Re: Class/type of amp ?

Class D has always troubled me. It does not fit
with the accepted class of operation of an amplifier.

Given that you accept class D, but are not easy with it, what
other designation would you use to identify the switched-rail
concept as something which 'broadly fitted in with the scheme'
and allowed engineers to at least know what it was that they
were looking at?

The original concept of "class" related to the fraction of a cycle the
device was conducting.There's A (all), B (half), AB (more than half but less
than all), and C (less than half). I can't think of any other meaningful
fractions.

There are no other classes. To call switching amps "class D", or to create
new designations for stepped B+ or stepped-bias designs thoroughly confuses
the original meaning.


As soon as you start giving design concepts fancy names,
every manufacturer will pick his own, and no one will know
quite where they are at ...

They'll do it anyhow, for marketing. If Hitachi has a class-G amplifier,
then Toshiba, even though using the same circuit, will call it class H,
simply to look original.

How about just _saying_ what it is, in simple language? That would clarify
things for the technician, in a way that tacking on a
marketing-department-selected letter would not.


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