High Bandwidth Amplifiers

Mdp632

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May 29, 2016
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Hello All,

What solid state brands are considered high bandwidth(Besides Spectral) ?In addition, what exactly does that mean to me as a listener ? It's probably a loaded question but, I want to make sure I'm comparing like products.

For example, it is my understanding that the design of Spectral, Dartzeel, Audionet and Soulution are all high-bandwidth designs whereas my Pass amplifier is not.


Thanks
 

Elberoth

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High-bandwidth would be those that extend into MHz range. They are fast and usually use lots of negative feedback.

Another example of high-bandwidth design is Goldmund.

darTZeel is not a high-bandwidth design.
 
Last edited:

awsmone

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Apr 6, 2014
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Canberra Australia
Hello All,

What solid state brands are considered high bandwidth(Besides Spectral) ?In addition, what exactly does that mean to me as a listener ? It's probably a loaded question but, I want to make sure I'm comparing like products.

For example, it is my understanding that the design of Spectral, Dartzeel, Audionet and Soulution are all high-bandwidth designs whereas my Pass amplifier is not.


Thanks


Your correct

Soulution is high bandwidth with a lot of feedback
Spectral I believe also

The issue is stability due to oscillation

Goldmund aim to have minimum phase shift, which is only achievable by high speed and bandwidth

Many of the things done to stabilise the amplifier have a habit of killing either the speed, or phase accuracy in order to make it stable

So it's a real balancing act, or very very complicated

Goldmund went down the balancing act route to avoid pitfalls, but requires highly matched transistors

Soulution use a very fast and complicated implementation .....3000 parts anyone

Of course if your pre isn't as fast well you just added a low pass filter to the situation

I don't know much about the spectral as they are not readily available out here in Oz

But my understanding is they remove the Zobel network for high bandwidth which means careful cable matching is required

Bakoon is also a high bandwidth design, but uses current rather than voltage with the satri circuit, this also has no Zobel network, and achieves stability via current mirrors which in a way is a form of very fast feedback

However they all sound quite different from each other

Ch precision is said to be a next generation version of the Goldmund, but the truth behind this I cannot verify, though the engineers worked for Goldmund, and Alan Tafffel in his review who owns Goldmund amplifiers as much as said it...
 

Mdp632

Well-Known Member
May 29, 2016
431
140
173
Your correct

Soulution is high bandwidth with a lot of feedback
Spectral I believe also

The issue is stability due to oscillation

Goldmund aim to have minimum phase shift, which is only achievable by high speed and bandwidth

Many of the things done to stabilise the amplifier have a habit of killing either the speed, or phase accuracy in order to make it stable

So it's a real balancing act, or very very complicated

Goldmund went down the balancing act route to avoid pitfalls, but requires highly matched transistors

Soulution use a very fast and complicated implementation .....3000 parts anyone

Of course if your pre isn't as fast well you just added a low pass filter to the situation

I don't know much about the spectral as they are not readily available out here in Oz

But my understanding is they remove the Zobel network for high bandwidth which means careful cable matching is required

Bakoon is also a high bandwidth design, but uses current rather than voltage with the satri circuit, this also has no Zobel network, and achieves stability via current mirrors which in a way is a form of very fast feedback

However they all sound quite different from each other

Ch precision is said to be a next generation version of the Goldmund, but the truth behind this I cannot verify, though the engineers worked for Goldmund, and Alan Tafffel in his review who owns Goldmund amplifiers as much as said it...

Thanks. That's my understanding as well with Spectral. The design of the amp in turn makes them require MIT cables as a filter pretty much. Without them the amps overheat etc..
 

rsorren1

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Speedskater

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Sep 30, 2010
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High bandwidth means that the amplifier is good at amplifying high frequency noise and RFI. Good Engineering Practice suggests that an amp should be low-pass filtered in about the 100 to 300 kHz range.
 

morricab

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Apr 25, 2014
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High-bandwidth would be those that extend into giga-Hz range. They are fast and usually use lots of negative feedback.

Another example of high-bandwidth design is Goldmund.

darTZeel is not a high-bandwidth design.

I think you mean Mega hertz (MHz). I don't know of any audio amps that go into the GHz range.
 

morricab

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Apr 25, 2014
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CH Precision is said to be a wide bandwidth, high slew rate design. You can read about what this means from Raphael Pasche, CH Precision designer, here:
http://www.ch-precision.com/images/reviews/Interview_WB_CHP_English_ME5-16.pdf
Scroll down to page 3 for the answer to your question from CH Precision point of view.

I met the founders of CH once when they were still Anagram Tech. Brilliant engineers but honestly their earlier efforts sonically left something to be desired (although the Anagram digital filter implemented in others' designs was quite good...like Audio Aero). From what I have heard from CH so far it is also not a sound of real music to me.
 
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asiufy

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High-bandwidth would be those that extend into giga-Hz range. They are fast and usually use lots of negative feedback.

Another example of high-bandwidth design is Goldmund.

darTZeel is not a high-bandwidth design.

I don't know about your definition of "high bandwidth" or "giga Hertz", but darTZeel is a wide bandwidth design indeed.

From here: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/dartzeel/108.html
"The NHB-108 is rated at 160 watts into four ohms; 100 watts into 8 or 2 ohms. The wide bandwidth design covers 1Hz to 1Mhz +0/-6dB with 1% THD and -- according to darTZeel most importantly -- zero temporal distortion. Internally, close examination shows an amazing attention to detail but for this kind of money, that's expected."

And

"Into resistive loads, the measured small-signal response (fig.1, lower pairs of traces) revealed a very wide bandwidth, with the amplifier's output down by just 1dB at 148kHz. (This behavior was the same in both the Hi and Lo conditions.) As a result, the NHB-108's reproduction of a 10kHz squarewave was superb, with small risetimes and an absence of overshoot and ringing (fig.2)."
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/...er-amplifier-measurements#xjdJI1K8bOkiCRjX.99

Even the preamp is wide bandwidth:
Turning to the preamp's performance in conventional unbalanced mode, the frequency response was perfectly flat within the audioband, with a wide bandwidth. The ultrasonic output was down 1.5dB at 200kHz, with no sign of peaking (fig.4).
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/dartzeel-nhb-18ns-preamplifier-measurements#jvkzEqWvClx8urg7.99


That's one of the hallmarks of darTZeel: high bandwidth, low/no negative feedback, and minimal parts count to keep signal purity. The fact that he's able to have all 3 in his designs is what makes them so good and different, IMHO.


 

LL21

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Curious as to what this all means...the Gryphon Colosseum specs say -3db from 0 to 350khz. Is this considered high bandwidth? And what does this mean in practice to us non-techies? Thanks.
 

LL21

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No, 350 kHz is not one of these super high bandwidth amplifiers, but it's higher than it needs to be.

Thanks...why do they design for 350khz if its higher than need be?
 

audio.bill

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Some designers believe that in order to achieve excellence in phase linearity the circuit's bandwidth needs to be significantly higher than the range of human hearing. How far beyond that range is where the debate comes in, some demanding the circuit have a bandwidth in the MHz range which is quite a challenge and expensive to implement while maintaining amplifier stability.
 

LL21

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Some designers believe that in order to achieve excellence in phase linearity the circuit's bandwidth needs to be significantly higher than the range of human hearing. How far beyond that range is where the debate comes in, some demanding the circuit have a bandwidth in the MHz range which is quite a challenge and expensive to implement while maintaining amplifier stability.

Thanks!
 

bonzo75

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Some designers believe that in order to achieve excellence in phase linearity the circuit's bandwidth needs to be significantly higher than the range of human hearing. How far beyond that range is where the debate comes in, some demanding the circuit have a bandwidth in the MHz range which is quite a challenge and expensive to implement while maintaining amplifier stability.

So for those who advocate such a design, where are the positives of higher bandwidth expected to show the most as compared to a not so wide bandwidth amp? Would it be in tone, dynamics, extension, or all across
 

microstrip

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So for those who advocate such a design, where are the positives of higher bandwidth expected to show the most as compared to a not so wide bandwidth amp? Would it be in tone, dynamics, extension, or all across

Most probably it is not the extended bandwidth per se that results in the different type of sound, but the differences are due to secondary effects due to the design needed to implement the high bandwidth. As far as I know different brands of high bandwidth amplifiers sound very different.
 

bonzo75

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Most probably it is not the extended bandwidth per se that results in the different type of sound, but the differences are due to secondary effects due to the design needed to implement the high bandwidth. As far as I know different brands of high bandwidth amplifiers sound very different.

Yes I am not sure what I should infer about the sound from wide bandwidth. The SS amps I know the sound of don't seem to have any correlation
 

audio.bill

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May 27, 2013
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Most probably it is not the extended bandwidth per se that results in the different type of sound, but the differences are due to secondary effects due to the design needed to implement the high bandwidth. As far as I know different brands of high bandwidth amplifiers sound very different.
I would tend to agree with this post, certainly that it would be very difficult to determine which characteristics of an amp's performance are specifically due to its extended bandwidth design or may be attributable to other aspects of its implementation.
 

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