Spectrally Challenged

This very interesting article by Ben Duncan appeared in the October 1993 issue of Electronics World + Wireless World magazine in the UK. In it, the author tests ten popular power amplifier chips and explains, amongst other things, how the distortion spectra are important in terms of sound quality. Unfortunately, the article does not appear to be available anywhere else. I made these copies of the article before emigrating as part of our big clear out.

The article is nearly twenty years old as I upload it, so of course there are different chips available now. However, I think it's still an interesting read. The same issues still apply.

Distortion spectra are shown for the LM380, LM383, LM386, LM1875, TBA820M, TDA1514, TDA2030, TDA2040, TDA2611 and TDA2822M.

Update 4/1/2021
Ben Duncan got in touch today and pointed out amongst other things that while the comparison is interesting, "those ICs are all bad (sonically) for high-end, as the harmonics do not fall off and too many are 5,7,9th .." so bear that in mind if you're thinking of making an amp around these chips.

Some of Ben's articles can now be found on the Stereophile website.

I've more hifi component reviews on my hifi page.

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