Why JFA is a class
A Amplifier?
What is a class A
amplifier?
A
class A amplifier is defined as one which is biased to a point where
plate or drain current flows for the entire swing of the input
signal between the cut off and saturation. This is
done by biasing the
stage around the middle of its course between cut off and saturation
points. More exactly the stage should be biased to dissipate the max
power with no input signal, but sometime to centre the linearity of
the transfer curve the bias point is shifted from the max
dissipation point. The JFA has six single ended Jfet stages working
in this way. The sixth stage has no gain; it simply acts as phase
inverter of the signal already available at PIN 8. .
Why does JFA
generate even harmonics?
It is known that tubes and Jfets use the same working principle. In
the tube a negative voltage interferes with the flow of electrons
running in the vacuum from the cathode to the plate, thus modulating
the current flow in the tube. In the Jfet the same negative voltage
interferes with the flow of electrons running in the silicon from
the source to the drain, thus modulating the current flow in the
Jfet. Tubes and Jfet exhibit the same smoothed shape transfer
characteristic curves. Transistors, on the other hand, have an
abrupt transfer characteristic curve with a threshold knee around
0.7 V. Tubes and Jfet produce even harmonics if used in a single
ended stage, while in a push pull stage the even harmonics are
cancelled.
What do we
mean for class A and pure class A?
Once a single ended stage has to be biased two modes are available;
self bias using a cathode/source resistor, or fixed bias, using a
negative bias voltage and grounding the cathode or the source. The
first way is the most widespread while the second is especially used
in guitar power amplifiers where a negative feedback is often
applied from the output to the input stage. The JFA uses self biased
stages using a particular Rdrain/Rsource ratio. This guarantees a
stable gain & bias and low distortion. This is what we mean by class
A and it should serve to satisfy all HI FI guys, but could leave
some music guy less happy, so:
the Sa, Sb pins
allow the user to bypass the source resistor with a high value
capacitor (100 mF suggested). This allows the stages to work purely
in A, in other words the output current / drain voltage is exactly
the consequence of the Jfet transfer characteristic curve. This
frees all the even distortion of the stages. Furthermore the first
stage of the JFA can be fixed biased applying a negative voltage at
INPUT pin 2 (-1.7 Volt suggested) and grounding the relative source
Sa. This is what we mean by pure class A
Some notes about
operational amplifier.
Long time before the
birth of digital computers, operational amplifiers born as
analogical computational blocks for the first analogical computers,
as the blocks were connected in order to
calculate a mathematic
function. Their duty at the beginning was to produce an output
voltage depending on several input analogical variables and they
were intended to be used with DC. However the OP developments lead
to an increase of the operative speed, so someone found it useful to
use the OP to amplify audio signal. Due to the internal circuit
diagram an OP is a network of multiple AB push pull transistor
stages, which are in no way related to a linear amplifier, but
because of their very high gain, a heavy feedback can be used to
produce good results. In any case the gain of any OP decreases with
the increase of frequency, thus any OP based amplifier will exhibit
a higher distortion at high frequency. The JFA can amplify a signal
without using feedback because it is linear, therefore its response
is the same at any audio frequency. Considering that the JFA input
noise is spectacularly low (2.5 nV/Hz at 1000 Hz) this increases its
ability to amplify very small signals, resulting in a fast, clean
and crystalline sound. |