How About Tubes And Servos

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

analag

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2005
Messages
2,036
Location
Mars
This is a simulation, not an actual circuit. The idea is to be able to hook up the OPT directly to the tube and if the transformer is bypassed, we should be able to get DC performance from this thing. The Problem is would it work and if so would it work reliably.
http://www.twin-x.com/groupdiy/albums/userpics/TubeServo.JPG

analag
 
> would it work....

What? Force the output to zero VDC? Sure. Or at least to mV, which is close enough.

> would it work reliably.

It "fails" miserably on cold-start. The tubes have no control when cold, so for the first 10 seconds strange things happen. I think in this ploy the FET will pull full-scale DC current through the core.

The chip injects noise. At this low gain, who cares? But in the general case, you want attenuation between servo and input. The worst-case tube offset is maybe 1V, maybe 0.1V aged and trimmed. The opamp can swing +/-10V. So you can afford 10:1 or 50:1 attenuation between the sand's flaws and the grid. (You have 6:1, a good start, but be bold.) That's loss in the servo loop, but even dime opamps have DC gain of a million, and you only need total gain near 1,000 to reduce tube errors down to chip errors and far below the tolerance of output iron.

Note that you still have a cap. The question is whether a 1uFd tastes better than the 10uFd-50uFd you would need to just AC-couple the transformer or direct output. (You don't really want "DC performance", and you won't get it with the servo.)
 
I was thinking, "all that to avoid a cap?" but I figured I'd leave it to someone else to state it more eloquently--and as usual, PRR sums it up quite nicely.

Analag, what's the application? Do you really need a DC amplifier? If it's for audio signals, and you wanted to avoid coupling with a 'lytic, you can get high-value (tens of uF) 400VDC film caps from Solen at decent prices.

Of course, we Drawing Board denizens always appreciate the educational value of a "what if?" exercise. We're not manufacturers, so economical/practical isn't always the main imperative.
 
Opamp shunted your feedback.

Also, what do you neede that differencial input for?
 
Oh God, here comes potentially good "pop filter" thread, but the amp has to be corrected to work as designed. :razz:
20K resistor from opamp's output to tube's grid seems to be enough.

BTW, Dave never could explain why he needs symmetrical distortions that are higher on low signals than on high signals... :cool:
 
Sorry. The whole thread about discrete opamp was b**t :wink:

This thread is about servo in tube amp that I've found earlier when well implemented serves as a great pop-filter.
 
>> Oh God, here comes the "symmetrical distortions"
> Oh God, here comes potentially good "pop filter" thread


Gentlemen, knock it off.

> Opamp shunted your feedback.

Correct.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top