Self on Audio, 3rd Edition

Chapter 20Sound mosfet design

(Electronics World, September 1990)

Intended title: A Hybrid BJT/FET Power Amplifier

This was the first article on power amplifiers that I published, though I had been designing them for manufacture since 1975. This investigation into the concept of combining power FET output devices with bipolar drivers was done some years before I undertook my major investigation into the root causes of power amplifier distortion (see ‘Distortion in Power Amplifiers’, Parts 1–8, later in this book), which led in turn to the book Audio Power Amplifier Design [1]. In the throes of the design process, I realised with greater force than hitherto that the distortions in the small-signal part of a power amplifier were (a) far from negligible ...