The History of Preamplifier Circuit Design is a review article written by Shinji in Japan. According to my estimation, the original Japanese text is likely to be published in the Japanese magazine "Radio Technology" or "Wireless and Experiment" (that is, MJ magazine).
What I have in my hand is the first edition of Audio-visual Technology Collection published by Shanghai Translation and Publishing Company more than ten years ago1July, 988. The book Collection has sold two volumes, and the current price is 8.65 yuan. It was an expensive book at that time. I bought it on 1989 1 month. According to the original work, the translation was first published in Northern Communication No.2 1987 (Internal Communication of Beijing Radio Power Plant? )
The netizen in this forum had a fever that day, and my girlfriend said "rare edition", so I paid special attention to the print run, and the display was 1- 15000, which was just so-so. I believe many people today have not read this article without this book. Several audio lovers and electronic lovers I know around me don't have this book either. The girl with a fever must be right. The actual number of prints is not much, so it becomes a "rare book".
British philosopher Bacon said that reading history makes people wise. My understanding of this sentence is that reading history can clear your head, because facts have repeatedly proved that the past history often repeats itself today. Although this article is about the history of circuit development, it is highly technical, but it is far beyond the technical scope. Through this article, you may find that various phenomena and strange behaviors in the audio industry have already occurred and appeared in the past. Therefore, I recommend this article with strong technical flavor to all netizens. Please forgive me if there is anything wrong.
This article only talks about the circuit of preamplifier, and most of the pen and ink are about the design of LP magnetic head, and it was written in the early 1980s. But 10 has been read for more than twenty or thirty times, and it has been deeply engraved in my mind. If there is anything that has influenced my view of sound, it is this article except my own personal practice, because I feel that any sound article I have read can't be compared with it. I often think that it would be nice if the amplifier, audio source and speaker had the same high-level articles!
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(The following is what I wrote-consisting of question marks-"After reading": D: D: D ")
Every time I reread the book History of Preamplifier Circuit Design, I always feel a lot. Even today, when I read this article and read dozens of pages of notes stolen from English DIY forums in recent months, I still have many feelings, but more questions:
————— 1. What do you think of the classics of decades ago? Does today's audio equipment really surpass the previous generation, the first two generations and the first three generations?
The Tianlang autographed speaker mentioned in this article, the Japanese "Wireless and Experiment" (that is, MJ magazine) in my hand, is still being advertised and sold. I still remember that in Hong Kong Fever Audio Magazine, slingshot player writer Yang spoke highly of the loudspeaker stage speaker long ago.
—————— 2. See the poor QUAD 33 circuit inside. In any case, its circuit structure is exactly the same as our tape recorder. Does this really confirm the original author's statement that technology alone is not enough? Further thinking, is the design and manufacture of equipment technology the first? Is it necessary to have a cultural background?
3. The JBL SG-520 front-end mentioned in this paper (it seems to cost about 20,000 yuan in the Japanese market today) actually uses germanium tube, a well-known poor device in the electronic field, which can achieve such good sound effects. It is also said that the manufacture of DC amplifiers requires high-quality components. Both places are about equipment. Is it not contradictory? Is the quality of parts really that important? Should we also replace the machine with a Jenson copper tube silver film capacitor worth two or three thousand yuan today?
According to the article, a large number of transistor devices (including circuit design) began to appear in the 1970s and 1980s. Isn't today the same? Which manufacturer is not scrambling to come up with new models? Is the purpose to rob money?
Let's look at the circuit form of the amplifier. How many circuits can really go beyond the category before the 1980s? Many new circuits and technologies of power amplifiers repeatedly claimed by manufacturers are not fried rice? How much bravado is there?
Mr. Nelson Pass, the founder of the famous American factories Threshold and Pass, a famous audio designer, and the holder of several circuit design patents, once solemnly said at the DIYAudio Forum that KSA50: Today, 95% of Hi-End preamplifier KRELL is not as good as JC-2 (this machine is earlier than LNP-2 specially introduced in the history of preamplifier design) and 95% of Hi-End amplifiers and circuits today.
Chen Yingguang, editor-in-chief of Hong Kong Fever Audio magazine, wrote in an article introducing second-hand equipment in 1993 that many people in the industry thought KRELL's first KSA50 was its pinnacle, with the most beautiful timbre. This confirms what Pass said.
August 29(th), 2004
Reflection on the design history of preamplifier circuit
5. Is the current audio highly commercialized? Is the quality of audio equipment as good as the media said? How much has the media blocked us?
Netizens who have done in-depth research in the English DIY forum said that the Philips turntable CDM 12 PRO used in HIEND digital equipment in Europe and America is far less than its first-generation all-metal turntable CDM 1. There are other ghost netizens who argue that the reason is that when the first generation turntable was designed, the manufacturers had countless hearts for the products, so they did not hesitate to use the most stable technical means. By the time of the second generation production, the manufacturers knew more and began to simplify. The farther back, the worse the sound quality.
Can this be regarded as an "achievement" display of audio commercialization?
Speaking of commercialization, I'd like to quote a post I wrote earlier when discussing whether the high-end turntable cheated money.
Some things that are technically simple are not the same thing to get on the market.
N years ago, when I was still on campus, I read an article in Radio magazine about making a tape recorder with a single recording IC. It suddenly occurred to me that all recording media, including magnetic tape, video tape, CD-ROM and hard disk, will be replaced by integrated circuit memory one day. Today, my basic concept has not changed (in fact, the situation is developing in this direction), but I have made some amendments to the idea of the realization process.
As we all know, dozens of M flash drives have entered thousands of households. It is believed that with the development of large-scale integrated circuit technology and the expansion of output, the price of flash disks (memories) of several hundred m or even tens of g will be reduced to ten pieces and eight pieces just around the corner.
These things are the best products to replace tapes and other inconvenient storage. To tell the truth, there is no technical problem-with my shallow knowledge, I also know how to achieve it technically. Isn't the hard disk video recorder made?
But why didn't you see any action in the market? I'm afraid we have to find the answer from business.
Do you still remember how DAT, which was recognized as having a good sound quality and was once valued, fell down? When some African countries produce and sell low-priced AIDS drugs, aren't American companies selling expensive AIDS drugs going to sue them for infringement? Isn't there a foreign factory or factory that collects technology patent fees for domestic DVD players?
When you think that the price of CDs can be reduced with fairly simple technology, when I once thought that high-quality recording and playback can be realized with simple storage IC, the manufacturer should have known it long ago, but it may have other plans in mind.
Economically speaking, the essence of capital is the pursuit of profit maximization. From the manufacturer's point of view, things that don't make money will not be done. If there were no huge demand and huge profits in the computer market, would CPU and LSI manufacturing technology develop so fast?
Go back to what we talked about. Think about it, what do merchants get by lowering the price of turntables? Recorders, video recorders and CD players made of solid or pluggable IC memory cards will face accusations of intellectual property infringement. Who will go into this muddy water? Even after the supplementary development of an anti-infringement technology is completed, it will inevitably encounter problems such as interfaces and specifications, and these problems cannot escape the patent fees (without the attraction of these patent fees, there will be a lack of marketing motivation). So when other problems including market demand are solved together, what price will it be in the hands of our consumers?
Good wishes within reach are always so far away in the face of cruel reality that people can't bear to be shy.
Isn't it a stereo?
6. Look at those high-end devices now, which are hundreds of thousands and millions. The output of the power amplifier is not two or three hundred watts. It seems that they still can't rank, one after another, and the internal circuits are more complicated than one. I can't help asking, are we going to continue to advocate the "giant gun ship doctrine" mentioned in the history of preamplifier design development today?
7. It is mentioned in this paper that the development of sound source has driven the evolution of the overall design of equipment. The pre-amplifier in mono era attaches great importance to the tuning device, but in stereo era, this device is weakened. It is the age of SACD/DVD. What's the big change in the equipment? Why not?
8. The current equipment mentioned in it is generally cold timbre. Is it true?/You don't say. /You don't say. Is it the sound source it says, or is it the components produced by cutting corners after high industrialization? Or because there is no supply of auxiliary materials to produce parts that can bring warm timbre (——————————— Ghost forum says that electrolytic capacitors will become beautiful if they are stripped of plastic skin; A ghost guy gave a picture of the capacitor shell he remaked with wood on his personal website; Some people even say that there is no need for plastic in the equipment, otherwise it will cause bad sound)
Is the cold timbre caused by today's design orientation? I saw an article interviewing a famous Japanese designer the other day. I forgot his name. The article said that he participated in DIY competition organized by MJ in his early years, and then he set up 47 LAB Company to produce audio equipment. One of them, GainCard, a mini power amplifier with LM3875 integrated circuit (it is said that the price is as high as 30,000 yuan), was tried to be copied by foreign DIY people. In the interview, he clearly pointed out that today's equipment design pays too much attention to the reproduction of sound and ignores the reproduction of music. He also said that compared with many modern speakers, JBL, ALTEC and Tianlang speakers in the 1950s and 1960s were very musical.
9. After reading this high-level history of preamplifier circuit design, I feel that the Japanese have a lot to learn, even to learn acoustics, including design and manufacture, performance, research and DIY.
I remember that Pei Donggen, a senior audio reporter from South Korea, published an article in an influential local newspaper, saying that Japan is a world audio power, which is quite reasonable. Some time ago, the old records on the home appliance forum introduced the "big brothers" in the Japanese music critics, and their love for music even died at the concert.
Due to historical reasons, the Japanese have a lot of exchanges with the United States. Many good audio equipment in Europe and America were discovered by the Japanese and dug away one by one. Their tastes may be strange, but there are a lot of stereos to collect and play, and there are also many insights. Yang, a senior slingshot enthusiast in Hong Kong, praised the old speakers in the United States, and the price was blown up by the Japanese early in the morning. Due to the early historical relationship, the Japanese got a series of vacuum tube development history, vacuum tube museum and famous machine circuit inspection. Although in quite a few aspects, the design and manufacturing at the manufacturer level have not been widely recognized, Japan may not lose to any other country in technology, and so does the manufacturing of devices. .
Let's talk about Japanese DIY again, because people from all walks of life report that Japanese DIY is very popular, and I am also very interested, and now: D Only this kind of thing can be fried and sold.
(1) Akihiko Kanda, mentioned in the history of preamplifier circuit design, is a famous Japanese DC amplifier designer and a long-term author of MJ magazine. According to the Ghost Forum, as an amateur researcher, he has a surprisingly respectable position. According to the author's information, by the end of 1998, he had designed and produced *** 152 pieces of audio equipment.
(2)MJ magazine also has a regular author Wata Denji. The preamplifier and amplifier circuit designed by him have been seen in DIY articles of domestic magazines for a long time. He is well-known in China for his design of 0DB post-stage and watt-hour power supply.
(3) It is reported that there are three influential DIY artists in Japan.
One is Sagufa Shijun, who specializes in direct thermal amplifiers. The lines are very simple, and almost all of them are coupled by direct hot slots and transformers. There is a personal homepage on the Internet.
The second is Nanliangping. Only three DAC articles (lines) have been published, and a decoder made of TDA 1543 integrated circuits with a value not exceeding 10 yuan participated in the decoder self-made competition of MJ magazine for the first time and won the first place in the sound quality project. Non-oversampling technology (English non-oversampling is actually a backward technology to cancel digital filter, but he proved it is better than oversampling in some aspects by theory) is now adopted by netizens in English DIY forum.
The third place is Jean Hilaga. French-Japanese hybrid. An article transferred from Taiwan Province Province said that 300B was introduced to Europe by him, which caused a worldwide upsurge of 300B. This person also published a series of articles on pure class A low power amplifier designed by him in a European magazine, which had a great influence.