Hi,

Mr.Stephan Großklaß (sgrossklass) and Mr.Michael Mardis (Pano),

Thank you very-very much for both of your contributions. Topics about "Gain Structure" and "Noise in Amplifiers", really are invaluable and encouraging articles for a novice at diyaudio. Specially, for those who are seeking for a good and reliable source of information to build better audio projects, and amplifiers or even just to improve the skills.

After reading your articles, I am now a lot more in a better position to design, execute and share my audio amplifier project, at diyaudio.
Also, i found the answers to lot of my questions which were floating inside the no gravity space region of my mind since my teenage or even my childhood.

We are keen and interested to wait for your future articles on Audio amplifiers, high current buffers, noise, speakers, crossover designs, filters, equalization techniques, op-amps, surround sound techniques and other such related articles mostly contributing towards the better sound quality or achieving a perfect diy audio systems. We would also like to see circuits in action (if possible and applicable) along with the theory part.

Thanks a lot to both of you.

Great article. Thank you.

Great article
I'm already of the opinion that a preamp is not needed with an all-digital setup with 2V+ line output.
I have a low gain amp (the F3) and more traditional ones, and I find about 10x gain to be all needed for home reproduction.

Now the issue is where to attenuate. Doing it at the power amp imput is NOT the ideal solution, the best option would be to adjust the gain of the amp itself (like Ayre and ASR do).
The ideal gain structure would be
2-2,5V from digital source -> input buffer -> adjustable VAS from like 0,1x to 20x (to provide for less efficient speakers) -> unity current gain.

The main difficulty to DIY this is from remote controlling the "volume" and from lack of published schematics.
If we loose a bit of signal purity (and SNR), a buffer type preamp with a pot in the middle can work almost as well and there are cheap and easy schematics availalbe, but it is still a waste of 3 stages and a pair of cables that all degrade the signal.

If the gain would be controllable with a single variable resistor (read linear pot), it would be much easier to diy... I want to do some research, with the many talented people roaming around, something may come out.

Things gets a lot more difficult with active multiamplified systems, where one needs to match amp and speaker gain, plus a desire to remotely control all the system at once (after level-matched). In a 2 way I was able to level-match with ears adjusting the pot of an integrated amp i have.

I'm mostly rumbling out loud.
Were you aware of a translation of your article on the italian webzine ReMusic?

Maximizing SNR is a very sensible topic for me, I'm reading the link posted here about an article on noise.

This is an issue I'm about to have to deal with because I'm going tri-amp, and since I can't afford those tube-crossovers that Marchand(?) make I'm going to have to use DBX or Behringer pro model. Something like the ART CLEANBoxPro Stereo Balanced/Unbalanced Converter to adjust the unbalanced lower consumer level output of my preamp to better match the input, but my power amps are consumer w/o gain controls. Suggestions?