sources are now the cartridge, the feedback
resistor R2, and the amplifier—the latter being
HEAD
AMP
DESIGN
Stan Curtis theorises
and offers a practical circuit
N 1980 Iundertook a project to design an
I advanced moving- coil preamplifier stage.
This represented my tenth commercially
produced headamp and Idecided that the
time had come to design acircuit which was
as close to the theoretical ideal as could be
achieved with present day semiconductors.
Although this project work required the
development of a high- specification ( noise,
linearity, bandwidth, etc) amplifier stage,
equal consideration was given to the tech-
nique of matching the head- amp to both the
cartridge and the associated phono preamp.
The result is a moving- coil preamplifier of
superb specification and novel concept. This
article discusses the background to the design
and presents asimplified version for home
constructors.
The circuit technique used is developed
from ashunt feedback arrangement which
was originally unique to one of my earlier
designs. Fig. Iashows the simplified circuit
of a moving- coil preamp ( the Braithwaite
ST17) which Idesigned in 1977. It will be
seen that the overall gain is established by
shunt feedback and is equal to - R2/R1.
r
2c"de
voltage gain
RI. RC
A) simplified circuit of 1977 Braithwaite
R2
RC
voltage gam
I _
13) sirriplified circuit of 1978 Braithwaite 5117
FIG1
However, as soon as the cartridge is con-
nected its own internal resistance becomes
part of R1 so that the gain is now
-R2/R1+ RC. The original value of R1 was
12 ohms, but it soon became apparent that
this component was unnecessary and it
was removed at an early stage of production
to give the circuit of fig. 1b, which es-
sentially responds to the cartridge current.
The gain of the amplifier is now directly ( but
inversley) proportional to the DC resistance of
the cartridge of course, ie, -RZ/RC. Note the
emphasis on DC resistance and not impedance
64
Conventional headamp arrangement fusing
series feedback)
FIG 2
(provided feedback resistor R2 is purely
resistive). In the past year or two other
designs have appeared using broadly the
same current- sensing principles. In particular
the latest moving- coil stages used in Thres-
hold and Meridian pre- amplifiers are of a
similar arrangement.
With this shunt feedback circuit the car-
tridge is not loaded by any matching' re-
sistor; indeed the concept of electrical
matching ceases to matter. Thus the ST17
was able to be promoted as a ' universal'
preamp. With conventional input loading, fig.
2, there will always be asignal loss, albeit
small. For example, a20 ohm cartridge may
be loaded by the 100 ohm input impedance,
of the headamp. This loading will reduce
the signal voltage by afactor 100/120 or
1.6 dB.
However, to return to the shunt feedback
arrangement, it will be seen that this elimin-
ates one of the dominant input noise sources.
Irrespective of whether the feedback is shunt
ST I?
or series, resistor R1 will always be a noise
source effectively in series with the input. By
alp eliminating this resistor the only remaining
external source of thermal noise is the car-
tridge resistance itself. In fact, the noise
Weçl
o
INPUT
o
FIG 4 Basic Schemed.< of
the dominant noise source.
Most of the noise from the cartridge will be
generated by random thermally excited
vibration of the charged particles in the coil
wire, and can be calculated as:
RMS noise voltage En =,/4KTRAf
where 4KT = 1.61 x10 -20 at 290°K.
Thus, if our cartridge has a DC resistance of
20 ohms, the noise voltage will be about
84nV measured with a20kHz noise
bandwidth. We should aim to reduce the
noise generated by other components to this
level, but there is little benefit, for example, in
reducing the amplifier noise to a level below
that generated by the cartridge unless we can
also find a way of reducing its noise ( dipping
it in liquid nitrogen perhaps!). Fig. 3 shows
the noise model of the fig. 1b circuit.
This shunt feedback arrangement has one
or two other advantages over the usual series
feedback circuits. No consideration of input
matching need be made. The whole subject
of loading moving- coil cartridges is far more
involved than first impressions suggest,
although some writers imply that a moving-
coil cartridge works equally well into virtually
any loading network. Ihave undertaken
considerable research into the subject, but
this new design conveniently bypasses the
problem through the use of an effective short
circuit ( for AC signals) across the cartridge,
ie, between true ground and avirtual ground
existing at the junction of RC and R2 ( fig. Ib).
Thus the cartridge is also very well electrically
damped. Another factor of interest is the
cartridge-dependent gain of the stage. With
the voltage gain being equal to - R2/RC the
gain will vary according to the cartridge
design. Fortunately (as agross generalisation)
the high output cartridge types have lots of
turns and therefore high DC resistances, and
this causes the gain to be low. Low- output
Eno
Equivalent input noise:
En 2 va Ens 2 .En 2 (1• F
4) 2 • In 2 RC 2 • I - )2
R C
R2
NOISE MODEL of FIG.10 CIRCUIT
FIG .3
V.
0
( fol OUTPUT
Final Integrated Circuit Amplifier
HI-FI NEWS & RECORD REVIEW DECEMBER 1981

INPUT
(ONE CHANNEL SHOWN)
FIG 5 FINAL PRACTICAL CIRCUIT
types have fewer turns and a lower resistance,
causing the stage gain to be increased—a
very convenient by-product of the design!
Minimising the Amplifier Noise
The main problem with the removal of resistor
R1 ( fig. 1b) was that any noise reduction was
swamped by the amplifier noise. It did,
however, save afew pence on the manu-
facturing cost. Development of an adequate
amplifier design proved difficult because of
the non- availability of suitable transistors and
eventually the stage was built using specia-
lised integrated circuit technology. Fig. 4
shows the basic schematic of the final design
and it will be seen that the familiar use of
parallel input transistors has been adopted.
This technique has been employed before, but
some means has always been needed to
ensure equal current sharing between the
paralleled transistors. This normally results in
the use of additional components, all of
which generate noise in this vital first stage,
but in an integrated circuit the transistors can
be made identical and the circuitry can
remain remarkably simple. These transistors
are operated at afairly high collector current
to keep the noise voltage low and their
design ensures that they have avery low base
spreading resistance ( which appears in series
with the input signal and so contributes
noise). Considerable efforts were made to
keep the 1/f ('flicker') noise low, and the
final design has avirtually constant noise
output down to about 4Hz, when the noise
power begins to rise.
The amplifier is DC coupled throughout, so
exhibits no LF phase shifts. Both input and
output DC offsets have been kept very low,
but some readers may still express concern
about having any voltage across their
moving- coil cartridge, however small. Such a
voltage could displace the cantilever system
from its normal linear operating region, and in
Detail of the Vetoboard-built prototype.
HI-FI NEWS & RECORD REVIEW DECEMBER 1981
using a commercially available integrated circuit
amp
r=liO
Reii7OR
C.I5nF
IC
SINGLE POLE OUTPUT FILTER
FIG .6
so doing generate aforce on the stylus
which, depending upon the polarity, would
either add to or reduce the effective tracking
force. The input DC offset of this design is,
however, less that that experienced with
many capacitor- coupled preamps, particularly
those using ordinary electrolytic capacitors
rather than low- leakage types. As with other
headamps, this design is a linear wideband
amplifier having no equalisation and an
extended frequency response. This can,
however, lead to problems with the
associated phono preamp. Moving- coil
cartridges can generate a lot of supersonic
energy ( le. above 20 kHz) because their low-
inductance results in little attenuation of such
signals, and often because of the nature and
frequency of their tip resonance. After the
further amplification by the headamp these
signals are fed to the normal phono - stage. In
the worst cases this supersonic energy can
'clip' the phono stage, despite the fact that
the midband signal level may be quite low.
More usually, the input stage is driven hard
enough to enter its less linear operating
region, thus generating harmonic and inter-
modulation distortion of the audible signals.
This distortion usually puzzles the listener,
who starts changing the tracking weight, the
arm alignment, declares his records to be
damaged, returns the cartridge to the dealer,
and finally declares the headamp to be no
good. The answer is, of course, to design
decent phono preamplifier stages, but the
problem can be moderated by fitting apassive
single- pole low-pass filter at the output of
the headamp. Ihave fitted such switchable
filters in some of my commercial designs
(Braithwaite RA14, Lecson MCA- 2, QED
MCA, etc.) and also added them to other
manufacturers' models to solve this interfac-
ing problem.
Practical Design for Home Construction
Although this project was originally under- •
taken for acommercial design, asimilar, albeit
simplified, version has been developed for the
home constructor. Fig. 5 shows the final
circuit. R1 provides some input loading to
keep the amplifier stable when there is a long
cable but no cartridge plugged into the
inputs. A battery supply ( using two pairs of
PP9s) can be adopted, although this is
expensive in the long term. A mains power-
supply is shown in fig. 5, using integrated-
circuit voltage regulators to ensure a low-
noise supply. It is essential that these regu-
lators are positioned very close to the head-
amp circuit to ensure low- noise and good
stability, although the transformer itself
should be well screened and positioned
further away. This transformer is aspecial
toroidal type having a low external magnetic
hum field. The circuit can be built on asmall
piece of Veroboard, but all tracks should be
cut as short as possible, because although the
design is quite stable, long loops of wire do
make efficient radio aerials! The finished unit
should be housed in awell screened box.
The power supply should be tested before
it is connected to the headamp circuit. The
supply rails should be ± 15 volts within ± 0.5
volts. No further testing should be necessary
other than perhaps checking that the DC
voltage at the output is effectively zero.
(Because of the nature of this design any
47li PU
attempt to measure its performance with a
input
signal generator simply attached to the input
will give deceptive results.)
For this home construction version a
commercially available integrated circuit has
been specified. This IC, the OP- 27 CJ is
noisier ( when fed from avery low resistance
source) than the specially developed version,
but it is still capable of excellent results. The
performance of the gain stage is effectively
determined by the feedback resistor R2. For
the majority of medium resistance ( 20 to 40
ohm), medium- output, moving- coil cartridges
the value can be 1kohms, although this may
be reduced ( to lower the stage gain) when
the headamp is used to drive sensitive preamp
phono inputs. For lower resistance low-
output cartridges ( Ortofon, etc) the value of
R2 should lie between 220 and 470 ohms.
The headamp is reliable in use and easy to
set up. Take special care with the connection
of earth leads and keep the active circuitry
well away from power transformers—
remember the cheapest form of magnetic field
screening is distance. One final point: if you
value your loudspeakers, turn the volume
down to zero before switching the headamp
on or off. A low-pass filter is shown in fig. 6,
but remember that this will inevitably produce
aslight degradation of the noise
performance •
Parts list ( for fig, 5)
R1 4k71-W metal film 5%
R2 see text
Cl , C2 0.1 pF/100 V ceramic
C3, C4 1000 pF/25 V electrolytic
D1- D4 100 mA/50 V silicon
Ti 13.5-0-13.5/12VA toroidal
ICi JL400 red spot ( 0P-27 CJ)
IC2 78L15
IC3 79L15
Note: transformers £ 4.50 each ( inc VAT + p &
p), integrated circuit OP- 27 CJ £8.80 each ( inc
VAT + p & p) from Jelgate Ltd, 215 High Street,
Offord Cluny, Cambs.
Technical Specification
(±15 volt supply an'd R2 = 1kohms)
Gain:
50 ( 20 ohms cartridge)
Maximum Output into 47 K2 ( 1kHz) for
0.5% THD:
5.6 volts RIVIS
Frequency Response ( 47 kO load):
DC to 20 kHz (- 1dB)
Total Harmonic Distortion ( 20 Hz to
20 kHz) 50.0 mV into 47
<0.005%
Output Impedance ( for gain 50):
<5 ohms
Current Consumption:
approx 12 mA
65