About Pass DIY

Nelson Pass has been an early contributor to the audio DIY scene; It has been said that Nelson has a knack of explaining engineering things very clearly in a few words, and that he obviously enjoys doing it. He is also a very active contributor at www.diyaudio.com. Being very generous with advice, tips, and complete amplifier designs that people can build.

What does Nelson Pass get out of this interaction?

“I like to speak to the teenager (me) who wanted to know this stuff—that's my audience. There are always people who appreciate a decent explanation that gets to the meat and potatoes. I see it all as light entertainment with a little education thrown in. The academic paper approach has its place, but it seems intended for people who mostly understand the stuff already. If you want to communicate with DIYers, you depend more on colorful analogies, a little hand waving, and very little  differential calculus. I get lots of personal satisfaction out of the whole enterprise. It gives me an outlet for some cool ideas and things that otherwise would stay bottled up, and I have an excuse to explore offbeat approaches purely for their entertainment value. Also, the process of communicating DIY stuff is a two way street—I would say I get about as much as I give. Nelson Pass”

The Sweet Spot — Nelson Pass / 2009

Every audiophile understands the concept of the “sweet spot”, that happy balance of conditions that elicits the best possible sound. It can be a particular listening spot, the best positioning of loudspeakers, or the fortuitous combination of components which complement each other perfectly. It should be no surprise that the desire for the best performance takes the search for the sweet spot into the interiors of the components themselves. This article will concern itself with finding the sweet spot for each gain device in audio amplifiers. It is a commonly held belief in audio that the best amplifiers are composed… More...

The Kleinhorn Part 2 — Nelson Pass / 2004

If you saw part one of this project (AudioXpress, January 2005), you know that the KleinHorn is a big toy, and you can imagine that it’s hard to resist playing with it further. When Chris and Matt built the horns last year, they made different driver chambers and replaceable front baffles, so that it would be easy to try different loudspeaker drivers. In this part we will first briefly explore some of the effects experienced with different amounts of absorbent stuffing in the horn as presented in Part 1. Then I will describe the effort to add scary deep bottom… More...

Pearl 2 — Wayne Colburn / 2010

Here is the long awaited sequel to the Pearl phono stage, named after my maternal Grandmother who was good with a sling shot , played piano and organ and occasionally listened to my early Hi-fi efforts if the smoke wasn't too bad. Pearl II addresses the major request received over the years - more gain for moving coil cartridges. Phono stage design is difficult to do well. Everything matters. Any low level phenomenon occurring in the parts of a phono stage shows up greatly amplified at the loudspeaker. This phono stage has about 55 dB gain at 1 Khz, and… More...

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