Design of A Power HI-FI System

1
DESIGN OF A POWER
HI-FI SYSTEM

2
CONTENTS

Preamplifier
Preamplifier architecture 8
Balance control ... 9
Balance control working principle . 11
Noise ... 12
Distortion 13
Treble control . 14
Bootstrap . 14
Bootstrap on the treble control .... 15
Noise .... 16
Distortion . 17
Bass control . 18
Noise .... 20
Distortion . 21
Tone control sum stage 21
Volume control 23
Noise 24
Distortion . 25
Preamplifier performance 26
Active crossover
Bandwidth definition filter ... 30
High-pass section . 30
Poles location and behavior .. 32

S
Noise . 34
Distortion .. 35
Low-pass section ... 36
Noise .. 38
Distortion ... 38
Linkwitz-Riley crossover filters 39
Low-pass filter ... 40
Noise .. 41
Distortion ... 42
High-pass filter .. 42
Noise .. 44
Distortion ... 44
Time delay . 45
Required delay ... 45
Filter calculations and response . 46
Source code of the parallel resistor finder . 48
Power amplifiers
Input stage and VAS .. 53
Current source ... 55
Vbe multiplier 56
DC operating point . 57
Differential input pair .. 57
Voltage amplifier stage VAS .. 58
Output stage .... 59
Slew rate considerations . 61

4
Gate and short circuit protections . 62
Output Zobel network .... 63
Negative feedback .. 64
Open loop gain ... 65
Stability .. 67
Miller compensation .. 68
Transitional Miller compensation .. 68
DC servo .... 70
Amplifier simulations 72
Frequency response .... 72
Distortion 73
Square wave response .... 74
Signal to noise ratio SNR ... 74
Damping factor and output impedance 75
Open loop gain and phase margin .. 75
Output stage considerations . 76
Efficiency . 77
Thermal considerations 77
Input filters .. 78
Power supply . 79
Power supply considerations .. 79
IPS and VAS power supply filter ... 79
Microcontroller ........................................................................................................... 80
DC protection........................................................................................................... 80

S
Over-temperature protection ................................................................................... 80
Bar-graph meter ....................................................................................................... 81
PIC source code and flow chart ............................................................................... 83
SYSTEM SCHEMATICS AND PCBs ....................... 96
Preamplifier and crossover PCBs ... 96
Preamplifier and crossover schematics .. 97
Amplifier schematic .. 98
Amplifier PCBs ... 99
Power supply schematic101
Power supply PCB 102
Relays schematic ..104
Relay PCB ... 105
Microcontroller schematic ...106
Microcontroller PCB 107
Final considerations ..108
Notice:
No responsibility is assumed by the author for any injury and/or damage to persons or
property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation
of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein.

6
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
My name is Davide Lucchi, I am eighteen years old and I am from Italy. I have never studied
electronic at school but I have always been into because of my father. My father in the 1980s started
buying electronic kits and books with a lot of projects inside so buying also a lot of different
components like resistors, capacitors, transistors and ICs like the famous series 74xx and 40xx. I
have been lucky because I found a lot of components but I did not know how to use them in the right
way and especially how I could make something projected by me rather than coping something
published on those books and see it working without knowing why. My father is not an engineer and
he has never worked in the electronic field so he does not know a lot about theory, so I decided to
find a good book to start from and the Sedra/Smith Microelectronic circuits 6
th
edition came into
my hands. The book at first has been tough because basic things are not explained but it give me a
vision of modern electronic, from basic devices like operational amplifiers, diodes and transistor to
much more complex circuits like IC amplifiers most common configurations, filters, oscillators and
feedback concepts. While studying the book I decided that a good project could have been an
amplifier, so I looked out to find good books about the topic, I found designing audio power
amplifiers written by Bob Cordell and audio power amplifier design handbook written by
Douglas Self. What I learned from the Sedra/Smith give me the knowledge to understand what the
other two books do not explain for example the method to determine the output resistance of a
cascode amplifier and its transconductance. All this began on January 2012 and on August I had built
the first amplifier, which fortunately worked at the first time. After that I decided to improve the
project in particular I had a pair of woofers and tweeters so all the project started from there. I built
the preamplifier and crossover using the books small signal audio design and the design of active
crossovers both written by Douglas Self. The preamplifier as you can check is the same of the book
I only changed some components while the crossover has been projected by me. Considering what I
have been able to do in this past year I am very happy because I have built a system that sounds good
and I did it without having any experience. I built the project using as much as possible the
components my father bought just to make the project cheaper, so buying only what was needed.
To see the amplifier working watch this video on youtube:

The system is not completed yet, but only one channel so in the video there are the preamplifier with
crossover inside the metal box, used to reduce noise, and two power amplifiers one connected to the
tweeter and the other to the woofer and the loudspeaker enclosure.
I want to thank the authors of the books I named and the users of diyaudio.com forum especially the
ones who helped me with the loudspeaker enclosure design.

You can mail me at: davide.lucchi94@gmail.com
Lucchi Davide
03/03/2013 Italy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GNI0hrs_nPc#!

7
DESIGNING A COMPLETE HI-FI SYSTEM

This project deals with the design of a complete HI-FI system that includes for each channel a
preamplifier, an active crossover and two power amplifiers in a bi-amping system. The preamplifiers
cover functions like volume control, tone control and balance control, the active crossover is a
Linkwitz-Riley type which splits the audio frequency spectrum into two bands which then are
amplified and applied to the loudspeakers. The total power of the system is around 120 Wrms.
Figure 1 shows the block diagram of the system.

Figure 1.

8
THE PREAMPLIFIER

Figure 3, preamplifier circuit.
C
1
2
1
R
1
2
4
7
k
R
1
6
4
7
0
C
1
1
2
7
0
n
R
p
9
1
0
k
R
p
1
0
1
0
k
R
1
0
6
8
0
R
1
1
1
k
C
6
4
.
7
n
4
7
K
R
6
R
7
2
.
2
k
R
8
1
.
8
k
R
p
8
1
0
k
R
1
7
4
7
0
R
9
1
0
0
k
C
9
1
0
R
5
1
0
0
k
C
5
4
7
0
n
C
7
1
0
C
8
2
2
0
R
1
5
4
.
7
k
R
p
1
4
1
0
k
R
p
1
3
1
0
k
R
p
1
1
1
0
k
R
p
1
2
1
0
k
R
1
4
4
.
7
k
R
1
8
5
6
0
C
1
3
1
0
n
C
1
8
2
2
0
R
2
4
7
0
k
R
3
1
.
8
k
R
p
1
1
0
k
R
p
2
1
0
k
R
4
1
.
8
k
C
3
2
2
0
C
4
2
2
0
C
1
4
7
0
n
R
1
1
0
0
C
2
1
0
0
p
V
7
1
5
V
8
1
5
R
p
7
1
0
k
C
1
0
1
0
U
4
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
7
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
8
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
9
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
1
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
2
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
3
n
e
5
5
3
2
R
2
0
6
8
0
R
2
1
4
.
7
k
R
p
1
6
1
k
R
p
1
5
1
8
k
C
1
4
2
2
C
1
5
1
0
0
p
R
1
9
2
2
k
C
1
6
2
2
0
R
2
2
2
2
k R
2
3
1
0
0
U
5
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
6
n
e
5
5
3
2
R
2
4
1
0
0
k
C
1
7
2
2
0
+15 -15
+15 -15
+15 -15
+15 -15
+15 -15
+15 -15
v
i
n
+15 -15
+15 -15
+15
+15
-15
-15
v
o
u
t
V
i
n

9
The preamplifier is the first stage of the system and also the first stage the signal meets. The role of
the preamplifier is, as the word says, to amplify the signal and it must cover functions like balance
control between the two channels, tone control for treble and bass frequencies and volume control.
All these things are covered in the preamplifier because it is simpler to implement these functions in
a small signal stage, rather than making them when the signal has reached a considerable amplitude,
in fact for this reason the volume control is the last stage of the preamplifier, and also it is economic
because the power of the signal is low so it is possible to use normal components. Another important
reason to work the signal at this stage is to keep distortion as small as possible which would be
impossible with high amplitude signals. The preamplifier so must produce an output signal as much
as possible distortion free and noise free. Figure 2 shows the block diagram of the preamplifier. This
preamplifier is the one given by Douglas Self in his book small signal audio design, but I made
some changes to adapt it to my design.

Figure 2.

THE BALANCE CONTROL

Figure 4, balance control circuit.

The function of the balance control is to move the sound image from one
channel to the other, which is useful to adapt the sound to the type of room.
In order to move the sound image it is not necessary to attenuate
extremely one channel while amplifying the other but is sufficient to leave
one channel at 0dB while amplifying the other of 6 dB. The balance function
in this preamplifier works in this way:
When the potentiometer is left in its center position the signals of the two
channels are not amplified (0 dB);
When the potentiometer is turned full left or right it will move the sound

1u
image from one channel to the other by amplifying one channel of 6 dB and leaving the other at its
normal level ( 0 dB). To avoid noise when the potentiometer is turned it is important to do not allow
DC to circulate through it, so coupling capacitors are used, these capacitors are also necessary to
keep DC gain equal to unity. The input filter is where the input signal is connected so it must provide
high input impedance, thus avoiding overloading of the source signal. Other functions of this filter
are DC block, that is why it presents a high pass first order network, and attenuate high frequency
signal to prevent the circuit from instability. The high pass network is made by C1, R1, R2 and the
input impedance of the operational amplifier (op. amp.). The input impedance is very high so making
a little change in the calculated frequency so it can be neglected . To calculate the -3dB frequency we
need to know the effective resistance that C1 sees which is equal to the series combination of R1 and
R2. This network is a first order filter so we have to find the transfer function T of the circuit. T can
be calculated considering the resistors and capacitors as impedances in the domain of the complex
variable s, so the impedance of a resistor equals the value of the resistor while that of a capacitor is
equal to:
Z =
1
sC
where s=j and =2f
The output voltage can be calculated applying the voltage divider rule so:
Iout = Iin
z2
z1+z2
= Iin
R1+R2
1
sC1
+R1+R2

considering that R2>>R1 Iout = Iin
R2
[
1
sC1
+R2

Thus I(s) =
vout(s)
vn(s)
=
R2
[
1
sC1
+R2
=
s
[
1
C1R2
+s

The general transfer function of a first order high pass network is:
I(s) =
o - s
u
+ s

where a is the high frequency gain and w
u
is the corner frequency, that is the frequency at which the gain
is 3dB below its high frequency value.
So
u
=
1
C1R2
thus =
1
2nC1R2

With the values shown f = 0.72 Hz.
CR1 is also called the time constant of the network
The second filter in the input network is a first order low-pass filter whose function is to attenuate high
frequency signals to avoid instability for example EMI interferences. This filter is formed by R1, R2, C2. As
before we have to find the effective resistance that the capacitor sees which is equal to the parallel
combinations of R1 and R2.

11
Applying the voltage divider rule we find that:
Iout = Iin
z2
z1+z2
= Iin
1
sC2
1
sC2
+[
R1-R2
R1+R2

Considering that R1<<R2 the parallel combination is R1.
Iout = Iin
1
sC2
[
1
sC2
+R1

Thus I(s) =
vout(s)
vn(s)
=
1
sC2
[
1
sC2
+R1
=
1
sC2R1+1

The general transfer function of a first order low pass network is:
I(s) =
o
1 +
s
u

Where a is the low frequency gain.
So
u
=
1
C2R1
thus =
1
2nC2R1

With the values shown f = 15.9 MHz.
HOW THE BALANCE CONTROL WORKS
This circuit works by modifying the gain of the non-inverting stage, accordingly to the position of
the potentiometer. In the normal non inverting configuration the gain is equal to 1+R2/R1. In this
configuration the gain is modified varying the value of R2 and R1. Dividing the potentiometer into
two resistors Rp1 and Rp2, R2 is equal to R3 in parallel with Rp1, while R1 is equal to R4 in series
with Rp2. The two coupling capacitors can be neglected because their function is to block DC, their
poles are at very low frequency, so the transfer function becomes:
I =
vout
vn
=
R3 || Rp1
R4+Rp2
+1 =
R3-Rp1
(R3+Rp1)-(R4+Rp2)
+1
Now is possible to calculate the gain of the circuit considering the potentiometer at its center position or full
turned in one direction:
Center position gain = 1.129 V/V = 20 * log 1.129 = 1.05 dB
Turned full left gain= 1.92 V/V = 5.67 dB
Turned full right gain= 1 V/V = 0 dB

12
NOISE
The noise is present in every circuit and it is caused by different devices, in this circuit the noise is
contributed principally by resistors and the transistors inside the NE5532 op. amp. and it is called
white noise. The noise contributed by capacitors is very low because they are ideally pure
capacitances so they dont have any resistance. To decrease the noise of the circuit is important to
use low impedance circuits. Johnsons noise, which is the noise produced by every resistor, is
calculated with the formula:
: = 4kIRB
Where:
k is the Boltzmanns constant 1.380662*10^-23;
T is temperature expressed in Kelvin;
R is the resistor value in ohms;
B is bandwidth in Hz over which the noise is calculated.
From this formula the lower the resistor is the lower the Johnsons noise will be. The noise generated
by the current is called shot noise, it is usually very low so it can be ignored. Noise in transistors is
made up of Johnsons noise generated by the base spreading resistance rbb and shot noise created by
the collector current. All the noise plots have been simulated using LTspice, it is important to say
that these simulation will not represent the effective noise of the circuit once it is built, because the
noise simulation cannot consider power supply noise and EMI interferences.

Figure 5, noise plot.
Figure 5 shows the noise plot of the balance control simulated with LTspice, where the bandwidth is 20Hz-
20kHz, the line is the noise at the output of the balance control system, which is a total rms noise of 1.28V.

1S
DISTORTION
Distortion is another important parameter, because the signal must be as less as possible distorted by
the circuit, it is usually calculated at 1kHz and at 20kHz. Distortion was simulated at 1 kHz on 10
harmonics, using a max time step of 0.48831106us, I did so because Bob Cordell in his book
recommend for a FFT analysis in LTspice to use a max time step equal to the ratio of the transient
time, here 8ms, and 16383. The total harmonic distortion at 1kHz is 0.000140%, figure 6 shows the
FFT plot.

Figure 6, 1kHz FFT plot.

The distortion at 20kHz was simulated considering a transient time of 400us and is 0.000570%. Figure 7
shows the FFT plot, done on the last 200us.
.

Figure 7, 20kHz FFT plot.

14
THE TREBLE CONTROL

Figure 8, treble circuit.

The function of the treble control is to attenuate or amplify high frequency signals, also allowing the user to
change the cut-off frequency which is the frequency over which the treble control acts. The treble control is
made by an input filter, which is a first order high pass, whose function is to block DC then there is a buffer
used in order to do not affect the operation of the next stage of the circuit. The next stage is where the cut-off
frequency is established, it is as before a high pass first order network but here the resistance that C6 sees is no
longer equal to R6. The circuit after R6 makes use of the bootstrapping principle, thus varying the effective
resistance Re, that the signal sees after R6, this resistance then is in parallel with R6 and this parallel
combination is the resistance that C6 sees.
The -3dB frequency of the first filter is:
=
1
oRC
=
1
oC5R5
= S.S8 Ez

THE BOOTSTRAPPING PRINCIPLE

The bootstrapping principle is used in unity gain stages in order to increase the input impedance of
the stage by using positive feedback. Consider a unity gain stage with a resistor connected between
the non-inverting input and the output, the voltage drop on the resistor is ideally zero, so no current
can flow from the resistor, thus if we consider the input impedance of the op-amp infinite, the input
impedance of the system is also infinite. In the real world there are no ideal components so the output
voltage is slightly less than the input one, thus there is a little voltage drop on the resistor. The
smaller this voltage drop is, the higher the input impedance will be.

1S
HOW BOOTSTRAP MODIFY THE EQUIVALENT RESISTANCE

Figure 9.

When the potentiometer is turned full right R7 is directly connected to ground so the bootstrap is not acting,
making the equivalent resistance in parallel with R6 equal to R7. The resistance that C6 sees is the parallel
combination of these two resistors, so now is possible to calculate the cut-off frequency.

Rc = R6||R7 = 21u1 0

=
1
oRC
=
1
oC1Rc
= 16.1 KEz

When the potentiometer is not turned full right the bootstrap acts and varies the equivalent resistance in
parallel with R6. Considering the gain of the op. amp. to be exactly unity, the voltage v1 is equal to vout, so
vs can be calculated applying the voltage divider rule, considering that R7 is in parallel with the series
combination of R8 and Rp1. The two electrolytic capacitors can be neglected because their poles are at low
frequencies. Writing a node equation at v1 and calculating vs leads to:

:s = :1 - _
Rp2
Rp2 +_
R7 - (R8 +Rp1)
R7 +R8 +Rp1
]
_

(:in -:1)sC6 -
:1
R6
-
:1 -:s
R7
= u

Considering v1=vout and substituting for vs in the second equation leads to:

Iout
:in
=
-C
6
s
-C
6
s +
-1 +
R
p2
R
7
(R
p1
+ R
8
)
R
P1
+ R
7
+ R
8
+ R
p2
R
7
-
1
R
6

16

Whose magnitude is:

_
Iout
:in
_ =
-C
6
(-C
6
)
2
+
`
-1 +
R
p2
R
7
(R
p1
+ R
8
)
R
P1
+ R
7
+R
8
+R
p2
R
7
-
1
R
6
/
2

When the potentiometer is in the central position the -3dB point is at 3140Hz;
when it is turned full left the cutoff frequency is 1466Hz.
So the cutoff point can be varied from 1466Hz to 16.1 kHz
From the values is clear that the variation is not linear but it is highly logarithmic especially when Rp2 tend to
zero.

NOISE


Figure 10 shows the noise plot which has a total rms value of 1.79V.

17
DISTORTION

Total harmonic distortion at 1kHz is 0.000029%, the FFT plot is shown in figure 11.

Figure 11.

At 20 kHz the total harmonic distortion is 0.000573%.

Figure 12 FFT plot at 20kHz.

18
BASS CONTROL

Figure 13, bass control circuit.

The function of this stage is the same as that of the treble control, with the difference that it acts on
low frequencies. The principle used to modify the cut-off frequency is the bootstrap which vary the
value of the combination Rp2, R10 and R11. The first part of the circuit is a high-pass filter, which
places a pole at very low frequency to block DC.
The corner frequency of this filter is:

=
1
oRC
=
1
oC9R9
= u.1S9 Ez

The buffer after the filter is used in order to do not affect the operation of the other part of the circuit.
The combination of Rp1, Rp2, R10 and R11 makes the resistance that works against C11, thus
generating the cutoff point. After this circuit there is another high-pass filter to block DC current
whose cut-off frequency is 3.38Hz.

19
TRANSFER FUNCTION OF THE CIRCUIT

Figure 14, bass cutoff frequency filter.

The transfer function can be found by writing a node equation in V1 and Vout, considering the
capacitor to be a short circuit and calling Rp the parallel combination of R10 with Rp2 gives :

Rp =
R1u - Rp2
R1u +Rp2

Iin -I1
Rp1
-
I1 -:out
Rp
= u

I1 -Iout
R11
+
I1 -Iout
Rp
-Iout - sC11 = u

Solving the two equations gives:

Iout
Iin
=
Rp +R11
Rp +R11 +R11 Rp sC11 +R11 Rp1 sC11

Whose magnitude is:

_
Iout
Iin
_ =
Rp +R11
(Rp +R11)
2
+(R11 Rp C11 +R11 Rp1 C11)
2

2u

The corner frequency is:
1.49 kHz with potentiometer turned full left;
90.8 Hz in the central position;
29.4 Hz when it is turned full right.
It is worth say that when the potentiometer is turned full left Rp2 is a short circuit so the bootstrap
doesnt acts, making the resistance that C11 sees equal to Rp1 which is 20k and from the values of
the frequencies is possible to see the non-linear variation of the cutoff frequency.

NOISE

The total rms noise is 1.079V simulated in the bandwidth 20Hz-20kHz.

Figure 15, noise analysis.

21
DISTORTION

Total harmonic distortion at 1kHz is 0.00079%.

Figure 16, FFT plot.

SUM STAGE OF TONE CONTROL

In figure 17 the sum stage is shown, it is a difference amplifier, which subtract or sum the input
signal with the output of the treble and bass to amplify or attenuate those frequencies.
Assuming that the circuits of the bass and treble control do not attenuate the band pass frequencies,
then bass will be equal to bass.out, and also treble will be equal to treble.out, the voltage at the non-
inverting input is given by the sum of the voltage divider made up by R17 and R18 for treble and
R16 and R18 for bass. The gain of the circuit reaches a maximum of 11dB, and also does the
attenuation. This circuit is symmetric because gain and attenuation are both 11dB. C13 with R18
make up a low-pass filter with cut-off frequency at 28.5kHz its function is to allow only audio
frequencies to be amplified or attenuated. Figure 18 shows the frequency response of the circuit,
where bass frequencies have been attenuated while high frequencies have been amplified. The gain
and attenuation reach a maximum value of 11dB.

22

Figure 17, sum stage.

Figure 18, gain and attenuation of the circuit.

2S
VOLUME CONTROL

The volume control is the last stage of the preamplifier, its function is to amplify the incoming
signal, here by almost 17 dB, when is turned in one direction and to attenuate the signal when it is
turned in the other direction. Figure 5 shows the volume control circuit.

Figure 19

This circuit is an inverting amplifier with constant gain determined by the ratio R21/R20, which is
equal to 6.91 V/V or 16.79 dB. Here Rp2 acts by modifying the value of the voltage drop on R19 that
is also the input voltage V1 of the inverting amplifier. Considering C14 to be a short circuit and
neglecting C15 because its pole is at very high frequency, a node equation in V1 can be written and
the output voltage is equal to:

Iout = I1(-
R21
R2u
)

Iin -I1
Rp1
-
I1 -:out
Rp2
-
I1
R19
= u

I =
vout
vn
= -
R21
[
Rp1
R19
+
Rp1
Rp2
+1_
R21
Rp2
R19
+
Rp2
Rp1
+1
+R20_

When the potentiometer is in its center position the overall gain is -2.64 dB.
The maximum gain is 16.79 dB while the maximum attenuation is -87 dB. The volume variation is
made logarithmic by the action of the circuit, approaching closely a 40dB variation. Figure 19 shows

24
a graph where the blue line is the transfer function of the circuit while the red line is the ideal 40dB
variation. The two lines are very close. The x axis represents the position of the potentiometer.

Figure 20, ideal 40dB variation vs volume variation.

NOISE


This circuit present a total rms noise of 10.21V, simulated with the circuit giving the maximum
gain of almost 17dB, which is a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 99dBv considering a signal of 1Vrms.
When the gain is unity the total noise is 4V and with the maximum attenuation it is 1.30V.

100
80
60
40
20
0
20
40
0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1
volumevariation
ideal40dBvariation

2S
DISTORTION

The distortion analysis was performed with the volume control giving the full gain of almost 17dB,
with an input signal of 300mV peak, thus giving an output signal of 2V peak. The total harmonic
distortion is 0.000015%.

Figure 22, FFT plot at 1kHz.

Distortion at 20kHz is 0.00136%, the second harmonic is down of -111dB and the third of -94dB.


26

PERFORMANCE OF THE PREAMPLIFIER

The overall noise of the circuit is 32.2V which gives a signal to noise ratio of 93dB considering a
signal of 1.5V rms.

Figure 24, noise plot of the entire preamplifier

Overall distortion at 1kHz is 0.000013%, figure 23 shows the FFT plot.


27
Distortion at 20kHz has a total value of 0.000172%. Figure 24 shows the FFT plot, where the second
harmonic is down of -140dB and the third of -113dB.


The distortion of the preamplifier is very low reaching at 20kHz a total value of 0.00017%, this
performance has been possible by the use of NE5532 which is a low noise and distortion operational
amplifier. The overall noise is quite high but it has been measured with the volume control set at the
maximum which is almost 17dB, anyway the SNR is always greater than 90dB.

28
ACTIVE CROSSOVER

The role of the active crossover is to split the audio frequencies into two or more bands, which then
will be amplified and sent to the woofer or the tweeter. Another function of the active crossover is to
delay the treble frequencies to make sure that both sound waves, treble and bass, come to the ear at
the same time. Another function could be equalization to adjust the response of the loudspeakers. All
these features make active filters much better than passive ones also considering that a passive
realization of a time delay involves high power losses and expensive passive components. Active
filters use op. amp. which join high performance to a relatively low cost. The slope of the filters is
very important because if it is too flat, lower frequencies of the audio spectrum can be feed into the
tweeter and brake it, usually a fourth order Linkwitz-Riley filter is used with a slope of -24
dB/octave but here I decided to use a second order Linkwitz-Riley filter with a slope of -12
dB/octave, which has a good performance. In second order filters and higher orders there is a
parameter Q, that defines the flatness of the filter response. The flattest response is obtained when
Q=0.707 which is 12. Another important parameter is how the two filtered frequencies sum. In
fact when the two separate bands are feed into the woofer and the tweeter then the sound waves
produced by each loudspeaker will sum in air. The two signals in this type of filter are 180 phase
shifted so if they are summed a deep notch will be obtained at the crossover frequency so to avoid it
one of the two filters must be phase inverted, in this way the signals sum completely flat and the
maximum phase of the output signal is -180. Second order Linkwitz- Riley filters have Q=0.5. In
this project the crossover must divide the audio spectrum into two bands where the crossover
frequency is set at 2.5 kHz where the gain is down of 6 dB.

29

Crossover circuit.

C
2
5
2
2
n
C
2
4
2
2
n
R
3
2
8
2
k
R
2
9
8
2
k
V
3
1
5
V
4
1
5
C
2
7
2
2
n
C
2
6
2
2
n
R
3
4
8
2
k
R
3
5
3
k
R
2
6
6
8
k
R
2
5
6
8
k
C
2
0
1
7
0
n
C
1
9
1
7
0
n
C
2
3
1
n
R
2
8
2
.
2
k
R
2
7
2
.
2
k
C
2
2
1
n
U
2
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
1
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
4
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
3
n
e
5
5
3
2
C
3
0
1
0
n
C
2
9
1
0
n
R
4
4
2
.
4
k
R
4
2
9
.
1
k
R
4
6
1
.
5
k
R
4
8
4
.
7
K
R
4
7
4
.
7
K
R
3
7
1
k
R
3
8
1
k
e
w
e
n
e
5
5
3
2
w
e
w
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
5
n
e
5
5
3
2
C
3
2
1
0
n
C
3
1
1
0
n
R
5
2
1
0
k
R
5
0
9
1
0
R
5
4
4
7
k
R
5
6
4
.
7
K
R
5
5
4
.
7
K
U
6
n
e
5
5
3
2
U
9
n
e
5
5
3
2
C
2
8
1
0
n
R
4
0
2
.
2
k
R
3
9
1
5
k
R
4
1
2
k
R
4
3
1
6
k
R
4
5
3
3
0
k
R
4
9
6
2
k
R
5
1
4
.
3
k
R
5
3
4
.
3
k
C
2
1
1
n
R
3
0
3
k
R
3
1
3
k
R
3
6
8
2
k
R
3
3
3
k
R
2
5
5
6
8
k
v+ v-
v+ v-
v+ v-
V+ V-
V- V+
g
v
o
u
t
v+ v-
V+ V-
V+ V-
v+ v-
V+ V-
V
o
u
t
-
t
r
e
b
l
e
V
i
n
V
o
u
t
-
b
a
s
s

Su
THE BANDWIDTH DEFINITION FILTER

This filter sets the bandwidth of the crossover. It is made up of a high-pass filter which block DC and
also very bass frequencies up to 20 Hz and a low-pass filter that blocks frequencies higher than 50
kHz. These two filters are second order Butterworth filters with a Q=0.707, thus obtaining the flattest
response.

HIGH-PASS SECTION

Figure 27, 2
nd
order Butterworth high-pass filter.

To analyze the high-pass filter is necessary to find its transfer function. Applying kirchhoffs first
law at node V1 and considering the op.amp. to be ideal, input impedance infinite and output
impedance equal to 0, we can apply the voltage divider rule at Vs to obtain:

(Iin -I1)sC
19
-(I1 -I
s
)sC
2u
-
v1-v
out
R
25
= u

Is = I
1
- _
R
26
R
26
+
1
sC
20
_

In these two equations we can consider Vs=Vout, actually they are not identical because the gain of
the buffer is slightly less than unity but the error made is very little, substituting for V1 in the first
equation lead to:

vout(s)
vn(s)
=
C
19
s
C
19
_R
26s
+
1
C
20
]
R
26
+
1
R
26
+
1
C
20
R
2S
R
26
s

S1
The general transfer function of a high-pass second order filter is:

I(s) =
us
2
s
2
+s[
n
0
Q
+o
0
2

Where a is the high frequency gain, in our case 1. Dividing the transfer function by C19,
multiplying by s/s, summing the terms in s and considering the two capacitors to be equal leads to:

vout(s)
vn(s)
=
s
2
s
2
+s
2
R26C
+
1
C
2
-R2SR26

From this function:

u
2
=
1
C
2
R25R26
so
u
= 2n tbus =
1
2nCR26R26

o
0
=
2
R26C
substituting or
u

=
1
2
_
R26
R25

With the components shown Q=0.707 and f=19.48 Hz.
To plot the transfer function for physical frequencies, s must be substituted with j, so the transfer
function becomes:

vout(]o)
vn(]o)
=
]
2
-o
2
]
2
-o
2
+]o[
2
R26C
+
1
C
2
-R2SR26

Considering that ]
2
= - 1:
vout(]o)
vn(]o)
=
-o
2
]o[
2
R26C
-o
2
+
1
C
2
-R2SR26

Now is possible to find the magnitude of the transfer function which in a general function is defined
as:

|o +]b| = o
2
+b
2
witb o onJ b rcol numbcrs
So:

vout(]o)
vn(]o)
=
o
2
_
[-o
2
+
1
C
2
-R2SR26
2
+[
n2
R26C
2

|
vout(]o)
vn(]o)
| =
o
2
_o
4
-_
2-n
2
C
2
-R2SR26
]+[
1
C
4
-RS
2
-R26
2
+_
4n
2
R26
2
-C
2
]

S2
To have the gain expressed in decibel:
vout(]o)
vn(]o)
= 2u - log _
o
2
_o
4
-_
2-n
2
C
2
-R2SR26
]+[
1
C
4
-RS
2
-R26
2
+_
4n
2
R26
2
-C
2
]
_

Figure 28 shows the Bode plot of the circuit simulated using LTspice, the marked line is the
magnitude while the dotted line is the phase angle, the gain is -3 dB down at 19.55 Hz and the phase
is 89.78.

Figure 28, magnitude and phase plot.
This filter is a second order high-pass filter, which means that it has two zeroes and two poles. In an
asymptotic Bode plot a zero produces an increase in the gain at a rate of 20dB/decade or 6 dB/octave,
while a pole causes a decrease in gain at a rate of -20dB/decade or -6dB/octave. In the phase angle
plot a zero at =0 causes a constant phase shift of +90 while a pole causes a phase shift of -90.
When a zero is not at the origin it will cause no effect on phase for frequencies much lower than the
zero frequency, at the zero frequency the phase will be +45 and at much higher frequency it will
reach +90, for the poles the behavior is the same but the phases are negative. On the s plane the two
zeroes are placed at =0, while the two poles are complex and conjugate and have negative real
parts. The fact that the two zeroes are at the origins explains why this filter doesnt allow DC to pass
through it and also explains the phase angle, because each zero gives +90 so a total phase shift of
+180. As the frequency increases the phase shift caused by the two poles subtract from the initial
180 and at high frequency the phase tend to 0. It is very important that the poles have negative real
parts because it will tell if a circuit is stable or not. When the poles are in the left half of the s plane if
a oscillation starts it will decay exponentially, if the poles are placed on the j axis the oscillations
will be sustained and finally if they are on the right half plane the oscillations will grow

exponential
shown belo

lly, the latt
ow.
er behaviorr is used inn oscillators to start oscillations. TThese relati ionships are
SS
e

S4
NOISE

Figure 29 shows the noise of the circuit, the black line is the noise at the output node, with a total rms
value of 963.18nV, while the other two curves show the noise generated by each resistance and it can
be seen that due to the high value of these resistors, the noise generated is principally Johnsons
noise and is the cause of the noise in the lower frequencies bandwidth. With the value of the total
noise is possible to calculate the signal to noise ratio which is the ratio of the signal to the noise
value. Considering that the maximum value of the signal that goes through the crossover is about
1-1.5V rms, the signal to noise ratio is:
SNR =
1.5
963.18-10
-9
= 1557341 which is 123dB below 1.5V rms

SS
DISTORTION
Figure 30 shows the distortion which at 1kHz is 0.000014%, the second harmonic is down of
-140dB.

Figure 31 shows distortion at 20kHz which is 0.000223%, the second harmonic is down of -117dB.


S6
THE LOWPASS SECTION

Figure 32, 2
nd
order Butterworth low-pass filter.
To analyze the low pass filter the process is exactly the same as before so:
vn-v1
R
27
-
v1-v
s
R
28
-(I1 -Iout) - sC
21
= u

Is = I
1
- _
1
sC
22
R
28
+
1
sC
22
_

Considering Vs equal to Vout, the two resistors equal, substituting in the first equation for V1 and
rearranging the terms leads to:

vout(s)
vn(s)
=
1
C21C22R
2
s
2
+s
2
RC21
+
1
C21C22-R
2

The general transfer function of a low pass second order filter is:

I(s) =
u
s
2
+s[
n
0
Q
+o
0
2

Where the DC gain is
u
o
0
2
in our case 1.

From this function we have:

u
2
=
1
C21C22R
2
so
u
= 2n tbus =
1
2nRC21C22

S7
o
0
=
2
RC21
substituting or
u

=
1
2
_
C21
C22

With the components shown Q=0.707 and f=51.18 kHz, at 20 kHz the gain is down of about 100
mdB. Now to plot the transfer function the magnitude must be calculated, substituting s=j and
remembering that j^2=-1 gives:

vout(]o)
vn(]o)
=
1
C21C22R
2
]o
2
RC21
-o
2
+
1
C21C22-R
2

vout(]o)
vn(]o)
= 2u - log _
1
C21C22R
2
_
4n
2
R
2
-C21
2

-
2n
2
C21C22R
2
+o
4
+
1
C21
2
-C22
2
-R
4
_


From figure 33 which is the simulation of the circuit, the gain is down of 3dB at 51.15kHz and the
phase is -90.47. A low-pass filter has two zeroes and two poles but here the zeroes are at = thus
at the origin there will be no phase shift, as frequency increases the two poles will start cause phase
shift both adding -90 thus giving a total phase shift of -180. When low resistor values are used is
important to verify the input impedance of the system in the worst case. Here the worst case is when
tend to infinity so the two capacitors act as short circuit, thus the input impedance becomes equal
to R1 which is 2200.

S8
NOISE

The noise of the circuit can be simulated with LTspice, setting the bandwidth from 20Hz to 20kHz
gives a total rms noise of 1.649V. The signal to noise ratio is:
SNR =
1.5
1.649-10
-6
= 909642 which is 119dB below 1.5V rms.

DISTORTION
The distortion at 1kHz is 0.000015%, figure 35 shows the FFT plot where the second harmonic is
-139dB down.

Figure 35, FFT at 1kHz.

S9
The distortion at 20kHz is 0.000556%, figure 36 shows the FFT analysis where the second
harmonics is at -109 dB and the third at -145 dB.


LINKWITZ-RILEY CROSSOVER FILTERS

The cut-off frequency of this filters are set at 2.5 kHz which is the recommended crossover
frequency of the tweeter that will receive the amplified signal from the high-pass filter through an
amplifier while the other signal will be sent to a woofer with a bandwidth up to 4 kHz. This filter is a
Linkwitz-Riley type where Q = 0.5 and at the crossover frequency the gain is down of 6 dB. The two
signals have opposite phases, in the low pass the phase goes from 0 to -180, while in the high pass it
goes from 0 to +180. This characteristic means that if the two signals are directly summed the
response will exhibit a deep notch at the crossover frequency. To make the response flat one of the
two lines must be phase inverted giving a flat response and a maximum phase shift of -180. The
phase inversion is performed by the use of an inverting time delay circuit, which have also the task of
delay high frequency signals to let bass and treble audio waves reach the ear at the same time.

4u
LOWPASS FILTER

Figure 37, 2
nd
order Linkwitz-Riley low-pass filter.
The analysis of the circuit is the same as the low-pass filter analyzed before so:
vout(s)
vn(s)
=
1
C23C24R
2
s
2
+s
2
RC23
+
1
C23C24-R
2
=
1
2nRC23C24
=
1
2
_
C23
C24

With the components shown Q=0.5 and f= 2.49 kHz.
The magnitude is:
vout(]o)
vn(]o)
=
1
C23C24R
2
_
4n
2
R
2
-C23
2

-
2n
2
C23C24R
2
+o
4
+
1
C23
2
-C24
2
-R
4

Figure 38 shows the magnitude and phase plot, as before this filter presents two zeroes at = and
two poles. The poles at frequencies much lower than that of the poles, dont introduce any phase shift
but as frequency increases each pole gives -90 of phase shift thus causing a total phase shift of
-180. Here the gain is down of 6dB at the crossover frequency which is 2.5kHz. The minimum
value of the input impedance is when tend to , and it reaches 3.1k.

41


NOISE

Total rms noise is 1.21V, thus the signal to noise ratio is 121dB calculated considering a maximum
signal level of 1.5Vrms. From the simulation is possible to see that around the crossover frequency
the noise starts to decrease, this is so because the filter acts not only on the audio signal but also to all
other signals that pass through it, thus it attenuates not only the audio frequencies but also the noise.

42
DISTORTION
The function of this filter is to preserve only frequencies lower than 2.5kHz and attenuate higher
frequencies, so the distortion analysis can be done only on 1kHz. The distortion at 1kHz is
0.000019%, the second harmonic is down of -138dB and all the others are down of at least 180dB.

Figure 40, FFT at 1kHz.
HIGHPASS FILTER
This filter is a second order Linkwitz-Riley with cutoff frequency set at 2.5 kHz and Q=0.5, its
function is to take the signal that come from the bandwidth definition filter and let only high
frequencies reach the output.

Figure 41, 2
nd
order Linkwitz-Riley high-pass filter.

4S
The analysis is the same as the high-pass filter analyzed before thus:
vout(s)
vn(s)
=
s
2
s
2
+s
2
R32C
+
1
C
2
-R32R31
=
1
2nCR32R31
=
1
2
_
R32
R31

With the components shown Q=0.5 and f= 2.49 kHz. The magnitude is:
|
vout(]o)
vn(]o)
| =
o
2
_o
4
-_
2-n
2
C
2
-R32R31
]+[
1
C
4
-R32
2
-R31
2
+_
4n
2
R32
2
-C
2
]


Figure 42 shows the gain and the phase angle plots, where the gain is the marked line while the phase
is the dotted line. At the cutoff frequency 2.5 kHz the gain is down by 6 dB and the phase is 90. The
two zeroes at the origin cause each a phase shift of 90 thus the initial phase shift is 180, as
frequencies increases, the phase shift caused by the poles subtract from the 180 reaching 0.
Minimum input impedance reaches 3.1k at high frequency where the two capacitors act as short
circuits.

44
NOISE

The noise in this filter is principally present in high frequencies because low frequencies are
attenuated by the filter, it has a total rms value of 1.28V. The signal to noise ratio is 121dB.

DISTORTION
This is a highpass filter so frequencies lower than 2.5kHz are attenuated, thus there is no need to see
distortion at 1kHz. Distortion at 20 kHz is 0.000290%, from figure 44 is possible to see that the
second harmonic is down of -115db and the third of -151dB.


4S
THE TIME DELAY CIRCUIT
The last part of the circuit is a 5
th
order all-pass filter, which is a filter that pass the whole band with
a constant gain of 0dB but introducing a time delay. This filter is made up of two second order
all-pass filters and a first order inverting all-pass filter. Before analyzing the circuits is important to
calculate the required time delay. This delay is required because the two sound waves do not come
from the same loudspeaker so they travel different path to reach the ear. To calculate the delay is
necessary to know the dimension of the loudspeakers enclosure and to assume a listening point.
Figure 45 shows the principal dimensions.

Figure 45, loudspeakers distances, where all dimensions are expressed in mm.

From figure 45 is possible to see that I choose a listening point which is in line with the tweeter at a
distance of 5 meters or about 16.5 feet. To calculate the delay is necessary to know the distance
between the point where the air-wave is emitted, here I choose the point where the magnet behind the
loudspeaker is joint to the cone and the distance between the centers. The distance x can be
calculated applying the Pythagoras theorem to the triangle ABC thus:
= AB
2
+BC
2
= 181
2
+Su4S
2
= Su48 mm
Now is possible to calculate the difference between the bass path and the treble path which is:
As = Su48 -Suuu = 48 mm
Considering that the speed of sound in air is 343.2 m/s, the time delay is:
t =
As
S4S.2
=
u.u48
S4S.2
= 14ups

46
The value calculated means that the bass sound wave reaches the ear 140s after the tweeter wave,
thus if the tweeter wave is delayed of this time, both waves will reach the ear at the same time. It is
worth say that the time delay is not a perfect value because if the listening point changes also the
delay does and also we have two ears not one so it is not possible to calculate a delay that will work
with every listening point or room. The time delay function is realized using an all-pass filter, which
is a filter that has a flat gain over its bandwidth and a phase that changes linearly with frequency,
thus adding a delay to the signal. In an all-pass circuit, the delay is initially flat but as frequency
rises, the delay tend to 0. It is important that the delay is present until a frequency where the bass
wave is enough attenuated so the delay loss is not audible. The all-pass filters have been designed
using a note released by Texas Instrument found on the Internet, where there were all the all-pass
coefficients to make the filter works. This is the link of the note:
http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slod006b/slod006b.pdf
The first thing to do to design the filters is to choose a frequency and calculate the required order of
the filter. With a frequency of 10kHz and a delay of 140s Tgro is:
Igro = 1uuuu - 14u - 1u
-6
= 1.4
The exact value of Tgro for a 5
th
order filter is 1.506 which gives a frequency of:
c =
Igro
Jcloy
=
1.Su6
14u - 1u
-6
= 1u7S7 Ez
The all-pass coefficients for a 5
th
order filters are:
Number of filter a b o = o
2
b Tgro
1 1.2974 -------- -------- 1.506
2 2.2224 1.5685 3.1489
3 1.2116 1.2330 1.1905

Figure 46, all-pass filter.

47
Figure 46 shows the all-pass filters with the resistor value calculated and the capacitors assumed.
To have a flat summation of the Linkwitz-Riley filters outputs one of the two signals must be phase
inverted. Here the treble filter is inverted using an inverting first order all-pass, then the 2
nd
order
filters are also inverting thus the output is equal to the input because the gain is flat at 0dB but 180
phase shifted.
First order all-pass filter:
RSS =
o
2 - n - c - C27

Second order filter:
RS6 =
o
4 - n - c - C28

RS7 =
b
o - n - c - C28

RS8 =
R4u
o

Consider also that C28=C29 and R39=R40.

Figure 47, gain and delay plot of the overall all-pass filter.

Figure 47 shows that the gain is flat, having a peak of about 50mdB but it also shows how the delay
changes as frequency increases, in fact the required delay of 140s lasts until 6 kHz, then it starts
decreasing as frequency rises, reaching the 80% of its value at 9.7 kHz. Now because of the
inversion of the first order all-pass filter, when the treble and bass waves sum in air there will be a
flat summation.
The resistor values calculated so far are not commercial thus it is needed to find a combination of
commercial values that is the nearest to the values calculated. When designing is better to assume the

48
capacitors and then calculate the resistors rather than the opposite, because commercial capacitor
values are less than resistors ones and also because they are more expensive than resistors. Precision
values for resistors and capacitor are necessary to have the required response once the system is built,
especially when talking about high order filters where a little change in one value can completely
change the overall response. The note in fact says that the sensitivity of the 2
nd
order filters used here
is on the order 0.5%/% which is low if only one filter is used but with high order filters the
sensitivity increases.
To find the best parallel combination which gives the required resistance I made a DOS software
write in C which can be compiled with any compiler for example DevC++. This software at first asks
if you want to make it find the combination knowing only the required resistance or if you want to
find a resistor that combined with the one known gives the required resistance. After selecting the
modality it asks for the maximum percentage variation that the resulting resistance can have from the
required one, finally it doesnt take into account that real resistors have a tolerance thus the lower the
tolerance the better the result. The best thing is to use 0.1% resistors and ceramic capacitors which
are both expensive.
This is the source code ready to be compiled:
/*
*******************************************************************************
* *
* PARALLEL RESISTOR COMBINATION FINDER *
* *
*******************************************************************************
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{

// E12 RESISTORS SERIES
float resistorsE12[]={1,10,100,1000,10000,100000,1000000,1.2,12,120,1200,12000,120000,
1200000,1.5,15,150,1500,15000,150000,1500000,1.8,18,180,1800,18000,
180000,1800000,2.2,22,220,2200,22000,220000,2200000,2.7,27,270,2700,
27000,270000,2700000,3.3,33,330,3300,33000,330000,3300000,3.9,39,390,
3900,39000,390000,3900000,4.7,47,470,4700,47000,470000,4700000,5.6,56,
560,5600,56000,560000,5600000,6.8,68,680,6800,68000,680000,6800000,8.2,
82,820,8200,82000,820000,8200000,10000000};
// E24 RESISTORS SERIES
float resistorsE24[]={1,1.1,1.2,1.3,1.5,1.6,1.8,2,2.2,2.4,2.7,3,3.3,3.6,3.9,4.3,4.7,5.1,5.6,
6.2,6.8,7.5,8.2,9.1,10,11,12,13,15,16,18,20,22,24,27,30,33,36,39,43,47,51,56,62,68,75,82,91,

49

100,110,120,130,150,160,180,200,220,240,270,300,330,360,390,430,470,510,560,620,680,750,820,
910,

1000,1100,1200,1300,1500,1600,1800,2000,2200,2400,2700,3000,3300,3600,3900,4300,4700,5100,
5600,

6200,6800,7500,8200,9100,10000,11000,12000,13000,15000,16000,18000,20000,22000,24000,270
00,30000,33000,

36000,39000,43000,47000,51000,56000,62000,68000,75000,82000,91000,100000,110000,120000,1
30000,

150000,160000,180000,200000,220000,240000,270000,300000,330000,360000,390000,430000,470
000,510000,

560000,620000,680000,750000,820000,910000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1500000,1600
000,1800000,

2000000,2200000,2400000,2700000,3000000,3300000,3600000,3900000,4300000,4700000,510000
0,5600000,

6200000,6800000,7500000,8200000,9100000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,15000000,1
6000000,

18000000,20000000,22000000,24000000,27000000,30000000,33000000,36000000,39000000,4300
0000,
47000000,51000000,56000000,62000000,68000000,75000000,82000000,91000000};

float Rout,R1,R2,delta,p,R2min,R2max,E12value,E24value,
RoutfinalE24,RoutfinalE12,deltaRoutE12,deltaRoutE24,Routfinal,deltaRout;
int arrayE12=0,arrayE24=0;
char dec,rout;

printf("PARALLEL RESISTOR COMBINATION FINDER\n");
printf("\n");
printf("TYPE B TO FIND THE BEST COMBINATION OF BOTH R1 AND R2 OR R TO TYPE
THE VALUE OF R1\n");
printf("\n");
scanf("%c",&dec);

if (dec=='R')

Su
{
printf("\n");
printf("percentage variation from nominal\n");
printf("\n");
scanf("%f",&p);
printf("\n");

printf("type the value of Rout\n"); // ASK FOR ROUT
printf("\n");
scanf("%f",&Rout); // SCAN ROUT AND ADRESS THE VALUE TO ROUT

printf("\n");
printf("type the value of R1\n");
printf("\n");
scanf("%f",&R1);
printf("\n");
R2=(Rout*R1)/(R1-Rout); // CALCULATE TEORETICAL R2
printf("R2 calculated=%f\n",R2); // SHOW CALCULATED R2
printf("\n");
// EXTREME VALUES FOR R2
delta=0.2;
R2min=(R2-(R2*delta));
R2max=(R2+(R2*delta));
printf("delta=%f\n",delta);
printf("\n");

printf("R2min=%f\n",R2min);
printf("\n");

printf("R2max=%f\n",R2max);
printf("\n");
printf("\n");

// E12 values
for (arrayE12=0;arrayE12<=85;arrayE12++)
{
E12value=resistorsE12[arrayE12];
if(E12value>=R2min && E12value<=R2max)
{ RoutfinalE12=(E12value*R1)/(E12value+R1);
deltaRoutE12=((RoutfinalE12/Rout)-1)*100;
if(deltaRoutE12>=-p && deltaRoutE12<=p)
{

S1
printf("R2E12commercial=%f\n",E12value);
printf("\n");

printf("RoutfinalE12=%f\n",RoutfinalE12);
printf("\n");
printf("deltaRoutE12=%f\n",deltaRoutE12);
printf("\n");
}
}
}
// E24 values
{
if(E24value>=R2min && E24value<=R2max)
{RoutfinalE24=(E24value*R1)/(E24value+R1);
deltaRoutE24=((RoutfinalE24/Rout)-1)*100;
if(deltaRoutE24>=-p && deltaRoutE24<=p)
{
printf("R2E24commercial=%f\n",E24value);
printf("\n");
printf("RoutfinalE24=%f\n",RoutfinalE24);
printf("\n");
printf("deltaRoutE24=%f\n",deltaRoutE24);
printf("\n");
}
}
}
}
if (dec=='B')
{
printf("\n");
printf("percentage variation from nominal\n");
printf("\n");
scanf("%f",&p);
printf("\n");

printf("type the value of Rout\n"); // ASK FOR ROUT
printf("\n");
scanf("%f",&Rout); // SCAN ROUT AND ADRESS THE VALUE TO ROUT

printf("\n");

S2

{

{
Routfinal=(E12value*E24value)/(E12value+E24value);
deltaRout=((Routfinal/Rout)-1)*100;

if(deltaRout>=-p && deltaRout<=p)
{
printf("R2commercial=%f\n",E12value);
printf("\n");
printf("R1commercial=%f\n",E24value);
printf("\n");

printf("Routfinal=%f\n",Routfinal);
printf("\n");
printf("deltaRout=%f\n",deltaRout);
printf("\n");
}
}
}
}

system("PAUSE");
return 0;
}

The resulting schematic is shown at page 29.

SS
POWER AMPLIFIERS
The power amplifier is the circuit that drives the loudspeakers, its purpose is to amplify the signal not
only increasing its amplitude but also giving it more power. In this project four power amplifiers are
used, each driving its own loudspeaker, all amplifiers must be capable of driving with safe margins
4 loads. The power amplifiers used are made using discrete circuits and they are DC coupled
amplifiers, which means that they do not only amplify time varying signal but also direct currents.
The difficulties with DC amplifiers is to make sure that no DC voltage is present at the output,
usually +/- 50mV is considered the maximum DC voltage allowed. DC coupled amplifiers differs
from AC coupled ones by some aspects:
AC coupled amplifiers use a single supply rail thus the output is biased at half supply voltage to have
the maximum symmetrical signal swing therefore a capacitor is needed to avoid DC on the
loudspeaker;
DC coupled amplifiers use positive and negative supply rails so the output is biased at 0V, thus the
capacitor is not needed. Output capacitor also increases the total distortion of the amplifiers not only
at low frequency, where the capacitor presents high impedance, but on the whole audio bandwidth.
Removing this capacitor will also remove DC protection of loudspeakers, thus a protection circuit
must be used to give some DC protection.

THE POWER AMPLIFIER

The power amplifier is shown in figure 48. It is made up of three stages where the first stage is a
transconductance amplifier which converts the input voltage into a current signal, the second stage
also called voltage amplifier stage, VAS, is a transimpedance stage which converts a current signal
into a voltage signal and the last stage is a unity gain stage which increases the power of the signal.
The circuit is perfectly symmetrical because the top half is equal to the bottom one, this feature
reduces second order harmonics. The first two stages are inverting while the third is not so absolute
phase between input and output is preserved.

THE INPUT STAGE AND THE VAS

The first two stages have to be considered together in order to calculate the operating point at which
the circuit is biased. The analysis can be performed only on one half of the circuit because of its
symmetry. The first stage is a differential amplifier loaded with current mirrors, in this way the noise
performance and the common mode rejection ratio (CMRR) are improved. This is so because this
circuit responds only to the difference between its two inputs and rejects all other common signals. If
a differential amplifier is loaded with a current mirror then the current mirror acts by making the
current of the two parallel halves of the circuit equal and it also increases the gain of the stage by a
factor of two. Q9 is called a helper transistor and its function is to make possible the setting of the
operating point of the first two stages, otherwise it will not be possible. R68 works for making the
currents of the two halves of the differential pair equal, in fact when the two currents are equal no
current flows through R68, but if there is a difference then some current flows through it, loading

S4

Q
5
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
2
2
N
5
4
0
1
Q
6
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
1
0
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
9
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
1
1
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
1
3
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
1
4
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
2
1
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
2
2
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
1
9
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
2
0
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
7
2
N
5
4
0
1
Q
8
2
N
5
4
0
1
Q
3
2
N
5
4
0
1
Q
4
2
N
5
4
0
1
Q
1
5
2
N
5
4
0
1
Q
1
6
2
N
5
4
0
1
Q
1
7
2
N
5
4
0
1
Q
1
8
2
N
5
4
0
1
R
6
5
1
5
0
R
6
7
1
5
0
R
6
6
6
8
0
R
7
7
1
5
0
R
7
9
1
5
0
R
7
8
6
8
0
R
7
2
4
7
0
R
7
3
4
7
0
R
6
9
4
7
0
R
7
0
4
7
0
R
7
6
3
3
k
R
6
8
3
3
k
R
8
3
1
0
0
R
8
2
2
0
k
R
8
1
1
0
0
R
8
0
2
0
k
R
9
3
6
0
R
9
2
1
k
R
8
7
6
0
R
8
6
1
k
R
9
0
6
.
8
k
R
8
9
1
0
5
0
C
4
3
4
7
p
C
4
1
4
7
p
R
7
5
1
0
k
R
7
4
4
7
0
Q
2
6
B
D
1
4
0
M
1
I
R
F
P
1
4
0
M
2
I
R
F
P
9
1
4
0
Q
2
4
2
N
5
5
5
0
Q
2
5
B
D
1
3
9
Q
2
3
2
N
5
4
0
1
R
9
6
2
2
0
R
9
5
2
k
R
1
0
2
0
.
6
8
R
1
0
3
0
.
6
8
R
9
7
1
0
0
R
9
8
1
0
0
V
1
3
0
V
2
3
0
C
4
2
1
0
0
p
R
8
8
4
.
7
k
C
4
4
1
0
0
p
R
9
1
4
.
7
k
D
5
1
N
4
0
0
2
D
6
1
N
4
0
0
2
C
4
5
1
0
0
p
R
1
0
1
4
7
C
4
6
1
0
0
p
R
9
9
4
7
R
5
7
0
.
2
R
5
8
3
3
0
R
5
9
1
6
k
R
6
0
1
0
D
1
1
N
4
0
0
2
D
2
1
N
4
0
0
2
1
C
3
5
C
3
4
1
0
0
C
3
3
4
7
0
Q
1
2
N
5
5
5
0
R
6
1
0
.
2
R
6
2
3
3
0
R
6
3
1
6
k
R
6
4
1
0
C
3
8
1
C
3
6
1
0
0
C
3
7
4
7
0
D
3
1
N
4
0
0
2
D
4
1
N
4
0
0
2
Q
1
2
2
N
5
4
0
1
R
7
1
1
0
k
U
1
L
T
1
0
0
1
C
4
0
2
.
2
R
8
5
3
3
0
k
R
8
4
3
3
0
k
C
3
9
2
.
2
V
3
1
2
V
4
1
2
R
1
1
0
1
0
k
U
2
Q
5
0
0
6
L
4
R
9
4
1
0
k
U
3
4
N
2
5
R
1
0
0
1
k
v
o
u
t
V
i
n
Figure 48 power amplifier.

SS
differentially the circuit and reducing the gain. Real components have tolerances that make them not
all equal thus the two parts of the circuit will tend to set different currents but it cannot be so a small
offset voltage will be created at the input of the amplifier. The more equal the components are,
principally the transistors, the smaller the input offset voltage will be. In order to make the distortion
of the amplifier as low as possible, the transistors must be operated in their linear region, which is
usually a very narrow region, to extend it degenerating resistors are used, like R69 and R70, the price
paid for the linearization is a reduction in the gain of the stage. The current at the operating point is
set by a circuit that acts as a constant current generator, so it must be capable of delivering to the load
the set current regardless of the load resistance. The circuit is shown in figure 50. The current that
flows through the load resistance is set by the value of R81, which can be calculated at first
considering a base to emitter voltage drop (Vbe) equal to 0.7V, then the exact value is found with the
simulator. Thus I=0.7/100= 7 mA, the final value from simulation is 6.5mA. The function of R80 is
to give base current to Q16 about 2mA, to turn it on. This circuit has feedback because, if for some
reasons the load current tend to change the circuit will attempt to keep it constant at the set value. To
demonstrate it lets assume that the current through Rload tend to increase, then the voltage drop on
R81 will increase too thus making Q15 conduct more current, which in turn increases the voltage at
the base of Q16 therefore tending to turn it off. A good current generator to be so should have a very
high output impedance, in this way the load current will remain constant regardless of the load
resistance and the voltage across it. The output resistance can be simulated using LTspice
considering that Ro=Vo/Io which leads to 3.5M.

Figure 50, current generator.

S6
THE Vbe MULTIPLIER

Figure 51 Vbe multiplier.
The Vbe multiplier is a circuit that presents a voltage drop on it that is controlled by the ratio
R90/R89 and is needed in order to turn on the output stage transistors. Considering that the final
transistors in this project are MOSFETs a high voltage is needed, in fact to turn on a MOSFET a
voltage of at least 3.5 - 4V is needed. Because of the tolerances on the gate-source turn on voltages,
in the complete project instead of using only R89, I used a resistor in series with a potentiometer, in
this way is possible to perfectly set all the currents of the output stage. The current that flows through
the collectors of Q19 and Q20 is the same of the VAS which is about 8 mA, more on this later. For
the Vbe multiplier in figure the voltage drop on it is equal to:
I = 2 - Ibc - _1 +
R9u
R89
]
Considering a Vbe of 0.7V gives V= 10.46V. The value found here is just a value that works with the
simulator and sets the right current values, thus with real components this voltage could be either too
high or too low so here comes the need for a potentiometer. Anyway once all the four amplifiers are
built the voltage on each Vbe multiplier can be measured and they should be all similar, so a
combination of R90 and R89 can be calculated thus saving four potentiometers. The formula comes
out considering on R89 a voltage drop of 2 Vbe, then the current through it can be calculated and it
can be considered equal to the current through R90, neglecting the base current of Q19, thus the
voltage drop on R90 can be calculated and summed to the voltage drop on R89 to find the overall
voltage drop. This circuit is also used for temperature compensation on the operating point of the
output stage. The temperature coefficient of MOSFETs at low currents is positive thus as
temperature rises also current does, but around 6 V the coefficient becomes negative. This

S7
characteristic makes MOSFETs less prone to thermal runaway but the fact that at low currents the
coefficient is negative implies the need for some protections for the devices. On the MOSFETs there
will be a lot of power dissipation so increasing the junction temperature which will tend to change
the current that the MOSFETs conduct, so a system that tracks the temperature change is necessary
to avoid any change in the operating point. Vbe multipliers made up of only one transistor cannot be
used because the temperature coefficient of Vgs of MOSFETs is -6mV/C while that of a BJT is
-2.2mV/C, thus with a single Vbe the compensation will be too high about -14.23mV/C. In the
schematic above two transistors are used but only one will track the temperature so the compensation
will be about -7mV/C. Q20 is connected as a diode-connected-transistor, any NPN type transistor
can be used but it should be in a package with the screw hole to be easily connected to the heat sink
near the MOSFETs. To see how feedback works consider that when the junction temperature of a
MOSFET increases also the current does, thus to maintain everything steady the voltage on the Vbe
multiplier must decrease. Q20 works like a diode so an increase in temperature decreases the voltage
drop on it of about 2.2 mV/C, so the voltage drop on R89 will also decrease, decreasing the current
through it and through R90 thus decreasing the overall voltage drop. This is an economic and simple
way to have a thermal feedback Vbe multiplier.
THE DC OPERATING POINT
In an amplifier even when there is no signal applied the transistors must be on and they must never
turn off and never enter into saturation because such things would highly increase the distortion of
the amplifier. The current source of figure 50 biases the differential pair with a current of 3.25mA in
each half of the circuit so making possible the calculation of the current at which the second stage is
biased. Looking the circuit reveals that the voltage drop on R87 is equal to that on R67 that is
IR67 = R67 - I = u.487I thus the current on the second stage is equal to VR67/R87 = 8.1 mA.
The Vbe multiplier sets the voltage that turn on all the output stage transistor and as calculated before
is equal to about 10.5V, considering a constant base to emitter voltage drop of 0.7 the voltage drop
on R95 is equal to about 9.1V so the current through it is 4.55 mA, the voltage drop on R96 is 7.7V
and the current is 35 mA, finally the current through the MOSFETs is around 130 mA.
THE DIFFERENTIAL PAIR
The differential pair input circuit as said before is a circuit that responds only to the difference
between its two inputs and rejects all common signals. The role of the first stage is to compare the
output signal with the input one, then the difference between these signals which is called error
signal is the quantity amplified by the amplifier to create the output signal. The current through R69,
Q7, Q10 and R65 is set by the current source and is equal to half of it thus about 3.25mA. Q10, R65,
R67 and Q11 make up a current mirror which function is to increase the balance between the currents
of the two vertical halves of the circuit and also it highly increases the gain of the stage. To
understand what great advantages current mirrors provide consider that when using a differential pair
there are two ways to take the output signal, single ended or differentially. Taking the signal single
ended means that the load is connected between the output (one of the two collectors) and ground
while differentially means that the load is connected between the collectors of Q7 and Q8. In the
amplifier, as shown in figure 52, the output is taken single ended, which in a differential pair without
current mirrors will create a loss of gain of 2 (6dB), because when a difference signal is present at

S8
the inputs, Q7 will conduct a current I, while Q8 will conduct an equal but opposite current I, thus
the current through the load will be equal to I. When a current mirror is used, it takes the current of
Q8 and provides a replica of this current at the collector of Q10 which sum with the collector current
of Q7 thus the current through the load is equal to 2I thus not creating a signal loss.

Figure 52 differential input circuit.

THE VOLTAGE AMPLIFIER STAGE
The voltage amplifier stage (VAS) figure 53, is made up of two transistors connected in a manner
similar to the Darlington configuration but with the difference that the collectors of the two
transistors are not joint together. The role of Q21 is to buffer the input of the VAS thus increasing the
load resistance that the first stage sees. The increase in the input resistance is very important because
it determines the gain of the first stage, particularly the higher it is the higher the gain of the input
stage will be (see open loop gain calculation).

S9

Figure 53 the VAS.

THE OUTPUT STAGE
Figure 54 shows the output stage of the amplifier, it is composed of pre-drivers Q24 - Q23, drivers
Q25 - Q26 which are all connected as common collector transistors and finally the output MOSFETs.
This output stage works in the AB class, thus it joints the advantages of the A class with those of the
B class. An A class output stage gives the lowest distortion at the expense of high power dissipation
and very low efficiency, it works by never turning off the transistors so the conduction angle is 360.
The class B highly increases efficiency but also distortion because the transistors conduct only for
half cycle thus 180, but when the signal has a small amplitude both transistors are off thus giving
rise to distortion in the so called crossover region. The class AB biases the transistors so that at small
voltages both transistors are on and as signal increases one of the two transistors turn-off. The
configuration of output stage used biases the pre-drivers and the drivers transistors in the class A
while the MOSFETs are biased in class AB, in this way there is a good deal between distortion and
power dissipation. Usually in power amplifiers the output transistors are BJTs but MOSFETs have
become an alternative. A big advantage is the ease of driving because MOSFETs do not have a gate
current so they have infinite DC input resistance, to be turned on they only require an input current to
charge and discharge the input capacitance. The fact that they do not have a beta means that they do
not suffer of beta drop at high currents which makes BJTs difficult to drive at high power levels. The
f
T
of MOSFETs is higher and it does not drop at high current so MOSFETs are faster than BJTs.
Other advantages are the absence of secondary breakdown and at high current levels a negative
temperature coefficient. MOSFETs have also some disadvantages for example they require a higher

6u
driving voltage to turn on, they tend to be prone to high frequency oscillations, higher price and the
thin gate oxide that makes the gate has a low breakdown voltage of about 20V which can be easily
exceeded therefore some protection circuits must be used. The biggest difference is about the
transconductance, one of the parameters that determine the gain, which in a MOSFET is much
smaller than that of a BJT, from a factor of 1/5 to 1/20 at equal currents, so making the gain of the
MOSFETs less than that of the BJTs.

Figure 54 output stage.
MOSFET output pairs do not need to be biased at a precise current and usually the higher the current
is the better the performance, so I chose 130mA to maintain a reasonable power dissipation when no
signal is applied. The crossover distortion is present also with MOSFETs and it is a result of the
change of the output impedance as the current goes through zero; the output impedance forms a
voltage divider with the load resistance so determining the gain of the stage, thus if the output
impedance tend to zero, the gain of the output stage tend to unity. The output impedance is the
inverse of the transconductance (gm), so considering that in the crossover region both transistors are

61
in conduction, the output impedance is the inverse of the sum of the transconductances. At low
currents gm is low so output impedance rises and the gain of the stage decreases. Gm doubling is a
problem of BJT output stages which is controlled with emitter resistors, though MOSFETs do not
suffer of this phenomenon so source resistors are not needed, here I decided to employ them because
they are used to trigger the short circuit protection, more on this later. The output MOSFETs are
driven by two BJT emitter followers which are then driven by other two emitter followers, this is so
because the input impedance of a MOSFET is almost infinite but the input capacitance must be
charged to turn on the device and to maintain a high slew rate the current needed is pretty high. Slew
rate means how fast the output voltage can change in a large signal condition, the unit of measure is
V/s. For a sinusoidal waveform the slew rate is:
SR =
2n - Ipk
1u
6

Where f is the frequency and Vpk the peak voltage of the sinusoid. The maximum power of these
amplifiers will be around 50Wrms, the point of clipping, so the peak voltage is 20Vpk, thus the
minimum slew rate that the amplifier must have to produce a 20kHz sine wave of 20Vpk is
2.51V/s, which is a low value but the higher the SR of the amplifier the lower the distortion will be
with high frequency signals, high quality amplifiers usually have a SR>100. The input capacitance of
the MOSFET and the required slew rate will define the value of the bias current of the emitter
followers that drive the output transistors as will be seen now. The input capacitances of a MOSFET
are two: the gate-source capacitance (Cgs) and the gate-drain capacitance (Cgd). Cgs is bootstrapped
by the output signal so its value becomes much smaller and is equal to:
C =
Zout
Zout +ZlooJ
- Cgs
The formula is found for example considering an op.amp connected as a voltage follower with a
capacitor C connected between the non-inverting input and the output, which can be substituted with
a capacitance that sinks an equal current of that of C, connected between input and ground. Zout is
the output impedance of the amplifier while Zload is the loudspeaker impedance which is 4. At the
crossover point Zout is equal to the sum of the inverse of gm and the source resistors all divided by
two because both transistors are conducting, thus assuming a gm of 2S, Zout becomes 0.59. From the
datasheet of IRFP140N at Vds=1V i.e. near clipping, Cgs is about 1200pF which bootstrapped
becomes about 155pF. The Cgd capacitance is of greater concern because it varies as the voltage
between drain and gate varies and when this voltage is small it becomes high reaching even more
than 1000pF, but this happens when the amplifier is near clipping. In program material the maximum
voltage rate of change is not at the maximum near clipping so the slew rate performance is not very
compromised. The value of this capacitance with Vgs=10V is 200pF so the input capacitance is
355pF. The bias current of the driver transistors were found to be 35mA, this is the current that
charges and discharges the input capacitance so the slew rate is:
SR =
Imox
Cin
= 98.6
I
ps

This value reveals how high the driver bias current must be to maintain a high slew rate value.

62
THE GATE PROTECTION AND SHORT CIRCUIT PROTECTION
Figure 55 shows the output stage completed with its protection circuits. The gate protection is done
by diodes D5 and D6 which are called flying catch diodes, normally they are reversed biased so the
circuit operates in the normal manner but if the gate voltage of one MOSFET tend to go higher than
the Vbe multiplier voltage, the diodes become forward biased, limiting the gate voltage to about the
Vbe multiplier voltage. The fact that they put a limit on the maximum gate to source voltage means
that they also put a limit on the maximum drain current, but to avoid high currents in the case of a
short circuit it is better to use a short circuit protection. The short circuit protection is made up of an
opto-coupler and a TRIAC. The opto-coupler is trigged by the voltage drop on the source resistors
that turn on the diode inside it which then turn on the TRIAC that short circuits the Vbe multiplier
thus turning off the entire output stage. The TRIAC then will stay on until power is cycled. With the
values shown the trigger current is about 10A.

Figure 55 , output stage with its protection.

6S
THE ZOBEL NETWORK
Because of the high f
T
MOSFETs are prone to high frequency oscillations that must be controlled;
one way is to use gate stopper resistors like R97 in figure 55 which must be placed as close as
possible to the gate terminal to minimize inductances but the disadvantage here is that these resistors
work against the input capacitance of the MOSFET thus reducing the speed of it, creating a pole at
only few megahertz. Another network used to damp oscillations is the Zobel network which is shown
in figure 56 , its function is to present a minimum resistive load on the amplifier up to very high
frequency. The power of resistor R104 have to be chosen carefully because in normal conditions its
power dissipation will be very small, for example at 20kHz with an output signal of 18Vpk it is about
0.4W but in case of high frequency oscillations it will be much higher so this resistor is usually
oversized, I used power resistors rated at 10W. From figure 56 is also possible to see that at the
output there is another network formed by a resistor in parallel with an inductor, the function of the
inductor is to isolate the amplifier from a capacitive load that at high frequency acts like a short-
circuit while the function of the resistor is to damp out resonances of the inductor with load
capacitances. Here a 2 resistors has been used so the amplifier will never seen a load less than 2.
For best sound quality the inductance should be an air coil, ferrites must be avoided because they
present nonlinearities. The coil of the amplifier has a diameter of 10mm and a length of 25mm with
25 turns, so the inductance is about 2H. The last networks are gate Zobel networks to damp out
high frequency oscillations on the gate, typical values are 47 in series with 100pF.

Figure 56 Zobel network and output inductor.

64
NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

Modern power amplifiers made use of negative feedback, which means that a part of the output
signal is fed-back to the input of the amplifier and compared with the input signal, then if these
signals are different the circuit acts by trying to make the output equal to the input. Amplifiers with
negative feedback have an open loop gain Ao and a closed loop gain Acl. The open loop gain is the
gain of the amplifier without the feedback applied and it must be as high as possible. Closed loop
gain is the overall gain when the feedback is connected, the difference between open loop gain and
closed loop gain is the negative feedback factor which acts to reduce distortion, reducing output
impedance and increasing supply-rail rejection. Figure 57 shows a block diagram of negative
feedback, where Ao is the open loop gain and is the gain of the feedback network which is the
inverse of the closed loop gain so it is less than 1.

Figure 57 negative feedback blocks.

The transfer function of the circuit is:
Iout = Ao(Iin -Iout [) tbus
Iout
Iin
=
Ao
1 +Ao[

From the formula above if Ao is very high, then 1 can be neglected and the formula becomes:

Iout
Iin
=
1
[

The closed loop gain therefore becomes equal to the inverse of the feedback network gain which is
set by some resistors allowing a precise setting of it. Besides Ao is not a known and precise value
because it depends by many factors like gm which varies with collector current, output resistance of
each transistor that is determined by the Earlys effect and depends on the voltage drop between
collector and emitter thus varying with signal. Fortunately knowing the precise value of Ao is not
necessary but the designer has to make sure that its value is very high. The value of Ao can be
depicted making some approximations:

_ Low power BJT hfe = 100;

_ Medium power BJT hfe = 50;

6S
_ uain of a stage =
total collectoi iesistance
total emittei iesistance

_ input iesistance Rin = total emittei iesistance - hfe
_ output iesistance Rout = io - uegeneiating factoi
_ io =
vA +vce
Ic

_ uegeneiating factoi =
total emittei iesistance
uynamic emittei iesistance ie

_ ie
=
v
T
Ic

The open loop gain then is equal to the product of the gains of each of the three stages.
DETERMINE THE OPEN LOOP GAIN
For the differential input the total emitter resistance is equal to:
Ic = S.2SmA so rc
i
=
u.u26
u.uuS2S
= 80 onJ Rc = R72 = R7S = 47u0
Rct = 2(rc
i
+Rc) = 9S60
The total collector resistance is equal to the parallel combination of R76 and the input resistance of
the VAS. The input resistance of the VAS is the total emitter resistance of Q17 times its hfe, but the
total emitter resistance is the parallel combination of R92 and Q18 input resistance. Q18 input
resistance is given by:
Ic = 8.1mA Rin 18 = bc (rc
i
+R9S) = 6S2u 0
Rct 17 = R92 || Rin 18 = 86S 0
Rin = bc(Rct 17 +rc
i
) = 88.S k0
Total collector resistance is equal to.
Rct = Rin || R76 = 24 k0
First stage gain is:
A = 2 -
Rct
Rct
= Su
I
I

The gain is doubled because of the current mirror action, that as explained before makes possible to
have a single ended output without gain loss.

66
VAS gain:
First calculate ro where VA for the 2N5550 and 2N5401 is 100V, Vce is equal to Vrail= 30V and
Ic=8.1mA.
ro =
IA +Icc
Ic
= 16 k0
Jcgcncroting octor =
R9S +rc
i
rc
i
= 19.7S
Rout = ro - Jcgcncroting octor = S16 k0
This resistance is in parallel with Q22s Rout which has the same value. The parallel combination
then is in parallel with the input resistance of the output stage which can be calculated as follows:
Rin 2S = bc (rc
i
+R96) = 11 k0 witb bc = Su
Rct 24 = Rin 2S || R9S = 16920
Rin 24 = bc (rc
i
+Rct24) = 17u k0

Total collector resistance is:
Rct = Rin24 || Rout || Rout = 82 k0
Total emitter resistance is:
Rct = rc
i
+R9S = 6S.2 0
VAS gain is:
A: =
Rct
Rct
= 1297
I
I

The output stage gain is calculated as:
Aout =
ZlooJ
ZlooJ +Zout
= u.87
I
I

Zout is the output resistance that was calculated before and it is equal to 0.59 , Zload is the
loudspeaker impedance 4 .
Open loop gain finally is the product of all gain thus:
Ao = A - A: - Aout = S6419
I
I
= 9S JB

67
STABILITY
The transfer function of the amplifier when negative feedback is applied is:
Iout(s)
Iin(s)
=
Ao(s)
1 +Ao[(s)

The transfer function has a value that varies with frequency because of the presence of the complex
variable s, looking at the denominator it is important to notice that if for some reasons the quantity
Ao becomes negative, then negative feedback becomes positive feedback, leading to oscillations
when Ao=-1. To see it lets assume that Ao=1000, =0.05 and input signal Vin=1V, so the signal,
also called error signal, required by the amplifier to produce the output is Vin/Ao=0.001V therefore
the input must supply 0.051V because of the signal fed back, making a gain of 1/0.051=19.60V/V.
Now lets consider = -0.0005, the required error signal will still be 0.001V but now the input has to
supply 0.5mV making a gain of 1/0.0005=2000V/V . Negative feedback has a phase of 180 while
positive feedback has a phase of 0 or 360. Negative feedback thus need a phase inversion of 180
somewhere in the loop, but in an amplifier there are multiple poles which give a phase shift of 45 at
the pole frequency and 90 at much higher frequency making very simple to reach 360, therefore if
the gain is still positive sustained oscillations will occur. The concepts that define how free of
instability an amplifier is are phase margin and gain margin. Phase margin defines how small is the
phase around the loop than 180 when the gain becomes unity, while gain margin defines how
negative is the value of the gain when the phase reaches 180, the minimum phase margin is 45
while the gain margin is usually -6dB, these concepts are shown in figure 58 where the phase is that
contributed by the poles.

Figure 58 phase and gain margin.
To make the amplifier stable negative feedback must remain negative and the only way to do it is to
use a feedback compensation network. The role of this network is to create a dominant pole at a low

68
frequency that dominates the gain roll-off of the amplifier in order to guarantee stability. The
simplest way to do it is by using a Miller capacitor. This capacitor is placed across the VAS as
illustrated in figure 59, at low frequency it acts as an open circuit thus no current flows through it,
but as frequency increases all of the signal current tend to go through the capacitor, this means that
the open loop gain of the amplifier is no longer controlled by the VAS input resistance and VAS
emitter resistance but by the capacitor.

Figure 59 simple Miller compensating capacitor.
The impedance of a capacitor is inversely proportional to frequency thus it decreases as frequency
rises, decreasing the open loop gain at a rate of -20dB/decade. The frequency at which the open loop
gain starts to roll-off is the point where the open loop gain starts to be determined only by the
capacitor impedance.
The roll-off frequency can be calculated as follow:
Ao
Iow
rcq = Ao
hgh
rcq S6419 =
1
2nC
input stogc totol cmittcr rcsistoncc

=
1
S6419 - 2 - n - S2 - 1u
-12
- 9S6
= 92 Ez
The resulting plot is shown in figure 60. In the amplifier described here the compensating network is
not a simple capacitor connected across the VAS but it is a more complex scheme, that was proposed
by Baxandall and it is called transitional Miller compensation (TMC), it is shown in figure 61. The
purpose of this network is to include the output stage in the compensating network, reducing output
stage distortion. The output stage of an amplifier is the main source of distortion but also the main
cause of phase shifts therefore at high frequency the inclusion of it could run the amplifier into
oscillations. This compensating network solve the problem by excluding the output stage at high
frequency, in fact at low frequency the impedance of R91 is much lower than that of C44 and the
output stage is effectively enclosed in the network but as frequency increases the signal tend to go
through C44 rather than R91 so excluding the output stage. The behavior is the same of the simple
Miller capacitor where at high frequencies the value of Cm is about the value of the series
combination of the two capacitors, which is 32pF that was used to calculate the roll-off frequency

69
and the gain roll-off is still -20dB/decade. The values of C43, C44 and R91 have been found using
LTspice simulations with the scope of giving enough phase and gain margins to the amplifier. Figure
61 shows also R75 and R74, these resistors are the ones that set the closed loop gain of the amplifier
which is equal to:
Acl = 1 +_
R7S
R74
] = 22.27
I
I
= 26.9 JB

Figure 60 open loop gain and closed loop gain plot.

Figure 61 TMC applied to the amplifier.

7u
DC SERVO
This amplifier as all modern amplifiers is DC coupled which means that there is no capacitor
between the output of the amplifier and the load so any output DC voltage will be present also on the
load. Direct currents are dangerous for loudspeaker especially for tweeters which can be destroyed in
less than a second under high DC voltages like the rail ones. The absence of the capacitor and the
risks involved make necessary the use of a DC servo and loudspeaker protection. A DC servo is a
circuit connected between the output of the amplifier and the inverting input, its function is to sense
the DC voltage at the output of the amplifier and to produce a voltage that can be applied to the input
of the amplifier to correct the output DC voltage and force it to be 0 Volts. This circuit can correct
only little output DC voltages because, as it will be seen, its headroom is limited. To protect the
loudspeakers a relay is usually used even though relays turn on time is high it is better to have one
rather than hoping that the fuses will blow in a enough short time to save tweeters. Loudspeakers
protections in my project are controlled by an EEPROM, a PIC which will be explained later. The
closed loop gain of the amplifier as said before was set by two resistors thus the amplifier amplifies
AC signals but also DC signals as well, thus a little offset at the input could become a large offset at
the output. The main cause of input offset voltage are the bases currents of the BJT and here comes
another advantage of the schematics used. NPN BJTs are said to sink base current while PNPs source
current thus their currents have opposite sign. The input signal in this amplifier is applied to two
differential pair one being NPN and the other PNP which are biased at equal collector currents thus
assuming equal betas the two base currents will tend to cancel out thus reducing input offset voltage.
In the real world the betas will never be equal so a little input voltage will always be present but the
lower it is the less the DC servo has to work. From figure 49 the input bases are biased at 0V by
resistor R71 whose value is equal to feedback resistor R75. This is not a coincidence because the
difference of the currents of NPN and PNP bases will flow through this resistor developing the input
offset voltage, the same will happen on the feedback side, so the same voltage drop will be present
also on R75 thus reducing bases currents effects. The DC servo usually is an integrator which is
connected to the output of the amplifier through a low pass filter with very low cut-off frequency, in
order to sense only DC and reject all AC signals. The circuit is shown in figure 62, it is a non
inverting integrator where C40 and R85 made up a low pass filter with cut-off frequency of 0.2Hz.
When at the output there is a DC voltage then C39 starts to charge driving the output of the servo at a
positive voltage which will be applied to the inverting input of the amplifier through R46, the
amplifier then will decrease the DC output voltage. The gain of the integrator at DC is very high so it
will force the output to ideally zero volt, in reality the output voltage will be forced to be equal to the
input offset voltage of the op. amp. The choice of the op.amp is very important for two reasons:
The servo should have a small input offset voltage;
The servo is in the feedback path.
The problem of small input offset is solved using JFET operational amplifier that have a very small
input current. The problem of adding other circuits into the feedback path is that noise and distortion
at low frequency can be fed in into the amplifier so high quality op. amp must be used. Here I used
the OPA134 which is a high quality low distortion and noise audio amplifier, its input offset is about
3mV which is very good, this op.amp is a good deal between performance and cost.

71

Figure 62 DC servo.
The fact that the amplifier has a DC servo does not mean that the input offset voltage can be allowed
to be of whatever value, because the servo has a clipping point, around 14V when using 15V rails,
over which the servo is no longer able to decrease the output DC voltage. R46 is the injection resistor
which injects the output voltage of the integrator into the inverting input of the amplifier. R46 works
with feedback resistor R74 making an attenuation of about 22:1, thus if clipping occurs at 14V the
maximum input offset voltage that can be corrected is 0.640V. This voltage is not very high but with
the input stage used here it works well because of the tendency of bases currents to cancel out.
Amplifier output offset voltage was simulated with LTspice without the DC servo and it was 55mV,
which is an input voltage of about 2.4mV. The DC servo thus in normal condition is not pushed to
work hard. The DC servo to work properly must be insensitive to high amplitude low frequency
signals, for example a 20Vpk signal at 2Hz at the output of the amplifier will produce 2Vpk a the
output of the servo. High amplitude signals at frequency lower than 20Hz are always blocked by an
input filter to avoid loudspeaker damage so the DC servo should work right. Figure 63 shows the
frequency response of the servo where the unity gain is at 0.2Hz, lower frequency signals are
amplified by the servo while others are attenuated. The slope of the frequency response is
-20dB/decade. Resistor R46 is effectively in parallel with feedback resistor R74 because the output
of the integrator is at 0V thus the gain of the amplifier increases.
The amplifier connected to the tweeter will process only frequencies higher than 2.5kHz thus lower
frequencies are attenuated, to increase tweeter safety the corner frequency of the filter made up by
R85 and C40 can be increased to 700Hz, in this way the response time of the DC servo will be
decreased. Possible values are C40=22nF and R85= 10k which leads to a corner frequency of
723Hz.

72

Figure 63, frequency response.

LTSPICE ANALISYS OF THE AMPLIFIER
In this part all simulations of the amplifier will be presented starting from the frequency response,
distortion, noise, stability and so on.
FREQUENCY RESPONSE
Figure 54 shows the frequency response, which shows the closed loop gain of the amplifier to be
about 27.3dB, the increase in gain is due to R46 which is in parallel with R74, the bandwidth of the
amplifier is also shown and it is 0Hz- 337kHz. The phase increases as frequency rises reaching at
20kHz -3.8, thus absolute phase is preserved.

Figure 64 frequency response.

7S
DISTORTION
The distortion has been simulated at 1kHz and at 20kHz. 1kHz simulation was done on the first 10
harmonics while the FFT is based on the last 8 cycle of the waveform.


The total harmonic distortion at 1kHz turned out to be 0.00029%, the FFT plot is shown in figure 65,
where is possible to see that the second harmonic is down of -100dB, the third is at -95dB.
Distortion at 20kHz on the first 10 harmonics is 0.00073%, second harmonic is down of -82dB, third
is down of -85dB while the others are all below.

1 kHz distortion was simulated with an output voltage of 18Vpk with 4 load connected, while
distortion at 20kHz was simulated without the load resistance.

74
SQUARE WAVE RESPONSE
Square wave response is useful to see the response of a system particularly if there is any ringing at
the edge of the wave. From it is also possible to see if the amplifier enters into slew rate limitation.

Figure 67 square wave response.
The square wave response was simulated with a square wave of 50kHz, where the rise and fall time
were set at 10ns, the on time 10s and the period equal to 20s. The rounded edges of the waveform
are due to the finite bandwidth of the amplifier, from the figure is also possible to see that there is no
appreciable trace of ringing.
SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO
The signal to noise ratio (SNR), can be simulated using LTspice but it tend to be optimistic about the
real SNR of the amplifier, this because power supply ripple and EMI are not simulated. Noise was
simulated in the 20Hz- 20kHz bandwidth and it has a total rms value of 23.75V, signal to noise
ratio considering an output voltage of 20Vpeak, which is 14.14Vrms, is -115.5 dB. Figure 68 shows
the noise plot.

Figure 68 noise plot.

7S
DAMPING FACTOR AND OUTPUT IMPEDANCE
The damping factor of an amplifier is the ratio between the load impedance, 4, and the output
impedance of the amplifier, the lower the output impedance the higher the damping factor. The
output impedance of an amplifier varies with frequency so the best way to simulate it, is by
connecting the input of the amplifier to ground and then connecting a voltage source at the output
with a resistor R much higher than the output impedance of the amplifier, for example 1k. Output
impedance is then calculated as:
Zout =
R
Iin
Iout

The damping factor than is:
F =
ZlooJ
Zout

Figure 69 shows how the output impedance of the amplifier varies with frequency.

Figure 69 output impedance, where the y values are expressed in m.
The raise of impedance with frequency is explained by the fact that as frequency rises, negative
feedback decreases, a function of negative feedback is to reduce output impedance thus if it
decreases output impedance increases. From the output impedance plot, the damping factor below
20kHz is always above 100.
OPEN LOOP GAIN AND PHASE MARGIN
The open loop gain of the amplifier can be exposed increasing the value of feedback resistor R75, if
its value is increased to 1M the plot figure 70 is obtained. This plot shows the open loop gain of the
amplifier for frequencies higher than about 3kHz, showing that it decreases at a rate of
-20dB/decade. The frequency at which the open loop gain has the same value of the closed loop gain,
which is 27.3dB, is the crossover frequency, here 337 kHz. The phase at this point can be used to
calculate the phase margin of the amplifier, considering that the phase is -97, phase margin is 83.

76

Figure 70 open loop gain plot.
CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE OUTPUT STAGE
The output stage is the point with the higher power dissipation and therefore high temperatures are
present. The efficiency of a class AB amplifier is function of the difference between voltage peak of
the output signal and rail voltage. The efficiency is given by:
p =
n
4
Ipk
Icc

This function can be plotted with excel to see how efficiency varies with output power and power
dissipation with output power. The graphs obtained are these:

Figure 71, power dissipation vs output power.

0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
P
O
W
E
R
D
I
S
S
I
P
A
T
E
D
OUTPUTPOWER
powerdissipationvsoutputpower

77

Figure 72, efficiency vs output power.
The graphs have been drawn using the values of the amplifier which are: load impedance equal to
4, Vcc=30V and for the clipping point 20V, probably too optimistic, all the powers are expressed
in Watts. From the graphs is possible to see that as the output power increases also the efficiency
does because as output power increases the power dissipated decreases. The power delivered by the
amplifier to the load depends on the square of the output voltage and it is:
Pout =
1
2
Ipk
2
RlooJ

While the input power is equal to:
P = 2 - Iroil - Io:
Where Vrail is the rail voltage here 30V and Iav is the average current through the load, which is:
Ipk =
Ipk
RlooJ
Io: =
Ipk
2 - 1,6

The difference between these two powers is the power dissipated.
These values are important to verify that the MOSFETs being used can withstand the power that they
are called to dissipate. The maximum power dissipation of the MOSFETs is 120W at room
temperature, figure 73 shows the instantaneous power dissipation of the MOSFETs when the
amplifier is delivering about 37Wrms on 4 loads which is near clipping with 30Vrails. Maximum
power dissipated is less than 50W so the transistor can withstand this power. Now is necessary to
define a maximum temperature for the heat sink, 70 is a good value because when touching an
object at that temperature there is enough time to remove the hand before burning it. The maximum
power that the transistor can dissipate at 70 must be checked; the maximum junction temperature of
these MOSFETs is 175, the thermal resistance between junction and heat sink is 1.49C/W
0
0,1
0,2
0,3
0,4
0,5
0,6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
E
F
F
I
C
I
E
N
C
Y
OUTPUTPOWER
Efficiencyvspowerdissipation

78
considering jc=1.25C/W and insulator=0.24C/W so maximum power that can be dissipated on
average is (175-70)/1.49=70W.

Figure 73, MOSFETs instantaneous power dissipation.
INPUT FILTERS
The input filters of the power amplifiers are shown in figure 74. The first filter is made up by R106
and C48 with corner frequency of 9.65MHz, its function is to avoid EMI interferences such as that
caused by cell-phone to reach the input of the amplifier. R107 defines the DC input impedance of the
amplifier, it is followed by a low-pass filter with center frequency of 268KHz which reduces the
bandwidth of the amplifier. The last filter blocks any DC that could come from the source so it is a
high-pass filter with corner frequency of 3.4 Hz. It is worth say that because all of this capacitors are
in the signal path they need to be of high quality in order to do not affect the distortion performance,
this is especially valid for C50 which is an electrolytic capacitor that are usually not very linear so it
should be of very high quality.

Figure 74, power amplifier input filter.

79
The function of R109 is to avoid ground loops. Usually an amplifier is inserted into a metal box so
for safe reasons the box must be connected to ground earth, thus all the ground currents of the
amplifier should flow into ground earth, but in an amplifier could happen that some currents starts to
re-circulate locally rather than through ground earth. R109 reduces ground loops by increasing the
loop resistance. The problem with current loops is that they are likely to introduce high quantity of
distortion into the signal, for this reasons the amplifier ground architecture is very important and it
will be discussed on the power supply PCB design.
POWER SUPPLY
The power supply of an amplifier must be as quite as possible especially it should have a negligible
ripple. This characteristic is very important especially for the first two stages of the amplifier. The
power rails of the first two stages are usually filtered with a capacitance multiplier like that of figure
75. R57 with C33 made up a low pass filter to pre-filter the input, the rail then is filtered again by
another low pass filter made up by C34, R58 and R59 with corner frequency of 5Hz. The capacitance
multiplied here is C34, whose value is multiplied by a factor equal to the beta of Q1 in this way the
output sees a capacitance whose value is much greater than that of C34. The function of diodes D1
and D2 is to prevent any voltage reversals on Q1.

Figure 75, capacitance multiplier.
The main power supply of the amplifier is an unregulated one. Unregulated means that the
transformer voltage is rectified and then applied to many capacitor which function is to give current
bursts to the load when needed and to maintain the rail voltage at their nominal value. The current
bursts in fact put a high current demand on the transformer thus loading it and lowering its output
voltage, but if the rails have high value reservoir capacitors then the current required during the
bursts will be provided by the transformer but also by the capacitors thus decreasing the loading on
the transformer. All the signal grounds are connected on the PCB to different traces that joint at the
same point called the star ground. All other grounds are connected outside the star ground, in this
way ground loops are minimized.

8u

MICROCONTROLLER
The project includes an alphanumeric LCD display controlled by a PIC18F2420, other functions of
the microcontroller are loudspeakers protection against DC on outputs by opening the related relays,
mute function, over-temperature protection and bar-graph meter function.
DC PROTECTION

Figure 76 DC protection trigger circuit.
The circuit of figure 76 measures the output DC voltage of the amplifier and if it is too high the
circuit acts by modifying the voltage drop on R114 from 0V to 5V, which then generates an interrupt
on the PIC. R111 and C51 made up a low pass filter with corner frequency of 0.22Hz, so all audio
signals are not processed by the circuit. As for the DC servo for tweeter amplifiers the corner
frequency can be increased to 700Hz to improve safety against high amplitude low frequency
signals, possible values are 10k with 22nF. The diodes are needed to keep both transistors on,
while the function of the zener is to avoid excessive inverse voltages between the base and emitter of
Q29 which will destroy the transistor. The DC trigger voltage is about +/- 2.4V, so when a higher
voltage is present the transistors are turned on so the voltage drop on R112 increases, lowering the
base voltage of Q29 which will turn on it generating almost 5V on the output. V+ and V- are the rail
voltages while the last transistor is connected to the 5V supply of the PIC.
OVER-TEMPERATURE RPOTECTION
Figure 77 shows the over-temperature circuit, the circuit checks the heat-sink temperature and if it
exceeds 70 a signal is sent to the PIC. Transistor Q30 is connected as a diode-connected transistor
so it works like a simple diode, in the schematic it is indicated as a BD135 but any NPN transistor

81
with the screw hole will work. The circuit use the variation of the base to emitter voltage of Q30 to
track the temperature, in fact as temperature rises Vbe decreases at an almost constant rate of

Figure 77 over-temperature protection.
-2.2mV/C. The resistors network is composed of two resistors and a potentiometer Rp whose
function is to perfectly set the trigger temperature. The op.amp. acts like a difference amplifier with
the non-inverting input biased at a set voltage, in this way when the voltage on the + pin is lower
than that at Q30 collector the circuit is inverting so the output saturates at 0V. When the + pin is
higher than Q30 collector then the circuit becomes non-inverting and saturates at about 4V which is
enough to produce a 1 at the PIC input.
BAR-GRAPH METER

The circuit of figure 78 takes the signal from the crossover treble output and accordingly to which
transistor is on a high-pass filter is formed with corner frequency indicated above the related
resistors, the signal then is applied to Q36 which is biased by R137 that keeps it on, so the output of
the filter varies the collector current of Q36 also varying the voltage drop on R138 which is used by
the PIC to display a bar-graph that varies accordingly to the peak voltage of the signal. R121
saturates transistor Q31 while R126 keeps the base of Q31 connected to ground when R121 is
floating. The set switch is a simple 2 way 5 outputs switch that is turned by the user to define both
the treble and bass frequencies. The circuit for the bass bar-graph meter is shown in figure 79.

82

Figure 78 treble bar-graph meter circuit.

Figure 79 bass bar-graph meter circuit.

8S
PIC SOURCE CODE AND FLOW CHART
The microcontroller main program flow chart is shown in figure 80, from it at the start up the
microcontroller checks if all outputs are at 0V and if mute is triggered, then accordingly to the mute
state it turns on the relays or keep them off. If the first DC on outputs condition is not satisfied the
microcontrollers displays a warning signal, then it waits other 3s and if the condition is not met yet
an error message is displayed and the relays keep off. The program is explained in the source code,
low and high priority interrupts are used where a high interrupt is caused by a PORTB pin state
change, which can be caused by any of the protection circuits, while the low priority interrupt is
caused by timer 0 which every 5ms reads the value of the ADC conversion and generates two bars on
the LCD where the first shows bass frequencies while the second treble frequencies.

Figure 80 microcontroller flow chart.
START
INITIALIZE DISPLAY
DELAY 1.5s
CHECK DC ON
OUTPUTS

OUT=0
YES
NO
DC PROTECTION
ACTIVATED
DELAY 3s

OUT=0
NO
SYSTEM
FAILURE
RELAYS OPEN
CHECK MUTE
SWITCH

MUTE=0
NO
YES
MUTE
RELAYS OPEN
CLOSE
RELAYS
END
YES

84
//+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
//
// HI-FI SYSTEM SOURCE CODE
//
//+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
#include <p18f2420.h>
#define LCD_DEFAULT
#include <LCD_44780.h>
#include <delay.h>
// the clock is configured at high speed HS with a crystal of 4MHz
// the watchdog timer is disabled
// LVP disabled
// analog inputs disabled
#pragma config OSC = HS
#pragma config WDT = OFF
#pragma config LVP = OFF
#pragma config PBADEN = OFF
//global variables
int a,b,outputbass,outputtreble;
char j=0xFF;
int bass,treble;
int c,d,g,h,i,l;
double k,firstbass,firsttreble;
// interrupt functions declaration
// low priority interrupt

8S
void Low_Int_Event (void);
// high priority interrupt
void High_Int_Event (void);
// high priority function
// when an interrupt is generated this instruction is executed, which then executes
// the code present at High_Int_Event
#pragma code high_vector = 0x08
void high_interrupt (void) {
_asm GOTO High_Int_Event _endasm
}
#pragma code
#pragma interrupt High_Int_Event
// high priority function
void High_Int_Event (void) {
// check if interrupt has been provoked by PORTB pin change
if (INTCONbits.RBIF == 1 ) {
ClearLCD();
// check if over-temperature is triggered i.e. 1
if(PORTBbits.RB5==1) {
ClearLCD();
// open relays
PORTBbits.RB0=0;
// turn on backlight
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
ShiftCursorLCD(1,9);
WriteStringLCD("HEAT-SINK OVER-TEMPERATURE");
}

86
// check if DC protection is triggered i.e. 1
ClearLCD();
// open relays
PORTBbits.RB0=0;
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
WriteStringLCD("DC PROTECTION ACTIVATED");
}
// check if mute is activated
if(PORTBbits.RB7==1){
// stop timer
T0CONbits.TMR0ON = 0;
ClearLCD();
// open relays
PORTBbits.RB0=0;
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
WriteStringLCD("MUTE");
}
// close relays if nothing is activated
if(PORTBbits.RB5==0 && PORTBbits.RB6==0 && PORTBbits.RB7==0) {
// turn off backlight
PORTCbits.RC7=0;
// close relays

87
PORTBbits.RB0=1;
}
// reset interrupt flag bit
INTCONbits.RBIF = 0;
INTCONbits.RBIE = 1;
}
}
// low priority function
#pragma code low_vector = 0x18
void low_interrupt (void) {
_asm GOTO Low_Int_Event _endasm
}
#pragma code
#pragma interruptlow Low_Int_Event

// low priority function
void Low_Int_Event (void) {
// check if timer interrupt
if(INTCONbits.TMR0IF == 1){
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
// number of characters to display calculation
k=4.8828125;
outputbass=(k*bass)/100;
firstbass= (outputbass/10)*20;
outputtreble=(k*treble)/100;
firsttreble= (outputtreble/10)*20;

88
// bass bar-graph
if(firstbass>=0){
ClearLCD();
WriteStringLCD("bass");
// write character j into LCD firstbass times
for(a=0;a<firstbass;a++){
WriteCharLCD(j);
}
ClearLCD();
}
// treble bar-graph
if(firsttreble>=0){
HomeLCD();
// go to LCD line 2
Line2LCD();
WriteStringLCD("treble");
// write character j into LCD firsttreble times
for(b=0;b<firsttreble;b++){
WriteCharLCD(j);
}
ClearLCD();
}
// reset interrupt flag bit
INTCONbits.TMR0IF = 0;
INTCONbits.TMR0IE = 1;

89
// reset timer
TMR0H = 0b11101100;
TMR0L = 0b01111000;
}
}
// main program
void main(){
// ports setup
LATA=0X00;
TRISA=0b11000011;
LATB=0x00;
TRISB=0b11111110;
LATC=0X00;
TRISC=0x00;
// lcd initialization 4MHz
OpenLCD(4);
ClearLCD();
// backlight on
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
// HI-FI start message
// each letter enters from left and moves right until it reaches the final position
for(i=0;i<22;i++){
ClearLCD();
ShiftCursorLCD(1,i);
WriteCharLCD('I');
delay_ms(50);
}

9u
for(g=0;g<21;g++){
ClearLCD();
WriteCharLCD('I');
HomeLCD();
ShiftCursorLCD(1,g);
WriteCharLCD('F');
delay_ms(50);
}
for(h=0;h<20;h++){
ClearLCD();
WriteStringLCD("FI");
HomeLCD();
ShiftCursorLCD(1,h);
WriteCharLCD('-');
delay_ms(50);
}
for(c=0;c<19;c++){
ClearLCD();
WriteStringLCD("-FI");
HomeLCD();
ShiftCursorLCD(1,c);
WriteCharLCD('I');
delay_ms(50);
}

91
for(d=0;d<19;d++){
ClearLCD();
WriteStringLCD("I-FI");
HomeLCD();
ShiftCursorLCD(1,d);
WriteCharLCD('H');
delay_ms(50);
}
// 1.5s delay
delay_ms(1500);
// registers set
// interrupt registers
// port B input change interrupt high priority
// timer 0 interrupt low priority
RCONbits.IPEN = 1;
INTCONbits.GIE = 1;
INTCONbits.GIEH = 1;
INTCONbits.PEIE = 1;
INTCONbits.RBIE = 1;
INTCON2bits.RBIP = 1;
// timer registers
// 16 bit timer
T0CONbits.T08BIT = 0;
// internal clock
T0CONbits.T0CS = 0;
// prescaler

92
T0CONbits.PSA = 1;
// timer interrupts
INTCON2bits.TMR0IP = 0;
INTCONbits.TMR0IE = 1;
// timer setup 5ms
// a low priority interrupt is generated every 5ms
TMR0H = 0b11101100;
TMR0L = 0b01111000;
// ADC registers
// AN0-AN1 analog inputs
// VREF = ground and VCC
ADCON1 = 0b00001101;
// stop timer
// check DC on outputs
ClearLCD();
// keep relays open
PORTBbits.RB0=0;
HomeLCD();
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
WriteStringLCD("DC PROTECTION ACTIVATED");
// wait 3s
delay_ms(1500);

9S
delay_ms(1500);
// check again DC on outputs
ClearLCD();
// keep relays open
PORTBbits.RB0=0;
// turn on back light
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
WriteStringLCD("SYSTEM FAILURE DC PROTECTION ACTIVATED");
}
}
// check over-temperature
ClearLCD();
// check mute switch
// keep relays open
PORTBbits.RB0=0;
// turn on back light
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
WriteStringLCD("HEAT-SINK OVER-TEMPERATURE");
}
// check if everything is right
ClearLCD();
// turn off backlight and turn on relays

94
PORTCbits.RC7=0;
LATB=0b00000001;
}
// check if mute is activated
ClearLCD();
// turn off relays
PORTBbits.RB0=0;
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
WriteStringLCD("MUTE");
}
while (1) {
// check if bar-graph mode is activated
if(PORTBbits.RB1==1 && PORTBbits.RB7==0 && PORTBbits.RB6==0 &&
PORTBbits.RB5==0) {
// activate timer
PORTCbits.RC7=1;
// AN1 selected as input
ADCON0 = 0b00000100;
// acquisition time 4us with 4Tad and Fosc/4
ADCON2 = 0b10010100;
// ADC enabled
ADCON0bits.ADON = 0x01;
// conversion start

9S
ADCON0bits.GO = 1;
// wait end of conversion
while(ADCON0bits.GO);
// conversion value
bass = ((((int) ADRESH) << 8) | ADRESL);
// AN0 selected as input
ADCON0 = 0b00000000;
// acquisition time 4us with 2Tad and Fosc/2
ADCON2 = 0b10010100;
// ADC enabled
ADCON0bits.ADON = 0x01;
// conversion start
ADCON0bits.GO = 1;
// wait end of conversion
while(ADCON0bits.GO);
// conversion value
treble = ((((int) ADRESH) << 8) | ADRESL);
}
else {
// stop timer
}
// if everything normal turn off backlight
if (PORTBbits.RB1==0 && PORTBbits.RB7==0 && PORTBbits.RB6==0 &&
PORTBbits.RB5==0) {
PORTCbits.RC7=0;
}}}

96
SCHEMATICS AND PCBs

The schematics presented here are built with the scope of minimizing noise and distortion, so the rail
lines are, when possible, close to cancel the magnetic fields produced by each one, the ground traces
are thick and in the amplifiers multiple grounds are used to avoid ground loops, all of these grounds
then connect to the star ground of the power supply. To avoid half wave rectified currents reach the
first two stages, the output stage has its own power supply lines, in this way is possible to use busted
power supply rails for the first two stages thus increasing the clipping point.

I
C
1
I
C
2
I
C
5
I
C
3
I
C
4
I
C
6
I
C
7
I C 8
I
C
9
T
T
C1
C2
C13
C
3
C4
C18
C17
R1
R2
R3
R4
R18
R14
R15
R24
R
1
9
R
2
0
R21
C15
C
1
4
C
1
6
R
2
3
R
2
2
C6
R6
R7
C7
R8
C
8
C
5
R5
R
1
7
C9
R9
R
1
0
R11
C111
C12
R12
R16
VIN
POT1L
POT1C
POT1R
POT3L
POT3R
POT3C
POT2C
POT2L
POT2R
POT4L POT4C
POT4R
POT5L POT5C POT5R
POT6C POTCL
POTCR
V+15
V-15
C11
GND
VINGND
C19
C200
C
2
2
C
2
3
C24
C
2
5
C
2
6
C27
C29
C30
C
2
8
R255
R26
R
2
7
R
2
8
R29
R32
R
3
4
R35
R42
R44
R
4
6
R47
R
4
8
R37
R39
R38
BASS
C
1
9
9
C20
R30
R31
C
2
1
OUTPREAMP
C
1
0
R40
R41
R43
R
4
5
C
3
1
C
3
2
R50
R
5
2
R
5
4
R
5
5
R56
R49
R
5
1
R
5
3
TREBLE
R
3
3
R36
R25
Crossover and preamplifier.
Preamplifier and crossover schematic.
97

N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
G
N
D
5
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
N
E
5
5
3
2
D
C1
C
2
C
1
3
C
3
C
4
C18 C17
R
1
R2
R3
R4
I
C
1
A
2 3
1
I
C
1
B
6 5
7
R18
R
1
4
R
1
5
R24
I
C
2
A
2 3
1
I
C
2
B
6 5
7
I
C
5
A
2 3
1
I
C
5
B
6 5
7
R19
R
2
0
R
2
1 C15
C
1
4
C16
R
2
3
R22
C6
R6
R7
C7
R8
C
8
C5
R5
R
1
7
C9
R9
R
1
0
R11
C
1
1
1
C12
R12
R
1
6
I
C
3
A
2 3
1
I
C
3
B
6 5
7
V
I
N
POT1L
POT1C
P
O
T
1
R
POT3L
POT3R
POT3C POT2C
POT2L
POT2R
POT4L
POT4C
POT4R
P
O
T
5
L
P
O
T
5
C
P
O
T
5
R
POT6C
POTCL
POTCR
V
+
1
5
V
-
1
5
C
1
1
G
N
D
V
I
N
G
N
D
C19
C200
C
2
2
C
2
3
C
2
4
C
2
5
C26
C27
C29
C30
C28
R255
R26
R
2
7
R
2
8
R
2
9
R
3
2
R34
R35
R
4
2
R
4
4
R
4
6
R
4
7
R
4
8
R
3
7
R39
R
3
8
B
A
S
S
C199
C20
R
3
0
R
3
1
I
C
4
A
2 3
1
I
C
4
B
6 5
7
C
2
1
OUTPREAMP
C
1
0
R40
R
4
1
R
4
3
R
4
5
C31
C32
R
5
0
R
5
2
R
5
4
R
5
5
R
5
6
R
4
9
R
5
1
R
5
3
T
R
E
B
L
E
8 4
8 4
8 4
8 4
8 4
8 4
8 4
8 4
8 4
R33
R36
R25
I
C
7
A
2 3
1
I
C
7
B
6 5
7
I
C
6
A
2 3
1
I
C
6
B
6 5
7
I
C
8
A
2 3
1
I
C
8
B
6 5
7
I
C
9
A
2 3
1
I
C
9
B
6 5
7
+
+
+ +
+
+
+
+
+
+

98

1N4933 1N49332
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
B
D
1
3
9
2
N
3
9
0
6
B
D
1
4
0
I
R
F
P
2
5
3
I
R
F
P
2
5
3
1
N
4
9
3
3
1
N
4
9
3
3
4
N
3
5
lo
u
d
s
p
e
a
k
e
r

g
r
o
u
n
g
s
ig
n
a
l
g
r
o
u
n
d
p
o
w
e
r

g
r
o
u
n
d
V
+
1N4933
1N4933 1N4933
V
-
1N4933
O
P
A
1
3
4
D
+
1
5
-
1
5
in
p
u
t
in
p
u
t

g
r
o
u
n
d
2
N
3
9
0
6
T
I
C
2
2
5
S
R
5
7
R58 R59
R
6
0
R77
R78
D1 D2
Q
1
Q
5
Q
6
Q
9
R65
R66
R67
R
6
8
R
6
9
R
7
0
R
7
2
R
7
3
R
7
6
R79
R81
R80
R83
R82
R21
R91
R86
R87
R88
R26
R90 R89
Q
7
Q
8
Q
4
Q
2
Q
3
Q
1
1
Q
1
0
Q
1
6
Q
1
5
Q
1
4
Q
1
3
Q
1
7
Q
1
8
Q
2
2
Q
2
1
Q
1
9
Q
2
0 R
8
9
9 A
E
S
R
7
5
R74
Q
2
4
Q
2
5
Q
2
3
Q
2
6
R95
R96
M
2
M
1
D
5
D
6
O
K
1
1 2
6 4 5
R100
R94
R
5
7
7
R
5
7
7
7
R
5
7
7
7
7
R
5
7
7
7
7
7
R71
R
1
0
8
R107
C
4
9
C44
C43
C41
C42
C
4
7
R104
R
1
0
5
PAD1
PAD2
P
A
D
3
P
A
D
4
P
A
D
6
R102 R103
P
A
D
5
C
3
3
P
A
D
8
P
A
D
9
D7
R
6
1
R62 R63
R
6
4
D4 D3
R
6
1
1
R
6
1
1
1
R
6
1
1
1
1
R
6
1
1
1
1
1
P
A
D
1
0
D8
R84
R
8
5
R110
C39
C
4
0
I
C
1
8
1
2 3
6
5
7 4
P
A
D
7
P
A
D
1
1
R106
C
4
8
P
A
D
1
2
P
A
D
1
3
R109
C
3
4
C
3
5
C
3
6
Q
1
2
C
3
7
C
3
8
R
9
7
R
9
8
R101 R99
C
4
6
C
4
5
C50
T
1
P
A
D
1
4
P
A
D
1
5
P
A
D
1
6
+ +
+
+ +
+
+
Amplifier schematic.

99

Vin
in gnd
s
i
g

g
n
d
+
1
5

-
1
5
l
d
s

g
n
d
V
o
u
t
p
o
w
e
r

g
n
d
mains and chassis earth
o
p

a
m
p

g
n
d
V
+
V
+
V
-
V
-
Amplifier PCB.

1uu

Vin
in gnd
s
i
g

g
n
d
+
1
5

-
1
5
l
d
s

g
n
d
V
o
u
t
p
o
w
e
r

g
n
d
o
p

a
m
p

g
n
d
V
+
V
+
V
-
V
-
OPA134D
IC1
Vin
in gnd
s
i
g

g
n
d
+
1
5

-
1
5
l
d
s

g
n
d
V
o
u
t
p
o
w
e
r

g
n
d
o
p

a
m
p

g
n
d
V
+
V
+
V
-
V
-
2
1
6
1
1
W
5W
5
W
5
W
2
3
1
2
3 1
2
3
1
2
3
1
1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3 1
2
3
2
3
1
2
3
1
1
2
3
1
2
3
2
3
1
2
3 1
1
2
3
1
2
3
2
3 1
2
3 1
2
3 1
2
3 1
2
3
1
1 2 3
1
2
3
1 2 3
1
2
3
R57
R58
R59
R60
R77
R78
D1
D
2
Q
1
Q5
Q
6
Q
9
R
6
5
R
6
6
R67
R68
R
6
9
R70
R
7
2
R73
R76
R79
R81
R
8
0
R83
R82
R
2
1
R91
R86
R87
R88
R
2
6
R90
R
8
9
Q7
Q
8
Q
4
Q2 Q3
Q
1
1
Q
1
0
Q
1
6
Q15
Q
1
4
Q13
Q17
Q
1
8
Q22
Q21
Q19
Q20
R899
R75
R74
Q
2
4
Q25
Q23
Q26
R95
R96
M2 M1
D
5
D6
O
K
1
R100
R94
R577
R5777
R57777
R577777
R71
R108 R107
C
4
9
C44
C
4
3
C
4
1
C42
C
4
7
R
1
0
4
R105
P
A
D
1
P
A
D
2
P
A
D
3
P
A
D
4
P
A
D
6
R
1
0
2
R
1
0
3
PAD5
C33
P
A
D
8
P
A
D
9
D7
R
6
1
R
6
2
R
6
3
R
6
4
D
4
D3
R
6
1
1
R
6
1
1
1
R
6
1
1
1
1
R
6
1
1
1
1
1
P
A
D
1
0
D
8
R84
R
8
5
R110
C39
C
4
0
PAD7 PAD11
R
1
0
6
C
4
8
PAD12
PAD13
R109
C34
C
3
5 C
3
6
Q
1
2
C37
C
3
8
R97
R98
R101
R99
C46
C45
C50
T1
P
A
D
1
4
P
A
D
1
5
P
A
D
1
6
1N4933
1
N
4
9
3
3
2
N
3
9
0
4
2N3904
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2N3906
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
2N3906 2N3906
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
2N3906
2
N
3
9
0
4
2N3904
2N3906
2
N
3
9
0
6
2N3904
2N3904
2N3904
2N3904
2
N
3
9
0
4
BD139
2N3906
BD140
IRFP253 IRFP253
1
N
4
9
3
3
1N4933
4N35
1N4933
1
N
4
9
3
3
1N4933
1
N
4
9
3
3
2
N
3
9
0
6
TIC225S
Amplifier bridges and components.

1u1

L
M
3
4
0
H
-
1
2
3
3
7
T
1N4004 1N4004
1N4004 1N4004
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
1N40041N4004
1N40041N4004
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
L
M
3
4
0
H
-
1
2
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
B
1
AC1 AC2
-
+ B
2
AC1 AC2
-
+
C
6
5
C
6
6
C
6
4
C
6
3
C
9
7
I
C
1
G
N
D
V
I
1
2
V
O
3
I
C
2
A
D
J
V
I
2
1
V
O
3
C
9
5
C
9
6
D30 D31
D32 D33
D34 D35
D36 D37
C
9
9
C
1
0
0
C
1
0
1
C
6
7
C
6
9
C
7
0
C
6
8
C
7
1
C
7
2
C
7
3
C
7
4
C
7
5
C
7
6
C
8
1
C
8
2
C
8
3
C
8
4
C
8
5
C
8
6
C
8
7
C
8
8
C
8
9
C
9
0
C
9
4
C
9
8
C
1
0
4
I
C
3
G
N
D
V
I
1
2
V
O
3
C
1
0
2
C
1
0
3
V+1
V+2
V+3
V+4
V+5
V+6
V+7
V+8
V-1
V-2
V-3
V-4
V-5
V-6
V-7
V-8
-15V1
-15V3
-15V2
-15V4
-15V5
-15V6
-15V7
-15V8
-15V9 15V9
15V7
15V8
15V6
15V5
15V4
15V3
15V2
15V1
V-9
V-10
V-11
V-12
V+9
V+10
V+11
V+12
5V4
5V2
5V3
5V1
GND1
GND2
GND3
GND4
GND5
GND6
GND7
GND8
GND9
GND10
GND11
GND12
GND13
GND14
GND15
GND16
GND17
GND18
GND19
GND20
GND21
GND22
GND23
GND34
C
7
8
C
9
1
C
9
2
C
7
9
C
8
0
C
9
3
CAP1
CAP2-
X
1
-
1
X
1
-
2
X
1
-
3
CAP1-
CAP2
F
1
F
2
F
3
F
4
F
5
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ +
+ +
+ +
C
E
N
T
R
A
L

T
A
P
E
Power supply schematic.

1u2

G N D
V +
V -
5 V
+ 1 5 V
-
1
5
V
A
U
D
I
O

G
N
D
S
U
B

C
I
R

G
N
D
G N D
V +
V -
5 V
+ 1 5 V
-
1
5
V
A
U
D
I
O

G
N
D
S
U
B

C
I
R

G
N
D
1
2
3
B1
B2
C65
C
6
6
C64
C
6
3
C97
IC1
IC2
C95
C96
D30
D31
D32
D33
D
3
4
D
3
5
D
3
6
D
3
7
C99
C
1
0
0
C101
C67
C69
C70
C68
C71
C72
C73
C74
C75
C76
C81
C82
C83
C84
C85
C86
C87
C88
C89
C90
C94
C
9
8
C104
IC3
C
1
0
2
C103
V+1 V+2 V+3 V+4 V+5 V+6 V+7 V+8
V-1
V-2
V-3
V-4
V-5 V-6 V-7
V-8
-
1
5
V
1
-
1
5
V
3-
1
5
V
2
-
1
5
V
4 -
1
5
V
5 -
1
5
V
6 -
1
5
V
7 -
1
5
V
8-
1
5
V
9
15V9 15V7 15V8 15V6 15V5 15V4 15V3 15V215V1
V-9
V-10
V-11 V-12
V+9V+10V+11V+12
5V4 5V2 5V3 5V1
GND1
GND2 GND3
GND4
GND5
GND6
GND7
GND8
GND9
GND10
GND11
GND12
GND13
GND14
GND15
GND16
GND17
GND18
GND19
GND20
GND21
GND22
GND23
GND34
C78
C91
C92
C79
C80
C93
CAP1
CAP2-
X
1
CAP1-
CAP2
F1
F2
F
3
F
4
F5
LM340H-12
337T
1N4004
1N4004
1N4004
1N4004
1
N
4
0
0
4
1
N
4
0
0
4
1
N
4
0
0
4
1
N
4
0
0
4
LM340H-12
Power supply bridges and components.

1uS

G N D
V +
V -
5 V
+ 1 5 V
-
1
5
V
A
U
D
I
O

G
N
D
S
U
B

C
I
R

G
N
D
Amplifier PCB.

1u4

+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
1
N
4
0
0
4
1N4004
1
N
4
0
0
4
1N4004
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
6
A
G
N
D
BZV10
A
G
N
D
V
+
V
-
+
5
V
1
N
4
0
0
4
1N4004
1
N
4
0
0
4
1N4004
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
6
A
G
N
D
BZV10
A
G
N
D
V
+
V
-
+
5
V
1
N
4
0
0
4
1N4004
1
N
4
0
0
4
1N4004
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
6
A
G
N
D
BZV10
A
G
N
D
V
+
V
-
+
5
V
1
N
4
0
0
4
1N4004
1
N
4
0
0
4
1N4004
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
6
A
G
N
D
BZV10
A
G
N
D
V
+
V
-
+
5
V
7
4
L
S
3
2
N
7
4
L
S
3
2
N
7
4
L
S
3
2
N
E
3
2
0
6
S
E
3
2
0
6
S
E
3
2
0
6
S
E
3
2
0
6
S
+
5
V
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
V
+
V
-
D
1
4
D15
D
1
6
D17 Q
4
3
Q
4
4
R154
C
5
8
R
1
5
3
R
1
5
5
Q
4
5
R156
D18
D
2
4
D25
D
2
6
D27 Q
4
9
Q
5
0
R163
C
6
0
R
1
6
2
R
1
6
4
Q
5
1
R165
D28
D
9
D10
D
1
1
D12 Q
2
7
Q
2
8
R112
C
5
1
R
1
1
1
R
1
1
3
Q
2
9
R114
D13
D
1
9
D20
D
2
1
D22 Q
4
6
Q
4
7
R159
C
5
9
R
1
5
8
R
1
6
0
Q
4
8
R161
D23
I
C
3
A
1 2
3
I
C
3
B
4 5
6
I
C
3
C
9
1
0
8
I
C
3
P
GND VCC
7 14
K
1
2 1
K
1
O
S
P
K
2
2 1
K
2
O
S
P
K
3
2 1
K
3
O
S
P
K
4
2 1
K
4
O
S
P
PAD22
P
A
D
2
3
PAD25
P
A
D
2
6
P
A
D
2
8
P
A
D
3
0
PAD31
PAD32
R157
P
A
D
3
5
P
A
D
3
6
P
A
D
1
5
G
N
D
1
5
V
1
V+1
V-1
O
U
T
P
U
T

R
E
L
A
Y
S
D
C

O
N

O
U
T
P
U
T
S

C
H
E
C
K

C
I
R
C
U
I
T
P
A
D
S

2
3

2
6

2
8

3
0

T
O

A
M
P

O
U
T
P
U
T
S
P
A
D
S

2
2

2
5

3
2

3
1

T
O

L
O
U
D
S
P
E
A
K
E
R
S

+
Relays schematic.

1uS

D 1 4
D 1 5
D
1
6
D
1
7
Q
4
3
Q
4
4
R 1 5 4
C
5
8
R
1
5
3
R 1 5 5
Q
4
5
R 1 5 6
D 1 8
D 2 4
D 2 5
D
2
6
D
2
7
Q
4
9
Q
5
0
R 1 6 3
C
6
0
R
1
6
2
R 1 6 4
Q
5
1
R 1 6 5
D 2 8
D
9
D
1
0
D 1 1
D 1 2
Q 2 7
Q 2 8
R
1
1
2
C 5 1
R 1 1 1
R
1
1
3 Q 2 9
R
1
1
4
D
1
3
D 1 9
D 2 0
D
2
1
D
2
2
Q
4
6
Q
4
7
R 1 5 9
C
5
9
R
1
5
8
R 1 6 0 Q
4
8
R 1 6 1
D 2 3
I
C
3
K
1
K 2
K 3
K
4
P A D 2 2
P A D 2 3
P
A
D
2
5
P
A
D
2
6
P
A
D
2
8
P A D 3 0 P A D 3 1 P
A
D
3
2
R
1
5
7
P A D 3 5
P A D 3 6
P A D 1 5
G N D 1
5 V 1
V + 1
V - 1
1 N 4 0 0 4
1 N 4 0 0 4
1
N
4
0
0
4
1
N
4
0
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
B Z V 1 0
1 N 4 0 0 4
1 N 4 0 0 4
1
N
4
0
0
4
1
N
4
0
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
B Z V 1 0
1
N
4
0
0
4
1
N
4
0
0
4
1 N 4 0 0 4
1 N 4 0 0 4
2 N 3 9 0 4 2 N 3 9 0 6
2 N 3 9 0 6
B
Z
V
1
0
1 N 4 0 0 4
1 N 4 0 0 4
1
N
4
0
0
4
1
N
4
0
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
6
2
N
3
9
0
6
B Z V 1 0
7 4 L S 3 2 N
E 3 2 0 6 S
E
3
2
0
6
S
E
3
2
0
6
S
E 3 2 0 6 S
Relays PCBs.

1u6

P
I
C
1
8
F
2
4
5
5
_
2
8
D
I
P
4MHz
15pF 15pf
A
G
N
D
1
0
k
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
+5V/1
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
A
G
N
D
+
5
V
/
1
2
N
3
9
0
4
A
G
N
D
+
5
V
/
1
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
4
A
G
N
D
A
G
N
D
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
4
1N4004
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
2
N
3
9
0
4
A
G
N
D
+
5
V
/
1
2
N
3
9
0
4
A
G
N
D
+
5
V
/
1
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
L
M
3
5
8
N
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
+
5
V
/
1
+
5
V
/
1
+
5
V
/
1
+
5
V
/
1
A
G
N
D
I
C
1
R
C
7
/
R
X
/
D
T
/
S
D
O
1
8
V
S
S
8
V
D
D
2
0
R
B
0
/
A
N
1
2
/
I
N
T
0
/
L
F
T
0
/
S
D
I
/
S
D
A
2
1
R
B
1
/
A
N
1
0
/
I
N
T
1
/
S
C
K
/
S
C
L
2
2
R
B
2
/
A
N
8
/
I
N
T
2
/
V
M
O
2
3
R
B
3
/
A
N
9
/
C
C
P
2
/
V
P
O
2
4
R
B
4
/
A
N
1
1
/
K
B
I
0
/
C
S
S
P
P
2
5
R
B
5
/
K
B
I
1
/
P
G
M
2
6
R
B
6
/
K
B
I
2
/
P
G
C
2
7
R
B
7
/
B
K
I
3
/
P
G
D
2
8
M
C
L
R
/
V
P
P
/
R
E
3
1
R
A
0
/
A
N
0
2
R
A
1
/
A
N
1
3
R
A
2
/
A
N
2
/
V
R
E
F
-
/
C
V
R
E
F
4
R
A
3
/
A
N
3
/
V
R
E
F
+
5
R
A
4
/
T
0
C
K
I
/
C
I
O
U
T
/
R
C
V
6
R
A
5
/
A
N
4
/
S
S
/
H
L
V
D
I
N
/
C
2
O
U
T
7
V
S
S
1
9
O
S
C
1
/
C
L
K
I
9
R
A
6
/
O
S
C
2
/
C
L
K
O
1
0
R
C
0
/
T
I
O
S
O
/
T
1
3
C
K
I
1
1
R
C
1
/
T
1
O
S
I
/
I
C
C
P
2
/
U
O
E
1
2
R
C
2
/
C
C
P
1
/
P
1
A
1
3
V
U
S
B
1
4
R
C
4
/
D
-
/
V
M
1
5
R
C
5
/
D
+
/
V
P
1
6
R
C
6
/
T
X
/
C
K
1
7
Q1
2 1
C62 C61
R
1
6
6
PAD1
P
A
D
2
R137
R
1
3
6
R132
R131
R
1
2
1
R
1
2
2
Q
3
1
Q
3
2
Q
3
6
R138
C52
P
A
D
3
P
A
D
4
P
A
D
5
R151
R
1
5
0
Q
4
2
R152
R134
R133
R
1
2
4
R
1
2
3
Q
3
3
Q
3
4
P
A
D
9
P
A
D
1
0
R135
Q
3
5
R
1
2
5
P
A
D
1
3
R
1
4
0
R
1
4
1
Q
3
7
Q
3
8
P
A
D
6
P
A
D
7
P
A
D
8
R
1
4
3
R
1
4
2
Q
3
9
Q
4
0
P
A
D
1
1
P
A
D
1
2
Q
4
1
R
1
4
4
P
A
D
1
4
R
1
3
9
C
5
7
C
5
6
C
5
5
C
5
4
C
5
3
R149
R148
R146
R147
R145
R130
R129
R127
R128
R126
P
A
D
1
9
R167
PAD20
R
1
6
8
R169
Q
5
3
D29
P
A
D
2
1
R170
PAD24
Q
5
2
R
1
7
1
P
A
D
2
7
P
A
D
2
9
Q
3
0
R
1
1
5
R116
R117 R118
RP
A E
S
I
C
2
A
2 3
1
8 4
R
1
1
9
R
1
2
0
P
A
D
3
3
P
A
D
3
4
G
N
D
5
V
P
A
D
3
7
P
A
D
3
8
S
V
2
1 3 5
2 4 6
7 9 1
1
8
1
0
1
2
1
4
1
3
P
A
D
1
6
R
E
S
E
T

M
U
T
E
B
A
C
K
L
I
G
H
T
B
A
R

G
R
A
P
H

M
E
T
E
R

S
W
I
T
C
H
B
A
R

G
R
A
P
H

M
E
T
E
R

C
I
R
C
U
I
T
L
C
D

C
O
N
N
E
C
T
O
R
O
V
E
R
-
T
E
M
P
E
R
A
T
U
R
E

C
I
R
C
U
I
T
t
o

r
e
l
a
y
s
t
o

7
4
3
2

o
u
t
p
u
t
PIC schematics.

1u7

1
14
IC1
Q
1
C
6
2
C
6
1
R166
P
A
D
1
P
A
D
2
R137
R136
R132
R131
R
1
2
1
R
1
2
2
Q31 Q32
Q36
R
1
3
8
C52
PAD3
PAD4 PAD5
R
1
5
1
R150
Q
4
2
R152
R134
R133
R
1
2
4
R
1
2
3
Q33 Q34
PAD9
PAD10
R135
Q35
R
1
2
5
PAD13
R140
R141
Q
3
7
Q
3
8
PAD6
PAD7
PAD8
R143
R142
Q
3
9
Q
4
0
PAD11
PAD12
Q
4
1
R144
PAD14
R139
C57
C56
C55
C54
C53
R149
R148
R146
R147
R145
R
1
3
0
R
1
2
9
R
1
2
7
R
1
2
8
R
1
2
6
P
A
D
1
9
R
1
6
7
P
A
D
2
0
R168
R
1
6
9
Q
5
3
D
2
9
P
A
D
2
1
R170
P
A
D
2
4
Q
5
2
R171
P
A
D
2
7
P
A
D
2
9
Q30
R115
R116
R117 R
1
1
8
R
P
IC2
R119
R120
PAD33
PAD34 G
N
D
5
V
P
A
D
3
7
P
A
D
3
8
SV2
P
A
D
1
6
P
I
C
1
8
F
2
4
5
5
_
2
8
D
I
P 4
M
H
z
1
5
p
F
1
5
p
f
10k
2N3904 2N3904
2N3904
2
N
3
9
0
4
2N3904 2N3904
2N3904
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
1
N
4
0
0
4
2
N
3
9
0
4
2N3904
L
M
3
5
8
N
PIC PCBs.

1u8

109
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The PCBs have been designed with the scope of using as much as possible the components I had so
reducing the overall cost which is still high. From the schematics is possible to see that some
components are different than that described, this is so because the PCB software I used does not
have all the right components so I used others with the same footprint, therefore to see all the right
components refer to LTspice circuits figures. At the time of writing only one channel of the HI-FI
system is completed and built, to see it working watch this video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GNI0hrs_nPc#!
Considering that the loudspeakers used are not of high quality the amplifier sounds good, a special
thanks to the users of diyaudio.com who helped me with the dimension of the loudspeakers enclosure
because I did not have the Thiele small signal parameter so I had to calculate them. The relays have
their own PCB with the DC protection circuits, I did so because the PIC PCB will be near the front
panel of the amplifier while the relays will be near the amplifiers on the back panel thus there is no
need to run long wires from the amplifiers to the PCB which will be likely to pick up distortion and
generate crosstalk.

Notice:

No responsibility is assumed by the author for any injury and/or damage to persons or
property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation
of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein.

Lucchi Davide
3/3/2013 Italy

Design of A Power HI-FI System

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Design of A Power HI-FI System

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1

You might also like