I

MEDIUM POWER A.F. AMPLIFIER

by T. Giffard X.

For the many readers who do not need hundreds of watts output
from their audio hi-fi installation here is a modest 60-watt a.f.
amplifier that is a match for even the best quality loudspeakers.
Loads down to 2 ohms may be driven without any problem and
with very low distortion. The design is entirely symmetrical and,
apart from an input capacitor, direct coupled.

W HAT should be the power rating of

adomestic hi-f installation? Twenty
plifiers we have published
years.
over the past few signal-to-noise ratio of not less than 100 d
at 1 W, harmonie distortion of not greater
than 0.006% (8 Q/50 W) and a slew rate of
watt/50 watt, 200 watt? It is a vexed question
that will never be answered to the satisfac- 30V/~s.
Symmetrical design lf you imagine a horizontalline through
tion of every hi-fi buff. Psychology may play
Cl role here, too: the difference in sound Top priority in the design of theamplifier was the centre of the simplified circuit diagram
pressure between a 20-watt and Cl 200-watt quality, and this has resulted in a unit with a in Fig. 1, the part above that line Is a mirrar
system is only (!) 10 d Band that Image of that below the line
sounds a lot less than the differ- Ognoring the oe correction and
ence of 180 watt in output pow- protection circuits).
ers. Be that as it may, a continu- The active IX correction cir-
aus power ofSO-70 watt is more cuit ensures that in no circum-
than adequate forat least 95% of stances will direct voltage
a11 domestic hi-fi installaticns. 'appear at the output, which is
Ws far better to have a good- important in view of the direct
quality 50-watt system than a couplieg between aIl stages.
mediocre200-watt one. Readers The proteetion circuit pro-
who take music reproduction vides a delay on power-on,
seriously will, 110 doubt. have rnonitors whether there is any
found this out themsel ves a direct voltage at the output. and
long time ago. Having said that, measures the current that is
it is admitted that there are a drawn by theoutputtransistors.
few, and fortunately only a few, A mechanical relay is used,
loudspeakers that need at least because we could not devise an
a hund red watts to eome to live. electronic switching method
Go toalmost any hi-fi retailer TECHNICAL DATA that would satisfactorily limit
and ask for a good-quality, (Power supply 225 VA; buffer capacitor 20 000 IlF per line) the current without audible
medium power (say, 50 W) side-effects.
amplifier and you'Jl find that Continuous power 60Wint08Q Although the design cannot
there are not many if any. Until (THD = O.t%) 110W into 4 Q be called revolutionary, we feel
recently, the quality of alm ost a11 170 W into 2 Q thatparts of it are pretty original
proprietary power amplifiers Music power 200 W in to 2 Q and combine some of the
was in direct proportion to their (1 kHz; 20 ms on, 80 ms off) advanteges of a number of
power rating and that is the rea- Harmonie distortion 50W/8Q 100W/4Q 150W/2Q other; standard designs.
son that many people buy a sys- 100 Hz <0.0006% <0.008% <0.01% The open-Ioop gain has been
tem with too high a power out- 1 kHz <0.006% <0.008% <0.01% kept 10w, so that the arnount of
put for their requtrements. 10 kHz <0.015% <0.025% <0.06% feedback can be kept small,
Fortunately, some clever manu- Intermodulation distortion <0.013%(1-50 W into 8 Q at 1 kHz) which is all to the good of the
faeturers have realized this <0.05%(1 W into 4 Q at 250 Hz-4 kHz) overall quality. After aIJ, the var-
anomaly and are doing some- Siew rate >30 V/IlS (with input filter) iDUSstages then need. contribute
thing about it, so that amplifiers Peak output current 15 A a smaller part of the overall
rated at 50-70 watt with a good Signal-to-noise ratio >100dBatl W amplification. which helps in
specification are slowly becom- Output impedance <0.02 Q at 100 Hz and 1 kHz keeping the distortion in each
ing available. Nevertheless, we <0.04 Q at 10kHz stage very small.
feit that a good-quality design Input impedance 47kQ The input is formed by a dif-
for theenthusiastic D1Y-erwould Input sensitivity 1 V r.m.s. ferential amplifier, T1-Ts, whose
be a welcome addition to the Quiescent current 100 mA (nominal) gain is Iimited to about 40 dB.
coupIe of high-quality pream- The input transistors are cou-

ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS OCTOBER 1990

 MEDIUMPOWER A.F. AMPLIFIER

pIed to another pair of differential

The final design
amplifiers, T2 and T6 respectively,
whose gain is about 27 d B. These The input of the amplifier-e-see
are followed by controlIed cur- Fig. 2-is protected against
rent sources T9 and T10. Setting of direct voltages by capacttors Cl
the quiescent current for the out- and Cz, which may be omitted if
put stages is provided by a vari- the preamplifier to be used
able zener diode consisting of already has a capacitor at its out-
three transistors, wh ich are con- put. Be careful in furure when
nected between the collectors of connecting a different preampli-
T9 and Tl0. fierwhich may not havea capac-
The output stages consist of itor at its output.
drivers Tra and T17, and twopairs The input capacitors are fol-
of three parallel-connected lowed by a low-pass filter, Rt-
power transistors, each forming a C3. This network limits the
super emitter foliower. bandwidth of the input signal to
obviate any transient intermod-
ulation distortion (TIM).The cut-
Choice of
off frequency of the filter is
components ability ofcomponents. The outpur transistors about 180 kHz, assuming that the outpur
In a symmetrical design, equalityof the tran- in the present design are a typical example. impedance of the preamplifier is 50 Q.
sistors in the input stages Is of para rnount Although they were listed as standard types Dual transistors Tl and rs
form the sym-
importance. In our first design, self-paired Be in a Philips catatogue. the ones we ordered metrical input stage, which is controlIed by
transistors were tried, but these gave prob- had not been delivered six months later in current sources T3 and T7. The current
lems, particularly with thermal stability. It spite of numercus telephone calls. Perhaps through each of the dual transistors is set at
was therefore decided to use proprietary this explains why Philips has not been doing just above 1 mA. The gain of the differential
dual transistors, although these are rather too weil oflate. In theend, the order wascan- input amplifiers is determined by the ratio
more expensive. However, ta king into eelled and replaced by Olle Ior SGS- Thomson of the values of their collector and emitter
account the necessary reliability of reproduc- devices (delivered in a few weeks). These are resistors. Networks Rs-C6 and R14-C7 set the
tion of the destgn. and looking at the near- in most respects as good as the Philips types open-Ioop bandwidth at 500 Hz.
perfeet parallel operation of the dual transis- but lack somewhat in bandwidth, although The second stage consists of dual transis-
tors and their excellent thermal behaviour, in the prototypes that was not noticeable. On tors T2 end T6, which are controlled by cur-
the expense is weil worth it. theother hand, thecharacteristics of the eOI11- rent sources T4 and T8. This stage not only
Some of the problems a designeroften has plementary n-p-n and p-n-p types are for all provides 27 dB gain, but als impedance
to cope with are concerned with the avail- practical purposes identical. matching between the Input stage and the
following current arnplifier.
Current sources T4 and T8 use LEDS to
obtain a voltage reference. Bear in mind that
,-~------------,-~------~--~----~--~--~----~. Ub
these diodes have a potential drop of about
1.6 V across them.
The quiescent current through current
amplifiers T9 and 1'10 is some 20 mA. This
level of current is necessary to ensure that
drivers Tu and Tl7 provide sufficientcurrent
in all circumstances. The amplification of
these amplifiers is determined by the value
of their emitter resistors and the input
impedance of TB and T17.
The collectors of the current amplifiers
01 are intercoupled via a presettable 'zener'net-
Q work, which serves to set the quiescent oper-
ating point of the output stages. This net-

Y work normally consists of jusr one transistor,

but it was fOW1d that the thermal behaviour
of this was not sufficient to compensate the
thermal conduct of the output stages correct-
Iy and quickly enough. The three transistors
finally chosen work almost perfectly and
have the further advantage that they form a
virtually ideal current source wh ich ensures
that current variations through thern hardly
900098 - 12 affect the zener voltage.
The drivers and associated power tran-
Fig. 1. The simpli1ied eireuit diagram 01the ampli1ier elearly shows the symmetrieal design. sistors are, of course, of the same type. Three

ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS OCTOBER 1990

11 AUDIO & HI-FI

36V cp
+ 36'
+

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400mW
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900098 "

Fig. 2. Cireui! diagram 01the medium-power A.F. amplilier.

ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS OCTOER 1990

 MEDIUM-POWER A.F. AMPLIFIER

output transistors instead of one make for stages, which is unavoidable because of dif- is weIl.
moreefficient cooling; moreover; low- power ferences between n-p-n and p-n-p transistors Transistor T21 monitors the output cur-
transistors normally have better electrical and also in base resistance, it is essential that rentof theamplifier by measuring thepoten-
properties than high-power ones. the outpur voltage of the amplifier is kept at tial drop across the emitter resistors of T16
A Boucherot-type network, R46-C16, at o V, and this is effected by Je1. and T20 via voltage divider R47-R48. If that
the outputensures that theamplifier remains The output of the amplifier is applied to current exceeds 5 A (that is, a total current
adequately loaded at high frequencies. integrator lei via lew-pass filter R60-C23. The throught the three Oll tpu t tra nsistors of 15 A),
Inductor LI limits the rise time of the output supply for the integrator is derived from the T21 switches on which results in bistable T24-
signal when the load is capacitive. This main 36-V supply with the aid of resistors T25 toggling alter which the relay is deener-
results in slightly less damptng at high fre- R63 and R64, and zener diedes D10 and DI1. gized within 5 ms.
quencies, but even so the damptng factor at The proteetion eircuit is formed by tran- Any direct voltage at the output is mea-
10 kHz and an output impedance of 8 n sistors T21-T26. When the supply is switehed sured via lew-pass filter R49-Rso-C18-C19. lf
remains greater than 100. on, T26 is off so that bistable TZ4-T25 is reset, thereisa direct voltageata level of more than
Feedback is provided via resistors R17 which results in T25 being switched on. 1 V, Tu will switch on of the voltage is neg~
and R18, and an important role in this is Transistor T26 cannot eonduct until its base-- ative and T23 if it is positive. Again, the relay
played by IX correction circuit TCl. Since the emitter voltage is high enough and this does is deenergized via the bistable.
feedback loop does not include coupling not happen until C2l has been charged via When the relay Is denergized owing to
capacitors. direet voltages at the input are RS8.It is this actton that delays the actuation too high a current or voltage, it will remain
amplified to the same degree as AC signals. of the amplifier, so until the supply is switched off. When,
Owing to the slightly asymmetric setting of Onee T26 is switched on. relay Rer is euer- after a few seconds, the supply is switched
the direet voltages at the differential input gized and diode Dz Iights to indicate that all on aga in, the relay will be energtzed if the
fault eondition has been removed.
The nominal supply voltage is 2x30 V,
BYW64 which may rise under no-load conditions to
MDA3504 2x37 V. Each amplifier may have its own
.---+--+-{+ 30 ...36V power supply, but it is, of course, possible to
power a stereo system (two amplifiers) from
one supply only as discussed below.

Power supply
In principle, there are three ways of provid-
2x 25V ~ ~~~o ing the amplifier with power: a single supply
4A5
for a monaural amplifier; a stereo amplifier
with an Independent supply for each ampli-
4x 10000101 fier: and a stereo amplifier with a single sup-
50V
ply. The first two obviously provide the best
possible channel separation.
The circuit of apower supply for a
L- -4>-----<>--{_ 30 ...36V monaural amplifier Is shown in Fig. 3a. The
mains rransfcrmer specified provides suffi-
90009813a
cient power to allow the amplifier delivering
continuous power into a 4 n load. lt was not
BYW64
thought necessary to specify it for continu-
MDA35~O~4-._-._-+_-( ous power into 2 n. After all, the nominal
resistance of many loudspeakers is 4 n,
although there may be dips to 2-3 n.
However, the electrolytic capacitors have
sufficient capacitance to ensure adequate
current during peaks in music reproduction.
This explains why a total capecitnnce of
40 000 ~F is specified.
2x 25V The single supply for a stereo amplifier
'OA
-see Hg. 3b-has a lugher rated mains
transfonner. For normal use, a 6-A type will
8x 10 OOO.P suffice. Howevcr, if low-impedance loud-
50V
speakers are used, it is better to use a 10-A
type.
Theelecrrolytic buffer capa ci tors are 50- V
types; if these cannot be obtained, 63 V types
900098- 13b
may be used, although these are somewhat
larger.
The construction of the amplifier will be
Fig. 3. Two possible power supplies: the one at the top is tor a monaural amplitier, while the one below
is a single supply intended for a stereo amplifier. described in next month's issue.

ELEKTOR ELECTRONJCS OCTOBER 1990

 CORRECTIONS I
CITIONS CORRECTIONS CORR~
Medium-power A.F. amplifier ing capacltors in the symmetrical power ncnt mounting plan are given in Fig. 3 to as-
supply section of the amplifier was designed sist readers in producing this PCB, which Is
October and November 1990 after publication of Part 2 of this project. The not available ready-made.
A circuit board to accommodate the srnooth- track layout (mirror image) and U1ecompo-

~I

ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS JANUARY 1991

 CORRECTIONS I
CITIONS CORRECTIONS CORR~
Medium-power A.F. amplifier ing capacitors in the symmetrical power nent mounting plan are given in Fig. 3 to as-
supply section of the amplifier was designed sist readers in producing this peB, wh ich is
October and November 1990 after publication of Part 2 of this project. The not available ready-made.
A circuit board to accommodate the smooth- track layout (mirror image) and the compo-

ELEKTOR ELECTRONICS JANUARY 1991