THE LANG 20W CLASS-A

MOSFET AMPLIFIER
BY K. LANG

T HE GOAl. OF TIllS do-it-yourself

project is to design a high-
quality amplifier at a reasonable cost,
and without compromise. In order to
achieve this goal some basic re-
quirements must be fulfilled. The
concept of this amplifier's circuit
topology, and the choice of com-
ponents, must he directed toward this
goal right from the beginning.
The circuit should work with low
open-loop distortion so wc do not
need to apply a lot of overall feedback
around tbe circuit. Strong negative
feedback causes stability problems,
and increases rransicm diSLOrtion.
Therefore, the diIfcrcm Stages must
sbow 8000 results using only a small
local negative feedback, la achieve
open-loop gain, with a minimum
number of stages.
The output stage's circuit FETs
(field effect transistors, fig. 1) arc es-
pecially suited for a class-A amplifier.
Aside from the low source crnrem
range, the FETs have an npproximate-
ly linear transfer characteristic that
shows up in the c1ass-A operation:
distortion goes toward zero with
decreasing drive. In addition they cm
be easily driven, due to a theoretically PHOTO 1: The compleled 20W single channel amp is conrtJined on Ihis single cir-
infinite input impedance which sim- cui! board. Note the aluminum L-brac1<el which transfers the hear from the four OUl-
plifies the circuit as compared to put MOSFETS to a swwble external healsinJ<.
bipolar transistors with their high
power consumption. tempcratwe compensations, and an 3 pOSlUve effect on their mmsfer
Other advantages of these FETs are efficiem p3l"alleling of devices to in- bch3ovior for short overvolta.ges.
their lack of "secondary breakdown," crease the overall current carrying Some dis3odvam3oges of a cl3oSS-A
and their positive temperatwe coel· cap..1city. Output stage circuit are high power
ficient, Both result in high operating FETs do not Storc a charge during consumption, low efficiency and an
reliability, without additional cir- the transitions in the PN junction unfavorable ratio of price to power
cuitry such as current limitations or region, therefore they can be output compared to other OlltpUl
switched faster than bipolar tran- stage circuits. The high price is main-
sistors, which results in a higher ly due to the COStS of the necessary
Rl'IIWJlCJ, wilh /I<'''UlSSIOIl, from chad MagaZine
COPY'l8hl !O) 198.~ V~.lag Hem: H~'$e GMhH. Han· limiting frequency. Their shorter heatsinks and power supplies. How-
nul't', W GemlllIlY All ''8hU ,ese'Vtd. recovery time, after an overdrive, has ever, all this together cannot con-

128 Power Amp Projects

 TABLE 1

20W MOSFET POWER AMP

PERFORMANCE SPECIFICATIONS

Sine continuous output

Into 4ft 20W
Rl Power freQuency Range
R2 20Hz -20kHZ +O-O.5(lB
10HZ-60kHZ +O-3<'B

Input level
FIGURE 1: A block diagram of the output seage circuit.
for malflmum power O.77SV.(}(lB
voltage gain x12.6-22dB

vince a real class-A enthusiast not to ter line-up of the ECB and the heat- Input Impedance 40kn
build this circuit. Excellent sound is sink. Next we install the L-bracket on
the most essential criterion. In addi- the extemal hcatsink {see parts list) Noise level
(ret: 100mW Into 4!ll
tion, for a high quality output stage and drill the mounting boles through unwelghted -66dB
circuit, the price savings compared to them at the same time. HA" weighted - !lOdB
the commercially available products The coil, LI, is built by winding IS
is extremely good. Comparable class- turns of NW wire on resistor R29, and Olstonion
at maKimum power -84dB
A amplifiers arc twice as expensive, soldering it directly to the resistor at 4W at 4n -100dB
leads.
Power Supply The two power supplies should be Intermodulation
The cascodc circuits of the low-level built and checked in advance. By the lslne 19kHZ + 20kHZ: 1:1
slages need a high voltage supply. On way, two power supplies are the min- ITI<lximum power) -79dB
the other hand, the voltage supply to imum solution. Using separate power TOM
the output stage should be kept as supplies for each channel is recom- t$Q. 3.18kHHSine 15kHZ:
low as possible due to power con- mended {fow in all). Constructing a 4:1: maximum powen -SOdB
sumption problems. Therefore, twO stabilized dual power supply accord-
Maximum power Consumption
power supplies are used. This gives ing to one of tbe numerous Standard no input signal BOW/channel
higher stability against oscillation circuits is easy, but it may be difficult Quiescent current 2A/channel
and reduces crosstalk. to find a transformer for the output
For the low level stages and the stage power supply. For stereo opera-
drivers, a standard dual power supply tion the output stage must deliver at FETs are bolted to the ECB, and only
is used. The power requirement is least 7A to BA, for mono at least 3A then are they soldered. The mount-
very low, approximately 12mA per to 6A. ing instructions are described in
channel at ±24V. Theourpurstage's Now the parts of the amplifier F;g.3.
power supply is unregulated and in- must be soldered to the board in the After inspecting the ECB for line-
tentionally without current limita- known sequence, resistOrs, capaci- up polarity, short circuits and breaks,
tion, so as not to worsen the sound tors, diodes and transistors. Note: wc can start with adjustments. This
of the amplifier. The current require- solder the gate resistors of the FETs is restricted by the adjustment of the
ment is approximately 3A to 6A per and the ceramic filter capacitors Oil quiescent cunent of the output stage.
channel at ±20V.[A regylated sup- the copper side of the ECB to mini- First measure whether tbe resis-
ply for the low-level section was pub- mize the interconnection wire length tance between the twO connection
lished by lames l3cII'lR. jn TAA 3/82, between these parts and the FETs. points of the lo-tum potentiometer,
p. 9-&l.J The MOSFETs are mounted in the P3, is zero ohm. If it isn't, P3 must
To proteCt the insensitive FETs holes on the heatsink with mica in- be adjusted accordingly.
against shoH circuit, or too low im- sulators, insulating nipples and lots Now the power supply can be con-
pedance, use fast-blow fuses. The cir- of silicone grease. The heatsinks and nected [without loudspeakers), and
cuit of the power supply is illustrated
in Fjg. 2.
Construction &. Adjustment
Before the etched circuit board JECS)
is assembled some preparations need
to be made. First drill the holes in the
'sv-

I'
_. -
'0" -

-..- ·'IH---~
-.'"
,.,

mounting bracket (shown mounted :I(l(l(IO~ 11S~

in Plloto 1) and in the hcatsink. For -

----i~~ I '"
---fEJ~' -
this purpose, we install the L-bracket
on the empty ECB (Fig. 4) and drill
FIGURE 2: The power supply for the output stDge. For the drivers and input Sli1gts,
the necessary holes for the FETs at a separate ± power supply is needed.
me same time. This guarantees a bet-

Power Amp Projects 129

the supply voltage can be switched tween O.OA and 2A, and will tben be ing that the best class-A amplifier
on. If possible, for lhe first leSt, use operated in class-B {respectively in sounds only as good as the loud-
two power supplies with power class-AB). It now has a higher effi- speakers it drives. Also, because of
limitation to avoid potentially large ciency, but sounds worse than in the relatively low power output, high
damage in case of errors. You can test pure class-A. Before operation, the quality, high efficiency loudspeakers
without the twO supplies because tbe output stage should be checked again should be used (i.e., homsl. Only
FETs arc srordy, but I recommend us- with a voltmeter for offset voltage at then does the class-A prove its superi-
ing two. If the test goes smoothly the output. This vo)[agc should nOt oriry. [Class-A is also fine in low-
{without smoke!, the output stage is exceed 20m V. power for multi-amped systems, and
ready for operation-in class-B. I recommend using heatsinks as especially good for driving eliXtro-
The quiescent current is adjusted side panels for installation in a box. static loudspeakers. -Ed. J
to 2A by connecting an ammeter in Connect tbem with bars, and cut
one of tbe supply wires of the output suitable plates for the tOp, bottom, How Does it Workl
and by turning P3. The quiescent cur- back and front. The free space in the In the block diagram of the amplifier
rent needs re-adjusting after the FETs middle can be used for tbe power sup- IFig. I), are three intermediate cir-
and the heatsink wmm-up {aoout ten plies. The rectifier can be mounted cuits: differential amplifier, voltage
minutes) to approximately 90 degrees directly on the bottom plate. The in- amplifier and power amplifier. For a
Celsius (194fO). During this time the put and output connectors, and the high open-loop-gain (Aol 100) the
current should have dropped to ap- three fuse holders, should be closed-loop-gain Ad can be detet-
proximately lA to l.SA. mounted on the back plate. mined approximately by:
The OUlput stage can be operated
with any other quiescent current be- Results A.cJ _ U... R.+R z

,
The description of this do-it-yourself- UC" Rz
project shows that an excellent class-

~
A amplifier can be constructed for The complete design (Fig. 6) will be
Snew
audiO applications with a relatively significantly simplified by this rela·
small number of components. The tion, and extensive calculations to
high quality of the amplifier is by no find the tOtal gain are unnecesS<lry.
I I I means the result of an innovative cir- The circuit is remarkable, first of all,
1r<ll»,."" cuit design. It is due to the strict because of the completcly symmetri-
I .\lrt. In...blO<
adherence of simple design rules: us- cal conception, which contributes
ing moderate bur correct amounts of considerably to reducing the distor-
negative feedback, avoiding TIM tions. The input stage is a differen-
I '
I 'C, ,I , I Ik.",ink !transient intermodulation distortion) tial amplifier: a nearly distortion frce
"

I by pure passive bandwidth limita· circuit without using any special

8 8 cfb
In-uLa"~ n'rple tion, etc. However, the excellent test measures. Therefore negative feed-
back, via the emitter resistors RI to
~ ,-"et", boonl results are no guarantee for how well
tbe amplifier sounds. R14, is relatively low, resulting in a
=
X "'P
W••""r
l.J,... k ....h,'r
Personallistcoing tests are subjec-
tive and relevant, but cannot be
high open-loop gain.
The differential amplifier offcrs the
o±n
= NLJ' technically measured. According to
FIGURE 3D: The mountIng sequence actual technical findings, however,
additional advantage that the overall
negative feedback can be applicd, via
alignment of the uansistors, beatsinRs the class-A amplifier produces a a voltage divider, to the second input
and ECB boards. sound that listeners prefer over of the differential amplifier.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ others. Finally it is worth mention- The twO differential amplifie~
operate with two constant currem
sources (RI and R32, C4 and CS, T3
5 19 J3 41 87,S 99 1155 121 and T6 and DI and 02). Herc, the
I quiescent currents will be fixed and
decoupled from the supply voltage.
The symmetrical design also simpli-
fies the supply of base current to the
input slage. The input is connected
to ground through R14, R5 and RIO,
and is at zero volts, because no cur-
reot passes through these resistors
when the input transistors are
balanced.
9.5 21 37.'3 L9 66 97 IlQ 125 132 The constant current sources are
" adjusted to approximately I mA by
FIGURE 3b: The L·bracket of alimlinum is 12 x t10mm or approximately ~ x 1*. R31 and R32. This is a goOO com-
It couples the heol of the four MOSFETs to a suiwb/e eXlernaJ heatsink. Dimensions promise between the noise of the
{/rc in mil1imeters.
transistors, proportional to the eur·
130 Power Amp Projects
FIGURE 4: Tile empty circuit boom.

rent, and the dislOrtions, caused by The cascode stages get their bias codes is approximately 10mA, to
the single-sided load of the differen- from tbe constant voltage sowces, via cover the current requirements at
tial amplifier due lO the current re· Rl7 and RI8, and 03 and 04. The high frequencies of the FETs due to
quirement of the driver transistors. cascode stages are driven with the their channel capacities.
The driver circuit is a bipolar push- voltage drop across the collector The quiescent current in the cas·
pull cascode circuit, consisting of resistors of the differential amplifier. code stage is producing 3 voltage drop
traIlsistors T7 to TW. Most of the The quiescent current through the across P3, and this voltage is used to
design work is in this part of the cir- cascades wiU also be adjusted by that bias the output FETs. The quiescent
cuit. The bipolar cascode was se- voltage, and depend on the quiescent current in the Output stage can, with-
lected after extensively testing and current of the differentiaJ amplifier. out problems, be adjusted between
measuring six different driver cir- The emitter resistors R19 and R20, zero and 4A.
cuits. Simple push-pull circuits push- add a small negative feedback to tbe The circuit of the output stage is
pull Darlingrons or VMCS-drivcr almost distortion-free cascades. The simple: the source resistors R25 to
types tested badly. quiescent current through the eas- R28 guarantee a small negative fced-

Power Amp Projects 131

 The RL and RC networks, made up of
R29 and R30, ClO and Ll at the am·
plifier's output, isolate the capacitive
and inductive load represented by tbe
loudspeakers, thus also reducing the
tendency towards oscillations.
Protection diodes OS to D8 prevent
gate source voltage from rising tOO
high in case of overdrive or short cir-
cuit of the omput stage. The
necessary outpUt current, and the
supply voltage of the output Stages,
are calculated as follows:
I'au> .. W W--+
P_ ., ,Ip_ xRt .. 8.94 V~

-- - Uau .= /1. x 8.94 V..

.. 12.65V",
I
,.....us, = U a ...... x-- '" 3.16A
IV.
which is equal to l.S8A per output
stngc.
The chosen quiescent currem is 'lA

IusM"X = 2A + 1.58A = 3.6A

The quiescent current is high so the

FE.Ts C~ln still work, even at a
minirnwn current of O.4A, in a linear
range. The minimum supply voltage
results from the maximum Output
voltage, plus the voltage drop of the
FET bulk resistances in a hard driven
FfCURE 5' The swffitlg guide
st.ge IR."I.
back, and compensate for variations to C9, prevent the tendency toward VI> .. V",".. + los."..u )( Rps"" -\8.TV
between the different FITs. The resis- oscillations of the output stage. They
tors R21 to R24, and the c.1pacitors C6 install as near as possible to the FETs. The supply voltage chosen is ± WV.

132 Power Amp Projects

 • lOY -0--.--....-,

p':"r;"
~21Dn
"'"

'""
" ",,. " ",
"" "'"
'"" , ..
'" 1l2? 211 '"
4 A7

'" OR
22
C1D
J: 100"
'" !9 ,~

"',
'l\.',J.,
c7l le9
" "'" AI' Al0 MlO" 220"

'" 10. 27011 _ lOV _ ....-1_4-...1

FIGURE 6: Schematic of one channel of the complete 2OWamplifier..

From the supply voltage and the

quiescent current the maximum PARTS LIST
power consumption can be cal-
culated:
Resistors· semiconductors
R1 18k 01, 2 3,9V zener
PVMAX -2x20Vx2A =80W R2 2.2k 03, 4 18V zener
R3 470k OS, 6 12V zener
This seems to be high, but it is R4 47k 07, 8 1N4148
RS-9 4.7k T1, 2, 3 8C550
unavoidable for a true class-A output
R10 10n T4-8 BC560
stage. In addition, as is the nonnal R11-14 2200 19,10 BCSSO
case, power consumption is reduced R15-18 10k T11, 12 2SK133
considerably when the Output stage R19, 20 2700 TU, 14 2SJ48
is driven. R21-24 1k
11:25-28 0.22, SW W.W. Mls<-
The last parts of the circuit are the 11:29 10,1W l1 12-15 wrns insUlated wire,
input filter :md the feedback path. 11:30 4.7n,1W 1mm diameter 11201 wound on
The input filter, built up by R3 to RS, 11:31,32 3.3k R29- 2".H
and Cl and C3, is a bandpass with a P3 5k 1lHum trImmer EC BOard
bandwidth of 5Hz up to 60kHz. heatsink thermal reslstance smaller than
'All resistors VOW, 5% 0.4 C/W, e.g.. 51(91 or SKS6,
Therefore, the bandwidth of the total 1sornm long 16.,
circuit will be limited by passive l·bracket see drill plan, 4mm thick
components upwards as well as {Fig.3bl
downwards. capacitors
C1 220"F, bipolar, 12V POwer SUpplY
This design is necessary to avoid a C2 O.68"F, polypropylene Transformer: 2l(15V.3.6AfOJannel
bandwidth limitation by the (active) C3 47QpF Re<:tifier: 10A bridge
high-pass of the negative feedback (4-7 100"F, vertical 25V, electrolytic Filter capacitor: 2l(20 OOO"F, 2SV
network, (RI :md R2, and C2). Such C8,9 22OnF, 2SV, ceramic fuse hOlder, fuses, master SWitCh, separate
C10 1ClOnF power supply, for input stage: ±24V!SQmA
C11,12 68PF lregulateCll

Power Amp Projects 133

a bandwidth limitation in the nega- filter is not connected directly to a suitable resistor {Le., in order to
tive feedback network is always a ground, but via the low value of RIO, cbaDge the input sensitivity).
problem and easily leads to thus reducing the danger of ground In tliis branch the capacitor Cl pro-
instabilities. loops and hum. vides increasing negative feedback at
The upper limiting frequency of Tbe negative feedback network, as low frequencies and theoretically an
tbe passive inpm filter, in the range already described with higb open-loop infinite negative feedback at DC volt·
of 60kHz, lies considerably under the gain, defines tbe total gain. With the age-gain is equal, 1 =0dB. There-
limiting frequencies of the active indicated resistors it is adjusted to 13 fore, tbe output lies on tbe same
stages, and preventS problematical times, but it is easily changed with voltage level as the input, namely on
TIM distortion. The whole input the ground level. 0

134 Power Amp Projects