I was given a quad receiver about 20 years ago that had four STK
modules, and it always sounded nociably worse than a lower-power
stereo amp I had (I've never claimed to have golden ears, so it must
have been really bad to bother me). I wish I had kept it just for the
discrete quad LP decoder circuitry. And to measure the power amp
distortion products.
What were the modules??
Googling "darlington power pack" brings up pages with various STK
power amp modules. I looked up models STK-0050 and STK-0080 that go by
this name, and they're not even a complete power amp. It's a
complementary emitter-follower output stage with each 'output'
transistor' being a Darlington-wired pair, and a fifth transistor for
bias with appropriate diodes and resistors.
FWIW, here's a couple data sheets with schematics: http://pdf1.alldatasheet.net/datashe.../STK-0050.html http://pdf1.alldatasheet.net/datashe.../STK-0080.html
Conceptually, this seems like a great idea for biasing to have all
the temperature-dependent components track temperature-wise. I can
only wonder how they messed up the design of these things to make them
sound bad. Perhaps a designer actually got it right, but the
manufacturing cost pressures Muntzed it.
These sound bad? Darlington power packs? These modules were the
biggest ones with much of the amps circuitry. I used the STV4050V's.
I like the price and they stood up well in use, but sound was OK at high levels
up over the low power crossover distortion. There were better complimentary
modules as well as lower distortion products.
I have no idea what 'stk modules' are, but 'darlington power pack' is commonly
listed as a sign of a higher than average quality 70s consumer amplifier,
which
is uncommon, though they seem to be quite common in car stereos, probably
because the interest in quality consumer stereos shifted from the home market
I recall a semi-honest mark of "quality" was "Discrete Output
Stage" meaning the power amplifier used individual output transistors
instead of these power module things. I just barely remember seeing
"DOS" and I forget which brand name used it.
to the car market after the 70s... As I stated in my original post, this
thread
is not about pro-audio equipment, and that I was hoping to hear from people
who
appreciate 70s consumer stereo equipment. Since you're such a professional,
perhaps you needn't be replying...
Sorry if Scott didn't validate your feelings about those things,
but if you care about getting the best sound, you can't do much better
than read and heed Scott's posts.
Which would you use?
Hybrid Mode
