my tube mic-pre

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BoB_DoLe

Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2005
Messages
8
Location
Germany
so first of all hi to you out there!

im planing a mic-pre atm, two channels with phantom power etc.
should be one tube per channel if possible, im aiming at about 35dB of gain, now im stuck at about 30dB, dont know if this is enough..
the 4meg7 R in the feedback loop is the gain pot.
well i have a 12ax7a and about 323v DC like on the schem, but now ive got problems with the trannies..
so this is my first project with transformers, i really dont know which to take..
ive got the choise between 1:1, 1:4 and 1:10 at my dealer, all with 200ohms input impedance.

micpre1.gif


i chose the 1:4 on the input, but this gave me about 9dB attenuation, why?
and is there any chance to get a bit more gain out of this tube or will i have to take 2tubes per channel?

ps: how can i simulate transformers in spice? they ever **** up my whole schematic :mad:
 
Great Bob!

Im only learnin :0), so forgive the ignorance, but why no bypass cap between the plate and grid of the two tubes? Are you setting the cathode bias for direct coupling there?
 
You have the feedback wired as an inverter. Assuming the feedback is effective, the input impedance is the input resistor, shown as 6.8K. With a 1:4 transformer, this reflects to the input as 6800/(4^2) or 425Ω. That's a fairly low load; a 200Ω source will show about 3dB-4dB drop. I do not know how you end up with a 9dB loss in the transformer.

Is feedback effective? The first 12AX7 will have gain around 1:30 (would be 1:60 if the cathode were bypassed for audio). The large 4.7Meg feedback resistor will look like 4,700,000/30 or 157K, which is so large compared to 6.8K that you may as well leave out the feedback resistor: it isn't doing anything.

Input noise is the 200Ω source reflected up 1:4^2 or 3.2K, plus that 6.8K resistor. Input noise is dominated by amplifier noise, not mike noise, and you usually want the amp quieter than the mike. (However, if you only want gain of 35dB, you are probably using condensers, in which case the mike self-noise is much higher than the noise of most amps, even this one.) Since the 6.8K is not doing anything, leave it out.

Likewise R16 R9 are not doing anything, the voltage on U2 grid is determined by the voltage on U1 plate. The R16 R9 connection makes sense only with a capacitor between U1 Plate and U2 Grid.

The Phantom power resistors are not the normal value.

The only good way to apply feedback around a low noise amp is non-inverting, so you have no input series resistor adding noise. That means making U2 an inverter, output from the plate, feedback to U1 cathode. Now with no input resistor, the input resistance is "infinite" and you can use a high-ratio input transformer for "free gain".

However, a nice load for 12AX7 (plate or cathode) is like 60K or more, which is an awkward transformer.

Study the Classics. The dead men knew how to do it.
 
[quote author="caps"]What do you mean Spice buggers up your simulation? What version of Spice are you using ?[/quote]

i just dont know what values to take..
how can i use the impedance, theres only series resistance :?:
i think i got the inductance-thingy, ist it n^2*100µH?
means for a 1:4 1^2*100µH=100µH primary and 4^2*100µH=1600µH secondary?
this is really confusing for me..

im using LTspice 1.16o, is there some better, perhaps with transformer models out there?
 
[quote author="PRR"]
[...]
Study the Classics. The dead men knew how to do it.[/quote]

thanks for this!
so said clearly ive made a whole bunch of crap, right? :?

the feedback was working well, like i said the 4M7 is a pot and no fix resistor, when it is at 0ohms, i had about 1dB..
the phantom resistors was my fault :oops:
and for the rest.. i think im gonna start from ground up, can you perhaps give me something to start with?
like some more or less simple pre with one tube if possible.. i looked at the one-bottle-pre but first i want symmetrical outs and second my dealer dont have this tube..

if i could only simulate this trannies right, this would help me a lot!
 
> my dealer dont have this tube..

He probably has something better... the Germans and neighbors were making good tubes after the US lost interest.

I've advocated the Television Vertical Sweep Deflection tubes. The oldest ones were twin medium/low-Mu triodes like a heavy-duty 12AU7, but the last big tube TV sets used a high-Mu triode with a small power triode or pentode. 6EM7 is the biggest of the US breed with triode output. I know there is a smaller Euro tube that has become faddish for small hi-fi speaker amps. That's pentode output but it can be strapped triode. And the TV V-sweep tubes are often very cheap: huge numbers were made, replacement market was once strong, and all those TV sets are now gone.

> is there some better, perhaps with transformer models out there?

I'm an old fart and I think SPICE is a waste of time unless you can sketch-out and estimate your design on the back of a cocktail napkin. SPICE can do the math to high precision, but it will never tell you that R16 R9 are a waste of several pennies, and it won't tell you the noise disadvantage of R12 unless you ask very carefully.

I suspect SPICE itself does not know what a transformer is. There are several ways to make one, and some vendors may have pre-made transformer models.

What I've always done in Pspice is:

Put in a coil. I usually know the impedance, and the lowest frequency it needs to keep impedance. From that I know what inductance I need. For 200Ω source and 20Hz, about 2 Henries. If you are not modeling a specific transformer, an approximate value is OK. Don't get silly, like 1,000H, because there may be places like C9 where an unrealistic inductance will give unrealistic results.

Put in another coil for the secondary. Assuming good coupling (always true in audio) its inductance is higher than the primary inductance by the impedance ratio or the square of the turns ratio. For 2H primary and 1:4 turns, the secondary will be 32H.

Then you need to couple the two coils together. In Pspice, we have a K_linear. This takes the name of 2 to 4 inductors, and a "COUPLING" value. In audio terms, L*(1-Coupling) is your series leakage inductance, and 1/(1-Coupling) is in many cases your relative bandwidth (Coupling=0.999 on 2H gives 2mH leakage inductance and probably roughly 1:1,000 or 20Hz-20KHz bandwidth). The coupling of an ideal audio transformer is 1.0, but that is physically impossible and SPICE will barf. Realistic values for coupling run from 0.99 for split-bobbin power transformer to over 0.9999 for a highly interwound audio transformer. If not modeling a specific part, use 0.9999 and remember that your real iron probably won't be as good.

This model neglects winding resistance, core loss, and parasitic capacitance. Resistances can be added, in fact classic SPICE may barf on a zero-ohm coil. But in most audio the resistance losses are small. Not negligible, but small. I often neglect them, and round-down the results. For most audio iron-core inductors giving less than 1K impedance, parasitic capacitance is negligible over the range of human hearing, but over 10K it dominates a design just trying to hit 20KHz, and even at 1K impedance you may need to add capacitance to show supersonic effects that can be heard in the audio band.

Actually, my copy of Pspice has a part "XFRM_LINEAR" that is two coils and a Coupling value, plus a pre-made graphic. So it is equivalent to the above process except limited to two coils.

There is also "XFRM_NONLINEAR", which takes the same parameters but must be different. Since I don't see where to specify the nonlinearity, and hope my audio iron is always linear, I don't use it. Obviously a switching regulator simulator must be rich with non-linear iron, since switchers usually run near to or past the knee of the iron or ferrite.
 
wow, thank you for that essay :grin:
now its more working like i wanted it!
i knew the "K"-thing, thats in the help file, but of course theres no further help how to build a trannie practically, with values..
so i think i start with a 1:4 in the front and a 10:1 on the output.
is a 12ax7 really so bad for a mic-pre?
 
[quote author="BoB_DoLe"]so i think i start with a 1:4 in the front and a 10:1 on the output.
is a 12ax7 really so bad for a mic-pre?[/quote]

No; there are quite a few excellent mic pres that use them, from old RCAs to new Namleys.

I'd swap ratios on the transformers, though; a 1:4 input won't get you above the noise of the tube and associated components enough.

Tube noise can be characterized as having basically two or three components. The first is the noise of the tube itself, which can be characterized by an equivalent noise resistance which is approximately 2.5/gm, where gm is in mho -- excuse me, Siemenses. So a tube with a gm of 2 milliSiemens will have an equivalent noise resistance of 1250 ohms.

Next is the plate resistor; its equivalent noise resistance is the plate resistor divided by the square of gain of the tube. If the plate resistor is 100k and the tube's gain is 30x, then its equivalent noise resistance is about 111 ohms.

Finally there's the cathode resistor, if it's not bypassed. That might be, for a 12AX7, 1k. Add up all these numbers and you get an equivalent noise resistance for the stage of 1250 + 111 + 2200 = 3561 ohms.

To ensure that the tube stage adds insignificant noise to the built-in noise of the microphone, you want the source resistance for the tube's grid (which is the secondary of the input transformer) to be higher than the equivalent noise resistance of the stage. For a noise figure of <1dB, you want the grid to be fed by about 4x the stage's equivalent noise resistance -- in the case of the stage described above, at least 14,244 ohms. Assuming 150 ohm microphones, this implies approximately a 1:10 input transformer.

Peace,
Paul
 
ok i think im getting into this!

thanks again for help!
im now at about 42dB of gain what i think is ok for one tube..

btw: is it normal that theres a ~10dB peak at about 15Hz with the 4:1 ot? little high, eh?
 
> is it normal that theres a ~10dB peak at about 15Hz with the 4:1 ot?

Gimme a "C"! Gimme an "L"! What's that spell? 2-pole high-pass filter! 2-pole high-pass filter! Rah! Rah! Rah!

These always resonate. If the losses are zero, the resonance is infinite. If the losses are heavier than the reactances, the resonance becomes a slump with no apparent resonance. The losses are your source and load resistances. This now becomes a 4-way problem (Rs, Rl, C, L) which is a puzzle, and in real life Rl varies all over the place spoiling your calculations.

Back when tubes were so expensive that we had no spare gain for feedback, a simple amp would have several bass roll-offs. If each one were down 3dB at 25Hz, three of those would be down 3dB at 50Hz and 1.5B at 100Hz, pretty gutless. So we C-L coupled the driver stage to the output stage and adjusted the loading to give about a 4dB bump at 50Hz, cancelling the slump. Ideally we'd then take a few pennies out of each coupling cap to get the overall response flat (though a dB up at 50Hz is not a bad sound). Doing this bump in the driver meant the output loading had no effect on the bump height. But your plan does not leand itself to this idea.

This is one reason that the classic Langevin and RCA tube console mike preamps almost always put the output transformer in the plate, without a cap. This means the transformer must eat DC current, and costs more. But you lose the cost of the cap, and the 1-pole response varies much less with load than the 2-pole filter.
 
Circuitmaker has two varieties of trafo models, one of which is practically useless and highly misleading. The manual says something like "this is fine unless you want the load impedance on one winding to affect the other."

Yes, that is sort of important!
 
> is a 12ax7 really so bad for a mic-pre?

For the input stage? No, its fine.

In classic thinking, high-Mu triodes should not be trusted. They need high impedance coupling parts, so a little leakage might put the amp out of commission during a high-rated program or high-cost recording session. They are also a little less rugged and more variable than the less highly tweaked medium-Mu tubes. But many designs do use hi-Mu tubes, and 12AX7 has proven profitable reliability in Fender guitar amps.

Paul derived the noise balance in detail. I'd estimate it differently but come to the same ballpark. The noise of a 200Ω resistor (dynamic mikes are similar) is around 0.2 microvolts across the audio band. The noise of a typical small triode is around 1 microvolt across the audio band. For mike self-noise (which is unavoidable) to dominate tube noise (which is under our control) we want about 1:10 step-up.

For the output stage? Hmmmm... 12AX7 plate resistance is ~60K. This gets in the way of any output, so loads should be over 60K. For low distortion, loads should be 2 to 5 times 60K, or 100K-300K. Typical final loads are 600Ω or 10KΩ, so we need a step-down transformer. However, transformers wound to 100K, or even 20K, get squeezed between leakage inductance, stray capacitance, and hi-fi frequency response.

Or seen as a raw power problem: a 600Ω load driven to +20dBm needs 18mA peak. A 12AX7 can pass 1mA or 2mA DC, so hardly over 1mA peak symmetrical AC. That says 1:18 current ratio, or 200K primary impedance. As little as 100pFd stray capacitance in the primary will clobber 20KHz. We may be able to get that low, if we separate the primary from the core and secondary, but that means large leakage inductance which will tend to ring with the capacitance and cause a nasty 2nd-order rolloff, probably well within the audio band. A cathode follower eases things a little, but basically a 12AX7 is a pretty lame transformer driver. And just looking at the step-down ratio needed will give low voltage gain, as low or lower than a low-Mu triode that will pass more current in its lower plate impedance.

NYDave forged a nice compromise between good gain and adequate power output using a slightly unusual twin triode. But another way to skin this cat is with a dissimilar dual triode, using a high-gain input and a high-current output section. (Or if you build channels in pairs, two different twin triodes.)
 
[quote author="PRR"]

Gimme a "C"! Gimme an "L"! What's that spell? 2-pole high-pass filter! 2-pole high-pass filter! Rah! Rah! Rah!
[/quote]

Someone has to add this to thier signature. ROTFLMAO. T-shirts, anyone? :green:
 
Another "One Bottle" idea, which I haven't explored myself but have been meaning to: triode-pentode tubes meant as voltage amp/phase inverters, such as 7199 and 6AN8. You could get a lot of gain that way, but of course pentodes are noisy (partition noise) by comparison to triodes.
 
[quote author="PRR"]
Gimme a "C"! Gimme an "L"! What's that spell? 2-pole high-pass filter! 2-pole high-pass filter! Rah! Rah! Rah!
[/quote]

oh, forgot that :oops:

NYDave forged a nice compromise between good gain and adequate power output using a slightly unusual twin triode. But another way to skin this cat is with a dissimilar dual triode, using a high-gain input and a high-current output section. (Or if you build channels in pairs, two different twin triodes.)

ok, that problem seems clear to me.
as i wanted to build two channels, the solution with to twins sounds good, but when i have ch1 at v1a and ch2 at v1b, doesnt this give me problems with cross-talk?
if not, this could be really cool, then i go on looking for a high-current tube!

You could get a lot of gain that way, but of course pentodes are noisy (partition noise) by comparison to triodes.

nice idea, but i would go for the lower noise :wink:
 
its me again :grin:

found the 12au7 tube, looked nice with 22mA plate current.

so i took it as second stage, now ive got around 52dB over all and a better frequency response.

my new schem:

micpre2.gif


any comments?
 
The feedback loop isn't doing anything useful. The ratio of Rvr to R13 is 1000, which would correspond to a loop gain of 1001--much greater than the open-loop gain of the two 12AU7 stages, which is only about 100 (40dB). You'd be better off eliminating the loop and using a volume control between the two stages.

A good rule of thumb--or at least one that I choose to follow--is that the open-loop gain of the amplifier should be about 20dB (or more) above the desired closed-loop gain. There's a couple of reasons for this, but I can get into those later...

U2, as configured here, won't be up to the task of driving the output load-- represented by the equivalent circuit of R15, L1, L2, R17 and R26--to a reasonable level. The plate current will be too low, the plate resistance too high. I don't think you've been paying attention to what PRR has been telling you :wink:
 
[quote author="NewYorkDave"]The feedback loop isn't doing anything useful. The ratio of Rvr to R13 is 1000, which would correspond to a loop gain of 1001--much greater than the open-loop gain of the two 12AU7 stages, which is only about 100 (40dB). You'd be better off eliminating the loop and using a volume control between the two stages.
[/quote]
Rvr is a variable resistor, up to 1meg!
the first stage is a 12ax7 not 12au7..
U2, as configured here, won't be up to the task of driving the output load-- represented by the equivalent circuit of R15, L1, L2, R17 and R26--to a reasonable level. The plate current will be too low, the plate resistance too high. I don't think you've been paying attention to what PRR has been telling you :wink:
to be honest i think i didnt understand all of what rrp said :roll:
i thought as the 12au7 can drive up to 22mA this is ok?
or should i take it as a cathode follower?
 

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