Another first: I have reprinted some very good stuff on power amps: Baxandall and Self on Audio Power as a Linear Audio Classic. It consists of three parts:

Part I is Peter Baxandall's series from Wireless World 1978-1979, focusing on feedback, stability and compensation. Part II is Doug Self's series from Wireless World, 1993-1994, focusing on the various distortion mechanisms and their remedies, resulting in the Blameless Amp concept. And Part III (drum roll) is a 35 page personal letter from Peter Baxandall commenting on Doug's work. This is material never before published; typewritten, with many hand-drawn graphs and circuit diagrams. This collection has everything you ever need to know to design great power amplifiers!

The latest issue in the regular series is Volume 2, again a mix of technologies and subjects. Bob Cordell is back with a very high quality KT-88-based tube power amplifier, while Rudolf Moers goes on an ultra-linear adventure. This article is the definite one on ultra-linear tube amps!

Kendall Castor-Perry designed a novel gain-of-one power output stage that needs no adjustments or thermal compensation yet is extremely linear, even open loop.

Samuel Groner, came up with an equally high-performance push-pull transimpedance stage, while Nelson Pass has a sequel to the Arch Nemesis, transplanting the SiC power device with a custom-designed Static Induction Transistor, the Pass SIT 1.

Marcel van de Gevel describes a simple loudspeaker correction filter that gets away with standard value capacitors and a simple gain-of-one buffer amp as the active element.

EUVL presents a minimalistic I/V converter for current output DACs based on jFETs and a floating power supply.

Stuart Yaniger shares with us some interesting insights and experiences related to controlled listening tests, while Gary Galo’s Guest Editorial provides a thought-provoking insight into the history, development and current state of digital audio.

Unfortunately, the 2^nd part of Scott Wurcer’s microphone preamp had to be postponed to the next Volume, V3.

There are also two book reviews: Rudolf Moer’s Fundamental Amplifier Techniques with Electron Tubes is reviewed by Guido Tent, while Kendall Castor-Perry gives his views on Douglas Self’s latest work The Design of Active Crossovers.

I received several Letters with comments on V0 and V1 articles; these, together with the author's replies, are also online at www.linearaudio.net under Online resources.

And, as usual, more detailed article abstracts and author bio's are at the home page.

Enjoy!

Be sure to come back to my library once in a while because I keep on adding interesting audio tech articles and links!

Two new books on my reading table:

The Electric Life of Michael Faraday by Alan Hirshfeld is a great and engaging biography of, you guessed it, Michael Faraday. The man who worked himself up, against all odds, from a poor and underprivileged young man to one of our greatest scientists. It's hard to overestimate his impact on modern technological developments.

The other book I'm reading is quite different. The 9th work by Dutch-born Frans de Waal, now Professor (and a few other titles) at Yerkes National Primates Research Center in Atlanta: The Age of Empathy - Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society. Selected as one of the 100 most influential people by Time in 2007, Frans' work can be characterized as explaining altruism and empathy from a Darwinian perspective. Fascinating, to say the least, and very encouraging for our species' future. Recommended!

Enjoy!

Jan Didden