What is a Ribbon Tweeter?

by Derek Brooks


Most folks are familiar with the mechanics of a standard speaker or tweeter. An electromagnetic coil with a cone attached is placed in the center of a round permanent magnet. When the coil is energized with a positive or negative signal, the coil moves up and down in the magnetic field and produces a sound. [...]

What is a Balanced Cable?

by Derek Brooks


Cables are essentially antennas. Any time you have a length of cable with one end attached to a listening device, you’re going to pick up the cheap garage door opener, the neighbor’s amped-up HAM radio, the vacuum cleaner next door, or the constant noise that exists all around us from way back at the big [...]

Alphabet Soup

There are thousands of methods for amplifying a signal in a circuit, but the industry has narrowed them into several categories for easy classification.  Note that while some manufacturers claim a proprietary method of amplification they can all be classified by the standard classes. Class A Amplifiers Class A amplifiers are generally the simplest designs and use [...]


Class C amplifiers are generally not used for audio applications because like class B, they only reproduce half of the voltage spectrum.  Broadcast amplifiers sometimes use class C amplifiers because of their high efficiency of around 90%. See also Class A amplifier Class B amplifier Class A/B amplifier Class D amplifier

Class AB amplifiers solve the problems associated with class B amplifiers by pairing two class B components, one positive and one negative, to reproduce the full spectrum of the audio wave. Class AB amplifiers are challenged by the timing of these two components.  Start one before the other comes back to zero and you introduce [...]

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Class B amplifiers are rarely used in audio because they reproduce only half of the audio signal – either the positive or the negative.  Imagine a sine wave with the bottom half of the wave removed and replaced with a straight line.  These amplifiers perform poorly at reproducing high quality sound and found their claim-to-fame [...]

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Class A amplifiers are generally the simplest designs and use the same components over the positive and negative voltages being amplified. Class A amplifiers are known for their extremely low distortion due to the nature of having  the same electronic device(s) swing back and forth across the polar spectrum.  Unfortunately, they’re also known for their high inefficiency [...]

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Class D amplifiers use Pulse Density Modulation (PDM) to turn the amplifier components on and off at such a high frequency that we only hear the positive and negative swings of the reproduced audio wave. I like to use a visual analogy that was once shared with me.  Our eyes have a difficult time seeing [...]


What is a Speaker?

by Derek Brooks

A loudspeaker is an audio component that reproduces a recorded sound in the physical environment by creating pressure waves in air.  This is usually accomplished with the use of a permanent magnet, an electromagnet (usually a coil), and a surface (usually a cone) that vibrates at the frequency and amplitude needed to reproduce a recorded [...]

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Point to Point Wiring

Mainstream electrical devices today are made up of chips (integrated circuits) attached to and connected via a circuit board – usually very small chips and components on a green circuit board.  If we go back in time we see circuit boards, but without chips and using larger discrete components.  Go even further back and the [...]