Mostly out of curiosity I have been messing with designing and analyzing discrete diamond buffers the past couple of days, trying to gain some insight into the inner workings of the circuit.
I have tried every design I can think of from the most simplistic through to fairly complex, including BJT transistors and / or MOSFETs in the various sections. Also tried a couple of versions with compound output stage, etc. From all of this I have come up with a couple of "findings":
1. DC offset can very easily become a problem if the components are not carefully matched.
2. The harmonic distortion profile can be changed rather drastically by making very small component changes.
3. The load driving capability of the circuit isn't too good at lower impedances.
From all of this it seems like the circuit is very finicky somehow. Regardless of all that, there is quite a large following of the topology.
What I want to know is whether anyone here has used a diamond buffer and what your impressions were?
Kind regards,
Ian.
I have tried every design I can think of from the most simplistic through to fairly complex, including BJT transistors and / or MOSFETs in the various sections. Also tried a couple of versions with compound output stage, etc. From all of this I have come up with a couple of "findings":
1. DC offset can very easily become a problem if the components are not carefully matched.
2. The harmonic distortion profile can be changed rather drastically by making very small component changes.
3. The load driving capability of the circuit isn't too good at lower impedances.
From all of this it seems like the circuit is very finicky somehow. Regardless of all that, there is quite a large following of the topology.
What I want to know is whether anyone here has used a diamond buffer and what your impressions were?
Kind regards,
Ian.
