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.  |