This preamplifier was designed to cope with CD players, tuners, tape recorders etc., providing an ac voltage gain of 4, in order to drive less sensitive power amplifiers. As modern Hi-Fi home equipment is frequently fitted with small loudspeaker cabinets, the bass frequency range is rather sacrificed. This circuit features also a bass-boost, in order to overcome this problem. You can use a variable resistor to set the bass-boost from 0 to a maximum of +16dB @ 30Hz. If a fixed, maximum boost value is needed, the variable resistor can be omitted and substituted by a switch.

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In order to obtain a good audio reproduction at different listening levels, a different tone-controls setting should be necessary to suit the well known behaviour of the human ear. In fact, the human ear sensitivity varies in a non-linear manner through the entire audible frequency band, as shown by Fletcher-Munson curves.
A simple approach to this problem can be done inserting a circuit in the preamplifier stage, capable of varying automatically the frequency response of the entire audio chain in respect to the position of the control knob, in order to keep ideal listening conditions under different listening levels.
Fortunately, the human ear is not too critical, so a rather simple circuit can provide a satisfactory performance through a 40dB range.
The circuit is shown with SW1 in the “Control-flat” position, i.e. without the Automatic Loudness Control. In this position the circuit acts as a linear preamplifier stage, with the voltage gain set by means of Trimmer R7.
Switching SW1 in the opposite position the circuit becomes an Automatic Loudness Control and its frequency response varies in respect to the position of the control knob by the amount shown in the table below.
C1 boosts the low frequencies and C4 boosts the higher ones. Maximum boost at low frequencies is limited by R2; R5 do the same at high frequencies.

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P1______________2K2 Linear Potentiometer

R1,R2,R3______100K 1/4W Resistors
R4______________8K2 1/4W Resistor
R5_____________68R 1/4W Resistor
R6______________6K8 1/4W Resistor
R7,R8___________1K 1/4W Resistors
R9____________150R 1/4W Resistor

C1______________1µF 63V Polyester Capacitor
C2,C3,C4______100µF 25V Electrolytic Capacitors
C5_____________22µF 25V Electrolytic Capacitor

Q1___________BC560C 45V 100mA Low noise High gain PNP Transistor
Q2___________BC550C 45V 100mA Low noise High gain NPN Transistor

J1_____________Jack socket (Mono 3 or 6 mm.)

This circuit is mainly intended to provide common home stereo amplifiers with a microphone input. The battery supply is a good compromise: in this manner the input circuit is free from mains low frequency hum pick-up and connection to the amplifier is more simple, due to the absence of mains cable and power supply.
Using a stereo microphone the circuit must be doubled. In this case, two separate level controls are better than a dual-ganged stereo potentiometer.
Low current drawing (about 2mA) ensures a long battery life.

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Notes:

* Can be directly connected to CD players, tuners and tape recorders.
* Tested with several headphone models of different impedance: 32, 100, 245, 300, 600 & 2000 Ohm.
* Old 8 Ohm impedance headphones can be also driven, but these obsolete devices are not recommended.
* Schematic shows left channel and power supply (common to both channels).
* Numbers in parentheses show IC1 right channel pin connections.
* A correct grounding is very important to eliminate hum and ground loops. Connect to the same point the ground sides of J1, P1, C2, C3 & C4. Then connect separately the input and output grounds to the power supply ground.

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Notes:

* Can be directly connected to CD players, tuners and tape recorders.
* Tested with several headphone models of different impedance: 32, 100, 245, 300, 600 & 2000 Ohm.
* Schematic shows left channel only.
* B1, SW1, J1 & C3 are common to both channels.
* R3 value was calculated for headphone impedance up to 300 Ohm. Using 600 Ohm loads or higher, change R3 value to 100K.
* An interesting upgrade for this circuit was suggested by Mike Baum, NY USA. This involves the use of a Lithium-Ion Prismatic Rechargeable 340948 Battery, featuring a nominal voltage of 3.7V and a current rating of 1200mAH. These weight 38 grams and are 34.2mm x 8.5mm x 48mm. Correct value of R3 when using a 3.7V supply and 32 Ohm impedance headphones will be 100K: under these conditions, the amplifier will deliver about 3V peak-to-peak undistorted output. This means that the output power on 32 Ohm load will be almost doubled in respect to 3V supply. Current drawing will raise to 40mA. When powering a stereo version of this amplifier, the battery will last about 15 hours.

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The basic arrangement of this circuit is derived from the old Quad magnetic pick-up cartridge module. The circuit was rearranged to cope with microphone input and a single-rail low voltage supply.
This low-noise, fully symmetrical, two-transistor head amplifier layout, allows the use of a normal FET input Op-Amp as the second gain stage, even for very sensitive microphone inputs.
The voltage-gain of this amplifier can be varied by means of R9 from 10 to 100, i.e. 20 to 40dB.

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This circuit is intended to indicate the power output level of any audio amplifier. It is simple, portable, and displays three power levels that can be set to any desired value. For a standard HiFi stereo power amplifier like the 25W MosFet Audio Amplifier described in these pages, the power output values suggested are as follows:

* D5 illuminates at 2W
* D4 illuminates at 12.5W
* D3 illuminates at 24.5W

The above values were chosen for easy setup, but other settings are possible.
IC1A is the input buffer, feeding 3 voltage comparators and LEDs drivers by means of a variable dc voltage obtained by R5 and C4 smoothing action. In order to achieve setting stability, the supply of IC1 and trimmers R6 & R7 is reduced and clamped to 5.1V by Zener diode D1.

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This device, connected to the loudspeaker output of an audio amplifier, will indicate the instantaneous output power delivered to the loudspeaker(s) by means of six LEDs illuminating one after another by voltage values increasing little by little, providing the visual impression of a luminous bar or column, increasing and decreasing in height following the increase and decrease of the signal’s level.
The input signal is first rectified by D1 and then sent to six different voltage dividers, one for each LED. In this way, the indication provided by the LEDs illumination of this “Power Display”, will be related to the instantaneous power sunk by the whole loudspeaker cabinet.
Six output power levels are displayed by the LEDs in a 2W - 80W range (no setup required). Each nominal power level indication into 8 Ohms load is reached when the respective LED illuminates at full brightness.

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Notes:

* Connect J2 and J3 to an Avo-meter set to 50µA range:
* Switching SW2 the four input ranges will be multiplied by 5
* Total fsd ranges are: 10mV, 50mV, 100mV, 500mV, 1V, 5V, 10V, 50V
* Set R11 to read 1V in the 1V range, with a sine wave input of 1V @ 1KHz
* Compare the reading with that of another known precision Millivoltmeter or with an oscilloscope.
* The oscilloscope reading must be a sinewave of 2.828V peak to peak amplitude
* Frequency response is flat in the 20Hz-20KHz range
* If you have difficulties in finding resistor values for R1, R2, R3 & R4, you can use the following trick:
R1 = 10M + 1M in parallel
R2 = 1M + 100K in parallel
R3 = 100K + 10K in parallel
R4 = 1K2 + 6K8 in parallel
All resistors 1/4W 1% tolerance

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This project was requested by some correspondents wishing to setup their home-cinema set adjusting all the loudspeaker outputs to the same level when heard from the listening position. In practice this device is a simple (though linear and precise) ac millivoltmeter, using an existing multimeter set to 50 or 100µA fsd with the probes connected to J1 and J2 to read the results. The precision of the measure is entirely depending on the frequency response of the microphone used but, fortunately, for the main purpose of this circuit an absolutely flat response is not required. Therefore, a cheap miniature electret microphone can be used.

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