There's your thanks, Piggie. I owe you that much: I'd taken a quick look at this thread yesterday, then got distracted. So, you got to play the "heavy" ... this time!
Still, I'm gonna do a little bit of quibbling re gain controls. I was under the impression they're
not such a good idea:
Quote:
Myth 5: "This amplifier is better because it has a knob you can use to set the gain."
Actually, two problems with this one. If the control is ahead of the amplifier, it means that you're varying the signal, but the ampifier's self-noise remains at a fixed level. On the other hand, if the control comes after the amplifier, it has no ability to keep strong input signals from overloading the amplifier. If you truly need an amplifier, one with fixed gain should be just fine -- and not having extra parts means there's less to go wrong.
|
This entry was posted in a blog called
Plugged In: The DTV Switch by Jeff Hartman, chief engineer at WSYR-DT/Syracuse, NY, and a slew of smaller Central NY stations owned by the same chain. The guy usually makes a lot of sense, and his posts are very entertaining.
