The Sound of Silence

The Sound of Silence

Burkhard Vogel The Sound of Silence Lowest-Noise RIAA Phono-Amps: Designer s Guide 123

Dipl.-Ing. Burkhard Vogel BUVOCON-Burkhard Vogel Consult GmbH 70180 Stuttgart, Germany ISBN 978-3-540-76883-8 e-isbn 978-3-540-76884-5 DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-76884-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2007943155 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Coverdesign: WMX Design GmbH, Heidelberg Production: le-tex publishing services ohg, Leipzig Printed on acid-free paper 987654321 springer.com

To Beate

Noise analysis can be a daunting task at first and is an unfamiliar territory for many design engineers. Glen Brisebois Design note 355 Linear Technology Noise it s the amplifier s tinnitus! No chance to fight it! A valve enthusiastic ENT doc in a discussion with the author 2006 A kingdom for a piece of wire with gain! Frustrated design engineer

Preface It is still a challenge to develop a low-noise amplifier despite the fact that nowadays (2007) nearly every solution of an electronic question of the consumer world can be solved by digital means. There is a wide field of tasks left that can only be satisfyingly attacked with the help of old-fashioned analogue technology: sensors that are coupled to the existing and living world around us are always confronted with analogue signals. Those in most cases tiny signals have to be amplified and treated with unbelievably high electronic care. Therefore, frustration on noisy devices should always be turned around into motivation for the search of nearly noiseless solutions! As a producer of such tiny analogue signals the vinyl record (33 1/3 LPand 45 Single/Maxi) is a typical representative of our yesterday 20th century life. Despite the nearly 100% digitization of the consumer world it is still alive with growing sales revenues around the world. One should expect that all secrets of the amplifier chain that transfers the signals out of the record s grooves to our ears are well known. Yes and no! Much is written about distortion, overload matters, noise, phase angles, frequency response, etc 1. Most technical aspects of amplifiers and sensors were well described. But simple questions like e.g.: my moving-magnet cartridge how much noise does it produce? or what s the signal-to-noise-ratio (SN) of my phono-amp after A-weighting? are still not that easy to answer today. World-wide, mathematics is the only language that can be understood by nearly everybody, assumed that there exists a certain talent for it, and, not to forget, the right software for calculations. In this book calculations were all carried out with MathCad 2. An easy to get for free simulation software would help as well, e.g. MicroSim v8.0 3 but, not to increase the necessity for the use of various softwares, this simulation software is not essential to understand and follow the mathematical courses. 1 Inter alia: Self on Audio, Douglas Self 2000, Newnes, UK, ISBN 0-7506 4765 5 2 MathSoft Inc., USA 3 MicroSim Corp., USA (see also footnote 3 on page 17) ix

x Preface Therefore, for mathematics-refusal-free and ambitious amateurs and/or students who want to design their own amplifier for specific cartridges this book will find answers to such simple questions and many others concerning RIAA phono-amps! It s also a collection of articles which were published in a more condensed form in the British magazine ELECTRONICS WORLD (EW, formerly called Electronics World and Wireless World (EW+WW) or Wireless World (WW) ). As a consequence, the content of this book will lead to affordable amplifier design approaches which will end up in lowest-noise solutions not far away from the edge of physical boundaries set by room temperature and given cartridges thus, fully compatible with very expensive so called high-end or state-of-the-art offers on today markets and, from a noise point of view in most cases outperforming them! With easy to follow mathematical treatment it will be demonstrated as well that theory is not far away from reality. Measured SNs will be found within 1 db off the calculated ones and deviations from the exact amplifier transfer won t cross the ±0.1 db tolerance lines. Additionally, measurement set-ups and results will be presented and comparisons with measurement results of test magazine will soon become easier to perform. Last remark: the presented electronic circuits do not contain extra made or extremely expensive components. They all can be found at component dealers worldwide. Very last remark: I guess that creativity does not mean to reinvent the wheel again nor to find out absolutely new things. In many cases it s nothing else but simply rearranging well known parts. Therefore, when I started developing the many circuit schemes presented in this book Okham s Razor 4 and one main goal ranked very high: to combine and to re-arrange well known different circuit designs to promising new solutions. 4 If you have to choose from some number of competing theories, choose the simplest one because it s most likely to be true, Sharon Kay, www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/think/

Contents Part I Theory 1 Amps, Pre-Amps, Pre-Pre-Amps... 3 2 RIAA Transfer/Anti-RIAA Transfer... 9 3 Noise Basics... 17 3.1 Noise in Components and Other General Noise Effects... 17 3.2 NoiseinBipolarJunctionTransistors(BJTs)... 36 3.3 NoiseinFieldEffectTransistors(FETs)... 55 3.4 NoiseinValves(US:Tubes)... 71 3.5 NoiseinOperationalAmplifiers(Op-Amps)... 86 3.6 NoiseinInstrumentationAmps(In-Amps)... 93 3.7 NoiseinTransformers(Trafos)...106 3.8 Noise of Vinyl Records (VRs) On how much Phono-Amp SN is Needed?...125 Part II Best Practice 4 Noise in MM Cartridges...149 5 Noise in MM Cartridges Mathematical Calculation Course...171 6 Noise in MC Phono-Amps...181 7 Noise in MC Phono-Amps Mathematical Calculation Course...205 8 RIAA Networks...227 9 RIAA Networks Mathematical Calculation Course...255 xi

xii Contents Part III Noise Measurement System 10 System Overview...279 11 Measurement Amps...285 12 Measurement Filters and Networks...291 Part IV The RIAA Phono-Amp Engine 13 Overview...303 14 Module 1...309 15 Module 2...311 16 Module 3...313 17 Engine Performance...319 Part V Book-Ending Sections List of Figures...329 List of Tables...339 Constants, Abbreviations, Symbols...341 Index...345 Epilogue...351