Im about to branch out into offering amplifier kits.
since its important for me to be able to explain the operation of an amp, I need to see if the not so technically inclined can understand how these things work.
Your gun guys and historians ... not volt heads, so your perfect for this experiment.


Amps consist of 3 stages.
the first stage is a differential input stage, the second, a voltage amplification stage (or VA) and an output stage (OPS) while all together are governed by a Negative Feedback Loop (NFB loop)

The input stage might be described as thus ...
we have two kittens, on hot plates, drinking from a dish of milk.
Together these kittens will always consume a constant volume of milk. if one drinks faster, the other drinks slower.
Like any kitten drinking milk .... they pee.
the more they drink, the more they pee.
also when signal in introduced the hot plates alternatively heat up causing the respective kitten to drink more
in this case they pee on water wheels connected to generators. the more one pees, the more current is produced by its generator.
these generators are plugged into the back sides of a pair of monkeys who make up the VA stage.
These monkeys have learned that by turning a volume up, they can reduce their torment.
so as the current from a kittens generator shocks the monkey, the monkey cranks the voltage on his knob which is sent along to the back sides of the Gorillas in the OPS who in turn also have volume controls and have also learned, like the monkeys, that cranking it will reduce their torment. the difference is that these knobs are huge and take far too much effort for the monkeys in the VA stage. The voltage they control is the same as the monkeys but the current is many times higher. this will have enough voltage and amperage to drive the speakers.
Now, none of these tortured critters wants to be in pain, thats why they all seek relief. The gorillas of the OPS are the ones to dish out some payback on the kittens, who otherwise would get off Scott free, via the NFB loop.
when the gorillas crank the juice to the speaker, some of the voltage feeds back to the inverting input which is the hot plate of the kitten that would have an opposite effect on the system.
the chain reaction then brings everything back to a nice balance with zero output until the next signal cycle.

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it just needs more voltage

I got about half way through and had to go pee.

It's going to take 2 or 3 more cool ones for me.

I had to read it twice but I got it, strange but funny analogy.

Its a tricky subject to address directly to a newcommer.
We start out kinda knowing about voltage, nothing about current and PN junctions are mysterious phantoms.
alot goes on in these things and the only thing you can really see is the throbbing speaker.
so I have to put it in a tangible, if not Rube Goldburg way to get it across with some effect. thereafter I just need to replace the critters with parts.

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it just needs more voltage

I would consider a move to a different school of electronics if that is how they teach you.

ultimately, it is the way I teach.
I could throw as many books at you as have been printed and I'd give it a one in fifty chance you could come away knowing how a transistor works. it not hard to understand but its a bear to describe.
its easier to understand a critter reacting to being electrocuted than it is to understand the flow of free electrons and holes in a PN junction ... at least in the beginning.

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it just needs more voltage

I guess I must be that one. When I did my electronics class the issue of holes and electrons did not bother me too much. Maybe I was extremely lucky to have a good lecturer and the subject just "clicked" with me. However, when it came to some of my classmates ..... , so I appreciate your difficulties.

Venom,

You've piqued my curiosity now. What is this amp kit you are going to offer and why would people who want it necessarily need to learn all this stuff to use?

The quest for that perfect sound.Guitar heads never stop looking and listening.
Tube amps sound so.........right.The trick seems to be low wattage turned up to the point of saturation.There is a big group of sound nuts that would gladly scrap your old tube driven TV's and Stereos.Not to mention anything else that is tube driven.
I know such people and they are harmless
D.G.

Its actually a series of kits. three are guitar amps with the highest powered variant branching into high end audio for a total of 4.
I opted to include a home audio variant based upon the results of the test bench prototype.
Ill put that baby up against a Carver any day, it has surpassed every expectation to the point that I felt it was almost wasted in a guitar amp alone.
the thing with a kit of this nature is that ultimately, you, the end builder must be able to diagnose a problem, which would require an understanding of its operation.
for example, I had one such issue with the prototype.
it latched to the negative rail and destroyed a test speaker in grand fashion due to a fault in the NFB loop (the one solder point I overlooked) to put it in terms above ... there was no way for the gorillas to get payback on the kittens so the slight difference in pee production caused a shocked monkey to gas it for all it was worth putting the power to the negative side gorillas and all were waiting for relief. Since it couldn't affect the hot plat on the inverting input kitten the amp was doomed to remain full on negative yeehaww mode till power was cut.

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it just needs more voltage

Interesting description and it makes good enough sense. +1 on tube sound. Vintage Fender amps would be the Registered Magnums of the amp world.

surf youtube for a demonstration of the trainwreck amp.
its related to the Fender but has no coupling capacitors between stages. its the most touch sensitive amp ever built

and your right, its the fruit of my axe hackers tone quest. Tubes rule guitar tone, period. the only down side is that they are so inefficient.
you need like 400 watts to get 100 watts at the speaker with tubes. Solid state makes power much more efficiently. marry the low power tubes int he preamp to the clean pure power of a solid state class B and now we have both tone and efficiency

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it just needs more voltage

I want a glass of milk

As a technical writer ... some time there can be TMI (too much information)

It is not necessary to delve into the realms of potential energy, momentum, angular velocity, energy transfer, recoil energy, etc. to explain how the user can drive a nail with the supplied hammer.

Guitar Amplifier - a non-linear amplifier with numerous controls for distortion to be adjusted by the "musician".

Paul Klipsch had a favorite word for what he considered outlandish claims by other manufactures - that word seems to apply ...

I have no idea of how good, or bad, the quality of your amplifiers is (or will be).

Your explanation sounds like something I. Lirpa would write for the AUDIO magazine. He has a letter to the editor in the April issue. ( I. Lirpa = April 1 backwards. )

Bekeart

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I worked for a man named A. Stewart Hegeman. He knew more about audio amplification with thermionic valves than most. He too used Klipsch's word to describe most audio claims. Look up the method he used for feedback loops and try to implement that. Also, use a class A PA. It's less efficient but way cleaner. Years ago there was a (I think) Sony device called a V-FET or Vertical Field-Effect Transistor that was supposed to sound just like a tube. Today we call them depletion mode MOSFETs. They might be worth a look.

Russ

MOSFET OPS are hard to do now adays. Not for design but for parts availability. theres only one set out there .. the lateral MOSFET pair from Hitachi. they dropped the product long ago and its made by a few small time manufacturers for the low low price of 20 - 35 a piece and touch and go quality. Vertical Mosfets are hard to find in matched sets and are generally used for motor control systems

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it just needs more voltage

I think I get it.

YouTube - Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey (HQ music video)

Catchy tune, but that video makes zero sense... Oh, I think I get it too!

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"I also cook."

I have one word for you (no it's not Plastic)


PETA!

You are doomed my friend, doomed I say.

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Still Running Against the Wind

thats some classic 80's pop ... video was the stuff cough syrup induced nightmares is made of though.

its too bad a working amp couldn't be done with critters just to send them a demonstrator model.

Class A versus Class B is a wild debate for those in the know.
a class A is immune from crossover distortion but sucks power and makes lots of heat even at idle.
A Class B will always have some crossover distortion, but in a hand built and tuned amp, this issue can be minimized to the point that they can only be told apart by the slight dent in the wave form on an oscilloscope. Class A will win on a mass produced amp ... hand crafted ... they are a tie for the most part.
A Class A amp is kinda like a two seater sports car.
not really practical but hell ... we want em anyhow even if we arent willing to admit it at the moment.

Ive played with quite a few FETS JFETS vertical MOSFETS in both depletion and enhancement mode. Ive also used vintage scavenged, NOS, and new production vac tubes.
while depletion mode FETS may be used like a tube and behave very much like tubes. they dont sound like tubes. Like a standard issue BJT when you kick the minions and over drive them they ring in both even and odd order harmonics. Tubes favor even order harmonics when they distort.
I'll admit that a FET driven in yeehaw mode DOES sound more pleasant than a BJT ... but for the tube sound ... they all have a long ways to go.
I gave them more than a fair chance. I have a box at the bench that must be home to over 300 such devices spanning at least 60 part numbers
none ever came close to the sonics of even the hacked 1950's Admiral tube fired radio, let alone a proper 12AX7 implementation

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it just needs more voltage

Fun analogy. I enjoyed reading it, but I don't get it, really. How amps work.

But, ya know, I don't care how they work, so I don't try to understand it. (People have different interests.) To my mind, they are sort of like, say, a toaster or a car. I don't know how toasters or cars work either, and am not interested in the topic, but I buy them and use them.

So if you want to sell the kits to non-technical people, I think you don't need to explain how amps work, just how to screw 'em together. The rest is just "magic" and as long as the things work, your customers will be happy.