What killed V-FET?
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mesut BALCI
Active Member
This is for the same reason that I have. My 5650 has the same midband as Radford sta25 s3 has, even with more smoothness and realism lacking only a bit contours. But 5650 although being more detailed and airy, could not give the truer form of trebles and stronger air of valves althogh serving terrific depth causing a virtual reality resulting in a disappeared room. Although having charming resolution and microinformation flow, and with terrific musical parameters, letting me in the condition that I am not able to find any better SS amp regardless of price, being the best SS amp, 5650 is not as good as average valve designs in sense of air. I am going for a SE valve. Daring to say that vfet amps of 1970s are still the best SS amps ever produced, they could not beat valves completely and owners prefered their valves for less cost with stronger musical air lacking at other sides. Being used to hear valve sound I would not spend much more for in fact for some more distortion and lesser air to listen to tracks before Alphaville's Laura Branigan's appear. In a valve world at that time, letting valve side in its own line, the only thing to do was reaching to a wider range of community with very cheap SS products. While mosfets started to be used, I was working in a toshiba-hitachi service center at 1983. Mosfets were produced!! this thing uses mosfet, wow!! And more bass more trebles, more powerfull of them. Watching black and white TVs with old fashioned bad, always crashing valves in a need to get rid of them, mosfets with even less distortion sheets in hi-fi world killed vfets to get more bass and trebles of SS amps with more power. They had %0,1 and 50W not 0,001 by mosfets with 150W. There was a terrific hi-fi and music sector at that time here, many hi-fi stores in full excitement with new products with streets very loudly played music from stores. Equalisers, new boomboxes, strange vumeters and more strangely the more hiss was giving a sense of more power!!! Thus being poor I could afford to buy a caraudio to use at home and serious audiophils were already using their valves. And for youth, a wrong belief was common, who cares the valves, they are already a bad thing, transistor is better. Unlucky development needs and fashion of that time caused an 30 years of loss in music. And to me for late long years hi-end sector only exploited using valves are bad fashion. And one day... An Amp called vfet. Killing all the SSs... Now it is the time for hi-fi sector to produce them again. Are not able to produce very for very cheaper after 30 years?? I dont think so....
mesut BALCI
Active Member
Briefly, vfet amps are not as airy and tastefull as valves which have been used to for audiophils. And the youth -from 80s terrific song lists, the pop fashion that started- needed to listen to Laura Branigan - Self Control, Oh Oh Oh BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Oh Oh Oh BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!, needing more of bass and more of treble in as louder as possible. Already hating valves and thinking thay are old and bad comparing to transistors, a new better transistor welcomed, served better bass treble and power than vfets for cheaper to get bass. So what to do with vfets?? Really, but really very unlucky disapear.
-1984 is the year that the amount of songs produced are still a broken record and all are pop realted. The fashion.
-Look at the amplifiers of 80s. They serve to the fashion. ta-e 88 uses the simple is best teory but Victor/Jvc vfet amp then uses a strangely macthing preamplifier with equaliser!! What a confusion. Peopel didnot buy low powered low bass low treble low louder vfet amps for unnecessarily higer price to listen to bass and treble.
-And I even think that best valve amps are a bit better than the best amp, the vfet amp in terms of air and valveness(although very colorfull, musical air is better). Serious listeners that started to listen to music with valves, never liked transistors, and also could not like vfets enough for this reason.
80s fashion killed vfet development :tears:
There are vfets currently used for highfrqswithing and also vfet amps like Spectral dma360 and may be the Halcro. But not as good as those. With todays hi-tech, those vfets can easily kill valves. A new market and the money. With power enogh to drive home audio listening. :yes:
-1984 is the year that the amount of songs produced are still a broken record and all are pop realted. The fashion.
-Look at the amplifiers of 80s. They serve to the fashion. ta-e 88 uses the simple is best teory but Victor/Jvc vfet amp then uses a strangely macthing preamplifier with equaliser!! What a confusion. Peopel didnot buy low powered low bass low treble low louder vfet amps for unnecessarily higer price to listen to bass and treble.
-And I even think that best valve amps are a bit better than the best amp, the vfet amp in terms of air and valveness(although very colorfull, musical air is better). Serious listeners that started to listen to music with valves, never liked transistors, and also could not like vfets enough for this reason.
80s fashion killed vfet development :tears:
There are vfets currently used for highfrqswithing and also vfet amps like Spectral dma360 and may be the Halcro. But not as good as those. With todays hi-tech, those vfets can easily kill valves. A new market and the money. With power enogh to drive home audio listening. :yes:
Neither Spectral or Halcro are using VFETs. They are vertical arrays of conventional MOSFETs. Read their literature carefully. Don't think anyone would be making new amps with 25+ year-old devices. But, I have 40 of them (individual VFET devices) and that should be enough for the rest of my life. Too many, in fact. Anyone want a nice, stock B-2?mesut BALCI said:
wualta said:
OK, Wualta, you're now officially older than anyone. Either that or Cicero is your cousin Vinny's brother-in-law.
Hee hee. Damn, I sure feel that way these days. My jokes certainly are. Let's hope that the audio market rediscovers triodelike transistors-- which they might, seeing how tubes are coming back-- before I expire from agedness or lose my hearing, whichever comes first.Negotiableterms said:
Don't know if any here have seen this
S I T P-P 60W+60W Power Amplifier
A Static Induction Transistor is another type of power JFET
THE BIPOLAR TRANSISTOR IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE BIPOLAR TRANSISTOR! has a bit of detail about the differences between Power JFET and SITs
Regards
James
S I T P-P 60W+60W Power Amplifier
A Static Induction Transistor is another type of power JFET
THE BIPOLAR TRANSISTOR IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE BIPOLAR TRANSISTOR! has a bit of detail about the differences between Power JFET and SITs
Regards
James
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sanyofreak
Active Member
wualta said:
Car Audio "MOSFET" amps by and large do NOT use MOSFETS in any of the audio circuitry, just the Power supply which is commonly known as a DC-DC converter. Their high speed, and low "on" resistance make them pretty much the defacto standard power devices for all switch-mode power supplies (like the DC-DC converters found in most car amps over 25WPC).
the above ends any useful contribution to the thread - read on at Your own risk, and a high ratio of peeing someone off, read on only if You have a thick skin.
When I's a kid, I helped one of my Dad's friends build (yep they were kits) a Hafler D200 amp. While IIRC this was a MOSFET design, and not V-FET. I've come to find out that this is actually a pretty highly thought of design, and of course David, a highly respected audio engineer. ( tell ya what though, that was a pretty complex amp design)
There was nothing not to like about the D200, but little (IMHO) to rave about either, and it did not possess any special audio "magic" that set it apart from any good BJT designs I've ever heard or built. Remember however, I'm NO audiophile, so my input here is meaningless, but after designing and building them for decades, There is just no need for myself, and apparently 99.9% of the other non-audiophiles to use FET's of any kind in an audio amplifier. There's no real gain. And BTW, the D200 was one of the coolest running amps I've ever messed with, period.
You want tube-sound ??? Get a @#$%^ing tube amp, and if I may steal a line from the Malady I participated in the last thread I posted - If Your an "Audiophile", then what do You care If Your amp is bottles, Silicon, Laminated Cat Guts or Pig intestines, If it Sounds good to You ?????
While the economics of it all certainly played a part in the V-FETs demise as stated here, it is certainly the BJT that continues to kill not just FETs, but any other amplifier designs that are out there. Too damn good, too damn cheap.
Lefty said:
Uh oh... careful Lefty! The masses are demonstrably satisfied with MP3s played through something cheaper than an iPod. Under your theory, that makes each and every member of this site an Audiophile!
Besides, we're all trying to avoid attitude here, both snobbery and reverse snobbery!
sydsfloyd67
Contributor
It does look that way. Then why do you suppose that so relatively few MOSFET amps were put out for home audio? (I only really see Adcom today, and Souncraftmen through the mid 90s.) I had been wondering this lately, given what seems to be a superior dampening ability and the size and weight advantages. What then killed MOSFET in the home audio? (Clearly it won in terms of the limited space in auto applications.)EchoWars said:
Is a well done A/B class really more refined perhaps for most listeners? A Soundcraftsmen 203W/ch that I use, I'd predict would be considered superior by most listeners to, for example, my AU-517. Personally I can't decide, so I must have both (daily). -sf
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Nothing has 'killed' the MOSFET for audio applications. First, they aren't used in the audio circuits in auto appliations. So there is no connection there. And there are probably as many MOSFET products as ever, on a percentage basis. Several Nelson Pass amps use them, Sony's last, terrific TOTL ES integrated amps were MOSFET, as was one of their best ES power amps. Unison currently uses in the output stage of their hybrid integrated amp. Halcro amps, which are considered some of the finest in the world, are a vertical array of a type of MOSFET. IIRC, BAT uses MOSFETs in the output stage of all their solid-state power amps and Hitachi's TOTL amps and receivers were also MOSFET, as were the ones from Radio Shack. One problem with all of this is that most manufacturers do not advertise what output device they use. They generally don't want you to know more than they have to tell you. Because if you know then their competitors will also know.sydsfloyd67 said:
It does surprise me that more folks don't use MOSFETs, as with current process tools they are a superior device from a noise stand-point.
john_w
Miscreant
Yamaha B-2 said:
OK, now that I HAVE read through this thread, I see my original statement may still have some value. Except for really high-end components, "cheap and good enough" amp design has ruled the day since the early 80's. I think FET technologies all fell victim to shifting market priorities.
Still, are most high-end, limited market amps (Krell, Levinson, Classe, etc.) using FET technology? I don't know for sure, but I haven't heard much about it being associated with these amps. Maybe the oddball circuitry causes even top designers to shy away from them?
I've known about FETs for a long time and know the basic theory behind them, but never had a chance to sit down and listen critically to an amp designed around them. Now I'm even more curious. :scratch2:
sydsfloyd67
Contributor
Y.B, Thanks for the examples, I didn't realize there were so many out there for sale. Those claiming the application are indeed just a small portion of the market. As far as car audio, I must say I hear a distinct sound from "MOSFET" head units like my '05 Pioneer dash unit that is quite distinct from any of the vintage receiver listening I've done. Soundcraftsmen MOSFET output does remind me of this difference, as does the T-amp sound (also Class D). -sfYamaha B-2 said:
Edit: Actually, for example a typical 'Sony Xplod' is claiming both a MOSFET power supply and "MOSFET output stages":
" Sony's Xplod Specialty Series Sony XM-SD22X amps keep the sound strong — all day long! MOSFET power supplies and output stages ensure you'll have a steady stream of power, even when the amp is subjected to high demand. Xplod amps are CEA-2006 compliant so you know the power ratings are a true measure of the amp's performance! "
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