they hear for granted. I will give you a different example I learnt very recently, I have a form of dyslexia which means I read right to left and my brain inverts everything, some times this gets all messed up. However I also 'think' in 3D, I can visulise pictures I have seen in 2D in 3D in my head. Its a strange thing and I always assumed how I see images in my head is how everyone does, apparently its only around 60% of certain types of dyslexia that have this ability.

This seems to be a common theme, with eng types- I am the same.

So what has this got to do with sound? I was used in a study 2 years ago at the Uni my dad was doing some research for, they were testing my visual response (its also how I first found I had eye damage) and tested my hearing as well. I have low hearing in one ear and roughly average quality hearing overall with poor high frequency response. Sound is a bit muffled to me but to people into Audio they often have much much better tone separation, the person tested with me could tell frequencies that were very close together apart, I couldnt distinguish the same frequencies. Its a trait many people that into Audio share, they are often into Audio because they search to get rid of the 'imperfections' they can hear, what many dont realise is a great many of us cant hear those imperfections nor can we hear what you hear, a lot of sound to us is pretty bland. My dad liked Audio despite a hearing problem (work accident) and we had a really good Bang and Oulfson Stereo from the late 80's with the most enormous speakers I have ever seen. He would often point out instruments etc in music that I could barely hear let alone pick out on my own!

I don't see anything in what you say that means that you would not possibly benefit from/enjoy listening to a good sound system.

Like you, I can't tell the difference between two tones that are reasonably close together and specifically I cant tell if one tone is higher than another. I simply cannot tune a guitar by ear, when all you have to do is to adjust the machine heads so that six strings are at the same frequency as the next string up when correctly fretted. The only way I can tune a guitar is by using an electronic tuner. I am also tone deaf and could not even hum a tune, let alone sing. Also I have no sense of rythem and rather like dyslexia I get the beats mixed up. I could not dance to save my life either.

So I might be tempted to be jealous of your hearing but I have skills many don't, I dont yet know the full extent of what I can do, but I do intend to find my limits and then move them a bit

Up to age about 7, I also heard sound as bland and lacking in high frequencies, but as my mother was musical and played the piano and my Dad was into Hi Fi my musical and sound appreciation gradually improved and, at one stage, I could even keep a reasonable beat but have lost it again due to lack of practice.

My view of the human state is positive: I believe that what people are and can do depends on their experiences and environment, and on a combination of their brains and bodies and that the latter can be developed to do almost anything (within reason). Of course, this is subject to physical limitations- someone born with no ears is never going to hear, never mind how good their sound system. There is a fallacy, once more only in my opinion, when people say they can't do this or that because they have certain brain/body shortcomings. I think in the vast majority cases that needs qualifying and should read, can't do a certain thing naturally, or easily.

To take an example: girls seem naturally to be able to dance and have an innate sense of rhythm. On the other hand, this is not true for many boys, me included. I believe that the dancing part of my brain is missing and I would never be able to dance properly. But most of the dance instructors I have talked to say that anyone can learn to dance, it just takes more effort for some than others. And for my part, I simply have not bothered to pursue the dance thing.

That would not be the case for something I was interested in though like MIG welding for example. I had one hell of a job tying to MIG weld, so much so that I asked a pro welder associate to do some welding with my rig just to show it was possible. Of course, he did a couple of perfect welds using my kit. That gave me the confidence to realise that it was me that was the problem, and to cut a long story short I kept at the MIG welding and now I can weld better than most amateurs. Looking back on my thinking about why I could not MIG weld I saw that my reasoning was bollocks.

You imply that I have exceptional hearing but that is a presumption- my hearing is not especially good. A friend who is a musician, on the other hand, has fantastic hearing and can sing, tune a guitar perfectly in a flash and, something I just can't comprehend, play a violin perfectly, in spite of the fact that there are no frets on a violin to place your fingers on.

Time and time again I have experienced people, especially young people, who say I cant do this or I cant do that because of some personal limitation, and time and time again this has been proved to be untrue. It is just a matter of having a positive view, the right environment, the right enabling information, and practice, practice, practice.

 

[large_ghostman]

This seems to be a common theme, with eng types- I am the same.



I don't see anything in what you say that means that you would not possibly benefit from a good sound system.

Like you, I can't tell the difference between two tones that are reasonably close together and specifically I cant tell if one tone is higher than another. I simply cannot tune a guitar by ear, when all you have to do is to adjust the machine heads so that six strings are at the same frequency as the next string up when correctly fretted. The only way I can tune a guitar is by using an electronic tuner. I am also tone deaf and could not even hum a tune, let alone sing. Also I have no sense of rythem and rather like dyslexia I get the beats mixed up. I could not dance to save my life either.



Up to age about 7, I also heard sound as bland and lacking in high frequencies, but as my mother was musical and played the piano and my Dad was into Hi Fi my musical and sound appreciation gradually improved and, at one stage, I could even keep a reasonable beat but have lost it again due to lack of practice.

My general view of the human state is a positive one: I believe that what people are depends on the combination of their brains an bodies and that these can be developed to do almost anything (within reason). Of course, this is subject to physical limitations- someone born with no ears is never going to hear, never mind how good their sound system.

You imply that I have exceptional hearing but that is a presumption- my hearing is not especially good. A friend who is a musician, on the other hand, has fantastic hearing and can sing, tune a guitar perfectly in a flash and, something I just can't comprehend, play a violin perfectly, in spite of the fact that there are no frets on a violin to place your fingers on.

Time and time again I have experienced people, especially young people, who say I cant do this or I cant do that because of some personal limitation, and time and time again this has been proved to be untrue. It is just a matter of having a positive view, the right environment, the right enabling information, and practice, practice, practice.

Yes I made assumptions, you clearly have a passion for Audio and this is normally the domain of people like AG. Its rare to have the interest you do and have normal/subnormal hearing, I have no doubt a good system would be more enjoyable to listen to, I just dont have the interest in sound apart from sound and light mixed, I am classed as cerebral visual and wish I could draw. I would love to play the guitar, but only if I can use relays etc to do it .

 

[Mikebits]

I guess I made Spec mad at me, since he did not respond to my post

 

[spec]

Just a side note Spec. I know that you often think people here are trying to bash your credibility whenever they bash something you designed.

That is not true Mike. I am certainly not interested in credibility per se, but I am interested in design. You will see many examples where people have pointed out genuine errors and I have thanked them. You will also see many examples of people following me around ETO and ever time I post a design they will leap in with some uninformed reason why it wont work. And when they are proved wrong they never apologize and just repeat the same procedure for the next design. Climbing over all this nonsense takes time and clutters up the thread with useless information. But if someone asks how a circuit works that is quite different. Then there is the ETO bellicose six, who charge around ETO looking for a fight.

FYI, i'm not doing that and it is not personal, I just think your comment is untrue, hogwash, poppycock, nonsense, bologna, etc...
No offense meant towards you brotha

Hmm- why didn't you just say that you didn't agree with what I said and give a reason. You do appreciate that people can hold different views.

 

[Mikebits]

That is not true Mike. I am certainly not interested in credibility per se, but I am interested in design. You will see many examples where people have pointed out genuine errors and I have thanked them. You will also see many examples of people following me around ETO and ever time I post a design they will leap in with some uninformed reason why it wont work. And when they are proved wrong they never apologize and just repeat the same procedure for the next design. Climbing over all this nonsense takes time and clutters up the thread with useless information. But if someone asks how a circuit works that is quite different. Then there is the ETO bellicose six, who charge around eto looking for a fight.



Hmm- why didn't you just say that you didn't agree with what I said and give a reason. You do appreciate that people can hold different views.

Yes, that would have been the proper thing to do. My bad...

 

[large_ghostman]

I am taking names for when DS finds the button to make me ADMIN *kneel before me*, I am sure he is just having software trouble and thats why the delay ...............

 

[spec]

Yes I made assumptions, you clearly have a passion for Audio and this is normally the domain of people like AG. Its rare to have the interest you do and have normal/subnormal hearing, I have no doubt a good system would be more enjoyable to listen to, I just dont have the interest in sound apart from sound and light mixed, I am classed as cerebral visual and wish I could draw. I would love to play the guitar, but only if I can use relays etc to do it .

I don't mean to sound patronizing LG, but you are quite young, and by definition quite inexperienced (if someone had told me that when I was fifeteen I would have thumped them) and I suggest that you should avoid forming fixed ideas just yet, especially negative ideas. I have mentored many young people at work. Some are incredibly confident and capable from scratch but others are self doubters. My approach is to call a spade a spade and tell them not to be stupid. They generally get pissy at first but after they have got their first impossible task under their belt they soon come around.

One chap particularly comes to mind. He was riddled with worry and self doubt; as is common he had an unsatisfactory childhood. He was also terribly accident prone. Pretty much every time he got a task he implied it was too difficult, then took ages to do a half arsed job. So one day I told him to come to a customer meeting and do a ten minute presentation on an area he was working on. Of course, he said he couldn't do it: his voice was to soft, he had a stutter and on and on. On his first run through he was embarrassingly bad but with a bit of advice here and there and practice he soon improved.

On the day of the presentation he was beside himself with anxiety and nervousness and when he was on stage it was not good. But he soon got a grip and did a wonderful delivery, the customer even mentioned so. Where is all this leading? Well, this timid shrew of a fellow turned out to be a very good engineer with a normal positive outlook, although he always tended to be a worrier. I am sure if he had just been left to his own devices he would still be a doubting Thomas, instead of having a good job, his own house, and a wife, and kid.

 

[spec]

Yes, that would have been the proper thing to do. My bad...

No probs Mike

 

[audioguru]

I had pretty good eyesight until I became about 40 years old then "my arms became too short to read" so I got closeup reading glasses. Then I could not see distant things or very close things so I got tri-focal lenses in my glasses. Then my eyesight faded into a blur because I became blind with cataracts. So I got my eyes fixed (synthetic lenses inside my eyes) and now they are fine and use glasses only for very close ups.

I have always loved music since I was little and I also have a good sense of rhythm. I could hear many frequencies and as a teenager I heard "ultrasonic" burglar detectors that were never turned off because they "could not be heard".
I can carry a tune or tune an instrument. I played a trombone (no frets) in my high school band I can sing and whistle tunes but not very well but the frequencies were/are always correct.

My hearing very gradually faded the high frequencies and is now normal for my age of 70, about -40dB to -50dB at 8kHz. I ran out of excuses that people mumbled and the TV produced muffled sounds. I went for a free hearing test and free demo hearing aids and they make my hearing like when I was young. It took a few weeks to get used to hearing normally again and I am glad the audiologist turned them up only a little every couple of weeks. Now after using them for hundreds of days and taking them off each night I feel like I am deaf for a few minutes, then putting them on each morning they sound too shrill for a minute or two.

I have always had plenty of confidence with everything I did/do. Maybe that is why I frequently dream that I can fly above other people by using a trick that is something like holding my breath (helium?) and see that they do not fly.

 

[large_ghostman]

I had pretty good eyesight until I became about 40 years old then "my arms became too short to read" so I got closeup reading glasses. Then I could not see distant things or very close things so I got tri-focal lenses in my glasses. Then my eyesight faded into a blur because I became blind with cataracts. So I got my eyes fixed (synthetic lenses inside my eyes) and now they are fine and use glasses only for very close ups.

I have always loved music since I was little and I also have a good sense of rhythm. I could hear many frequencies and as a teenager I heard "ultrasonic" burglar detectors that were never turned off because they "could not be heard".
I can carry a tune or tune an instrument. I played a trombone (no frets) in my high school band I can sing and whistle tunes but not very well but the frequencies were/are always correct.

My hearing very gradually faded the high frequencies and is now normal for my age of 70, about -40dB to -50dB at 8kHz. I ran out of excuses that people mumbled and the TV produced muffled sounds. I went for a free hearing test and free demo hearing aids and they make my hearing like when I was young. It took a few weeks to get used to hearing normally again and I am glad the audiologist turned them up only a little every couple of weeks. Now after using them for hundreds of days and taking them off each night I feel like I am deaf for a few minutes, then putting them on each morning they sound too shrill for a minute or two.

I have always had plenty of confidence with everything I did/do. Maybe that is why I frequently dream that I can fly above other people by using a trick that is something like holding my breath (helium?) and see that they do not fly.

We got some flying mushrooms in our wood , easier than holding your breath and nothing makes you fly HIGHER than shrooms lol