Audio Electronics: Testing a Tripath Power Amplifier

Our late and much esteemed author, Ron Tipton, shared a fascinating project on testing Class-T or Tripath power amplifiers on the pages of audioXpress. As he characterized, these "small, inexpensive, and power-efficient units," sounded good "but testing them is problematic." The article also discusses the story of Tripath Technology and speculates on the reasons why the Tripath ICs remained popular among the DIY audio community. This article was originally published in audioXpress, March 2014.

This article by Ron Tipton details the design and construction of the TDL Model 401 high-performance microphone preamp, using a differential input stage that used compound transistor pairs with circuit resistance values, computer optimized for very low output noise. This is a great example of Ron Tipton's TDL Technology projects, which he managed from his home base in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Sadly, the audioXpress community lost one of its most esteemed and prolific writers. There's no better way to pay tribute to Ron than revisit some of these projects. This article was originally published in audioXpress, October 2002.

In this article, Ron Tipton explores the use of stroboscope discs to determine whether your turntable is set to the correct rotational speed. Apart from looking at some commercially available stroboscope discs, Ron Tipton explains how to print one from files that are freely available on the Internet, and explains how to build your own multiple-LED lamp to check the rotations. This article was originally published in audioXpress, December 2010.

Ron Tipton explains how he built his sound level meter and spectrum analyzer, the Model 527, around a Velleman Audio Analyzer kit (K8098). This is a barebones kit with no enclosure or power supply, but for the price, it is very versatile. Originally published in audioxpress, December 2013.

Usually we think of noise as a signal to be eliminated, or at least reduced, in any audio system. However, noise can be a very useful test signal because it is inherently broadband, which is faster and perhaps more accurate than spot or swept frequency testing. Article originally published by Voice Coil, December 2010

You can inexpensively calibrate a microphone. How? In this article audioXpress author Ron Tipton discusses two methods of “secondary” calibration: the electrostatic actuator and microphone comparison.

Charles Hansen described a DIY phase meter calibrator using all-pass, phase-shift filters in a November 2006 article published in audioXpress magazine. Being able to measure phase angle is often helpful, so Ron Tipton decided to build the calibrator as described. In Hansen's design, there was a set of five calibrations frequencies: 10 Hz, 100 Hz, 1000 Hz, 10 kHz, and 100 kHz. Hansen relied on an external oscillator to drive the calibrator at these input frequencies. Ron Tipton made some modifications that better suited his needs, described in this article.