40 WATT CLASS B AMP.

In 2005 I had a job to fix an "energy transducer" produced by James B Lansing in about 1959.
The energy transducer was just a two channel amplifier.

It was originally full of germanium transistors and many were fused.
I refuse to replace germanium transistors with more of the same in any circuit unless I am bribed into doing so with so much money that I cannot refuse. If ever there will be a bunch of electronics that won't be missed it will be all the junk
with germanium within which lasted on the scene between about 1954 and 1960. The resistors and capacitors of that era also were often very poor, making all the gear with germanium devices even less worth collecting.

The first transistors were point contact germanium items with horrific characteristics, and makers of tubes
chuckled about then since they were such poor performers.
But production increased and they weasled their way into countless small radios to give us inferior sound quality
that the poor could afford and carry around in their pockets.
The germanium power transistors were very prone to easy failure from heat and had poor linearity
and had current leakage problems.
In about 1960, the bipolar junction transistors were made using silicon and with a new heat process and suddenly it was all over for vacuum tubes because the silicon was thermally more rugged than the germanium, and perhaps even better sounding.
The current linearity of the new silicon based bjt wonders was a lot better and leakage currents were not a problem and
soldering them was easy without having to use heat sinks clipped to the leads while soldering.

The world suddenly got a heck of a lot more cheap electronics, but no better musicality in amplifiers.

The early JBL  "energy transducer" was merely a 30 watt per channel stero amp for an organ and speaker console a guy has in
Melbourne.

I removed all the germanium based circuitry and old R&C parts and filed them in the rubbish bin.

The circuit I used is as follows :-
Fig 6.
Schematic 40watt bjt amp.

The circuit uses the original power transformer with CT secondary to produce +/- 27V rails
with a bridge of diodes.

The arrangement of Q7&Q8 as darlington pairs to drive the Q9&Q10 effectively give the output emitter followers
stage a high base input resistance because they are effectively connected as darlington triples.

Therfore the base input resistance to Q7 and Q8 is very high.
The gain of the VAS stage Q4&Q5 is not disturbed by input resistance variations of the output stage.
The amp continues to make nice organ music.
But hey, give me a Hammond with a tube amp if you want the best sound!

Fig 7. 
40w amp on bench1
I made the perforated steel cover which slots into position at the bottom and is firmly
held by two screws for easy access for servicing.

Fig 8.
40w amp on bench2.
I fitted new RCA inputs and level adjust pots, IEC mains input socket and fuse holder.

Fig 9.
40w amp on bench3
The vew is with all the covers off and the amp lying
with the panel in Fig face down.
The boards for each channel are white fibreglass with wire tracks and surface mounted R,C, and other parts.
New PS capacitors are fitted on the right side with a pair of fuses for the outputs in front of the caps.

Fig 10.
40w amp on bench4.
With all covers screwed into place.
The amplifier unit fits into a long speaker unit for an organ with speakers at each end.

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