DIYbanter - View Single Post

Ralph Mowery

In article ,
says...

I have always thought a Audio Sinewave going through a Transistor would
come out as a Squarewave, not a Sinewave.

To my way of thinking a Sinewave is Pure Audio, a Squarewave would make
the signal sound distorted (a bit?).

Does it happen as I imagine, or am I way off base.

I never seen the pattern of the output on an oscilloscope so I don't really
know.

It all depends on the circuit. If just fed in to a transistor the
output would be a square wave, more or less.

YOu use resistors to bias a transistor in to a linear type amplifier if
you want the output wave form to be the same as the input except larger.
It will usually be inverted depending on how you make the circuit.

Look up class A, Class B and Class C amplifiers. The class A is linear
, class B (in audio amplifiers) usually has 2 trasistors in push pull so
the wavefor will not be distorted. The class C amp looks like a bunch of
pulses if biased far enough. The class B will be distorted if the
transistors are not in push pull. The class C will really be distorted.

Given equal quality amps, the tubes will be driven into saturation on
very strong signals slightly different than the solid state ones
usually.

I have such a tin ear that I doubt I could tell the difference in a $
100 system and a $ 10,000 system. There have been some studies that
people with very good ears can tell the difference the insturments could
not detect back in the late 1960s.