Comment by kazinator
3 months ago
> he solid state transistor amplifier was invented, and they had no idea how it worked either.
That cannot possibly be true. Not knowing what exactly is going on with the charge carriers at the subatomic and quantum levels is not the same as not knowing how the amplifier works: like if we fiddle with the voltage at the base, we can influence the collector current, and all the rest.
What is true is that some early transistor designs of audio amps treated transistors like tubes: they featured a phase inverter transistor that fed two non-complementary push-pull stages whose output was combined by a center-tapped output transformer.
The excuse that well-matched complementary PNP transistors were not readily available at that time rings hollow, because it's possible to create an push-pull output stage with just NPN transistors. This is called "quasi complementary" (lots of search results for this).
Output transformers, if they have multiple taps in the secondary winding, do allow for different impedances. If the end users expect to be able to plug a 16 ohm speaker into a 16 ohm output jack and a 4 ohm into 4 ohm, then they will understand that kind of amp better.
>That cannot possibly be true. Not knowing what exactly is going on with the charge carriers at the subatomic and quantum levels is not the same as not knowing how the amplifier works
since everything that happens inside a transistor is exactly what is going on in a quantum sense, you've described "not knowing how it works". You cannot understand a bipolar transistor without quantum effects, it's the thing that creates the transistor effect.
the theory of amplifiers you go on to talk about was well developed at that time because it's the same theory for vacuum tubes.
You can empirically drive the equations that apparently govern the macroscopic behaviors, right down to details like temperature sensitivity, and the Early effect, without having a detailed model of what is going on at the atomic and subatomic level. Then what makes an amplifier work is explained by those equations. And for that not even the full detail of them is necessarily required, depending on what aspect of the amplifier we need to explain. Like basic operation versus concern for thermal runaway.
What makes the amplifier work and what makes the transistor work are separate concepts.
That's why understanding translates from tube circuits to transistors. A transistor circuit maybe an emitter follower, which has a counterpart in tube circuits known as the cathode follower. The cathode resistor creates local negative feedback similarly to an emitter resistor. Early op amps where tube circuits. They have the same differential input stage and the same basic theory of operation. You program their game the same way with resistors. The familiar Sallen-Key filter topology was first described with the help of tube circuits for reference, back in 1955. To undestand it, we don't even need the details like how amplifiers work at the component level except when we get into design parameters in which certain issues matter, like frequency-bandwidth product, or input offset current or whatever.
empirical equations are driven by data about devices. they didn't have any devices, they were inventing the first ones.
Radio Shack sold PA amplifiers with an output transformer well past the age of the tube, like the MPA series, e.g. MPA-40, a 20 W mplifier. On that thing you can obtain the raw amplifier output using the "70V" terminal. Then it has a number of through-the-trafo outputs labelled with nominal ohmages of speakers.
The Owner's manual extols the advantages of using transformers for speakers and describes how to use the 70V output in conjunction with external transformers.
Quote:
For complex multiple-speaker arrangements that require many speakers and long runs of connecting wire, we recommend you use a line transformer (not supplied), available at your local RadioShack store.
[...]
There are several advantages to using transformers.
• You can connect speakers with different impedances without causing differences in output between the speakers.
• You can add or remove a speaker without having to recalculate the entire system’s impedance.
• You can reduce signal loss when you use speaker wire over 50 feet long.
LOL!
Sound masking systems still use 70V audio output with output transformers at each speaker, voltage drop is rough when your signal is only a few volts and you’re using small conductors. Last time I sold a sound masking install we used 14/2 cable for the 70V audio signal.
https://www.atlasied.com/speech-privacy-speakers?srsltid=Afm...
They're quite popular for distributed audio systems in general (of which sound masking is one type). "Constant voltage audio" comes in a few flavors and 70v is very common in the US, other parts of the world often use 100v. Background music systems in retail, voice paging systems, etc use constant voltage hardware because its much better technology for very long cable runs, daisy-chained speakers, and centrally located amplifiers.
The cost is fidelity. Full-range audio transformers aren't cheap, so these systems usually make some compromises because your announcements or smooth jazz over the pasta aisle don't need to be true hi-fi.
Its cool technology. Most of the speakers have variable power taps, so you can run a bunch of them in parallel on a single line and control the actual volume as-needed based on where the speaker is deployed by varying the transformer tap on each speaker.
Nowadays, for things like the Las Vegas Sphere, the whole audio distribution is fully digital: put an amp close to each speaker, distribute the audio over a network, and have that do all the very precise delay compensation for the shape of the space.
Some colleagues of mine are looking at the same thing for cars.
Eh? 70v PA is really common stuff and has been for a very long time. You probably hear it every time you're in a department store, amusement park, stadium, or other public space.
There's no need to LOL. It's useful tech.
By using a (~nominal maximum) 70v intermediate voltage, low-impedance PA systems become high-impedance. Compared to low-impedance systems at any power level, current through the wire feeding that system is reduced. Increasing impedance reduces the size of the copper wire required, and makes things easier for practical amplifiers to drive.
This is Really Useful in systems that may have dozens or hundreds of speakers distributed over a wide area.
Just to pick an example: Let's say we have 24 8-Ohm speakers to drive in a place like a grocery store. The system never needs to get proper-loud, so we'll budget 1 Watt for each speaker (24 Watts total).
If they're wired in parallel[1], then that's an impedance of 0.33 Ohms. Most power amplifiers can't drive that kind of impedance. It's also 8.5A of current, which isn't too daunting but is significant.
But if we add transformers and run things at 70v? Things get a lot easier.
Let's say we pick a 50 Watt amplifier just so we get some headroom instead of maybe running it at 100%, and that this amplifier's output power is rated at 8 Ohms.
That amplifier produces a maximum output of about 20v. Suppose we step that up to ~70V with a 1:4 transformer (which actually gives us a maximum of 80V, but again: headroom), and drive our grocery store full of 24 1-Watt 70v speakers with it.
With the same 24 Watts, our current on the speaker line drops from 8.5A to ~0.34A -- it goes from significant, to very nearly unimportant.
Our amplifier is happy: Rather than 0.33 Ohms, it sees an impedance of 12.75 Ohms.
That's an amplifier that runs cool and quiet, probably for decades. The wire can be small (18AWG seems common-enough in the grocery store overhead PA systems I've worked on; much smaller than that, and things become harder to deal with inside of ceilings). The speakers, which are all simply wired in parallel, can be replaced, removed, or added -- and also be individually adjusted in output level by changing transformer taps -- as time moves on without thinking much about the greater system architecture.
That's a lot of words, but in practice: 70v is easy. It works. We use this technique all over the globe: Some countries use 100v, and both 140v and 25v also exist as standards, but using transformers in PA-world is ridiculously common.
The usual method doesn't involve much thought at all: Add up the total power of the 70v speakers in Watts, pick an appropriate 70v amp that can drive at least that number of Watts, and send it. It's dead-simple to get right.
70v is not common in stage or musical instrument use, or in home hifi, but it doesn't have to be. It solves problems that don't exist in those spaces.
(And yeah, our grocery store needs a ~25:1 transformer on each 8 Ohm speaker. That's fine. 70v speakers that are intended to mount overhead and that include transformers with multiple secondary taps are very, very common and are still made every day in places like Chicago and Dayton[2] -- and again, you hear them all the time when you're out in public.)
[1]: We could use series-parallel arrangements to get around this, but those wiring configurations turn both arduous and easy to screw up, and loudspeakers have non-linear impedances so mixing-and-matching them in series as time moves on becomes problematic. Series-parallel isn't broadly practical.
[2]: Chicago: https://quamspeakers.com/product-group/ceiling-loudspeakers Dayton: https://fourjay.com/background-speakers/
*output transformers