What is triple darlington, and why is it advantageous?

[Eric D]

Driving your car with a messed up stereo is not nearly as bad as driving your car with a missing oil plug...

[Marcotah]

LOL.
I believe in Sony, yeah, and maybe im crazy, but in the past they have done fabtastic things like CDX-C90 that should work fantastic with that XDP thats still good till today. Yeah that thing that makes crossing over with over 72dB/octave...

[ttocs]

I am not in the industry daily anymore but I still have some areas I can listen too to get info and from what I hear they are trying to get it at least out of the hole that the explode line left in its blast crater..... Yes I agree that would not be hard but again I am hearing good things and that they are actually trying.

Gosh when I think back to the old-gold es line back then I regarded it almost as highly as pg, crap pg was even easier to get.

[Kirghiz]

Meh, my wife is their boss. They won't screw my oil change up like that. Besides, I know all the guys that work at the garages in my area and I wouldn't let them touch my vehicle at all. Wal-Mart oil change is the lesser of those evils.

There are a ton of car audio brands that just make lower end stuff and cater to people that want cheap. These are the people that bitch about having to spend money on the wire to hook it up, and see 1000 watts max splayed all over the box, ignoring where it says 300 watts rms in small letters. When they tell you about their system they say they've got a 1000 watt kicker box with a huge brofist, when they have anything but the actual Kicker brand. Really, all they actually know about their system is that they can turn the volume knob and it gets loud.

That is who buys Sony Xplode. I won't even look at a brand that advertises max power predominantly like that. Perhaps Sony can make a comeback, but it takes a long time to get me to come back around on a brand that goes through a period of junk products like that.

[ttocs]

oh I gotcha I didn't say I had started buying sony just said don't look at like ya did explode. I understand it takes time to get over the previous mistakes the company has made, we all remember ryval right?

[Marcotah]

Did PG produced any good when was under Rodin's command?
I was a kind of afraid when AAMP got PG's command, I thought that they could get PG even more buried that seemed it was, but seems that they got the other way at all.

By the way, Ive been researching about amplifiers a few days ago, and saw tgat SS reference series are Triple Darlington as PG have always been. Since when SS make these topology ampliers?

Would like to see a Morgan's answer about Triple Darlington advatages, even if it does not make a big difference.

[Kirghiz]

I don't necessarily relate building entry level gear as a mistake on it's face. If you look at the current Phoenix Gold lines, that is essentially what the R series is. There is a customer base there and companies cater to it. Nothing wrong with that at all. On the other hand, Phoenix Gold makes the Ti and Elite series too, which is for the mid and high end crowd, and they advertise the R series as being what it is.The problem comes when a company ceases to make top end gear and only makes low end stuff, while blowing up their past greatness in their advertising, and hyping this low end gear as being top shelf. A lot of companies had money problems and unfortunately sold out to this philosophy, Phoenix Gold being one of them, PPI, Soundstream, Kicker, and a bunch of the other top brands as well. It was a matter of company survival in most cases.

Having said that, Sony's sole income does not come from car audio, unlike the companies listed above, and if they truly wanted to make top of the line gear they could. They could have all along. In their case lowering the quality was solely a profit making measure for the company. I have less respect for them for making the decision to do this than some of the other brands that did it as a matter of survival, many of whom got swallowed by other companies. As far as I'm concerned Sony could just quit making car audio altogether and it wouldn't bother me a bit. I'd still buy playstations, TV's, and whatnot, but I'll never buy a Sony car audio product again. Even if it was the best gear in the world.

[vladthebad]

Yeah, I've owned two of the Sony ES big red amps, a 2ch and a 4ch. Neither one was anything more than single sides light weight pcb. About same board weight and build quality as pyramid or "American legacy" they did at least put the power supply on a separate board altogether in the 4ch, but just used 16 gauge to jumper between the two boards. Sometimes simple is better... I would have liked to see a higher build quality and no stupid high current switch...

[Kirghiz]

To the question in the OP:
It is said that a Triple Darlington output has less distortion than a Mosfet output, but reality is that you aren't going to hear a difference because it isn't something the human ear will detect. It is said that Triple Darlington is more capable of handling high current loads, which I suspect is why Triple Darlington amps can get down to 1 ohm and lower, but it may not be the reason at all.

At the end of the day the difference between Triple Darlington and Mosfet outputs is probably splitting hairs for the average user. That being said, the quality of an amp has more to do with the total package of the circuitry than which output transistors are used. It just so happens though, coincidental or not, that most Triple Darlington output amps happen to be regarded as higher grade and have top end specs generally.

Personally I don't buy Phoenix Gold amps because they use a certain transistor in the output stage. I buy them because they generally sound better and are more versatile because of more impedance options.

[ttocs]

When I think of the good ES line it was along this line.


http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=son ... tedIndex=9

This was before they started to put anything red on their crap and back then it wasn't bad stuff. It was not an apples/apples comparison to put one of those next to the ms line at the time but they both were not bad stuff. After that they did cheapen them down, just like pg did(around the same time too) and that was just the way the market was going then.

[Drock]

I remember the gold ES line. I had a few of them myself, still have my old CDX-c910 head unit. I wouldn't buy anything Sony made after this line. My next move was old alpine gear but I hated that you had to buy all kinds of different gadgets.

[El-Akeem]

Did PG produced any good when was under Rodin's command?

Yes, for sure. Just remember the RSd line! PG was still the same company with the same engineers and employees. Keep in mind, that the people, who purchased PG, were already employees of the company.

[trickyricky]

Yeah, I've owned two of the Sony ES big red amps, a 2ch and a 4ch. Neither one was anything more than single sides light weight pcb. About same board weight and build quality as pyramid or "American legacy" they did at least put the power supply on a separate board altogether in the 4ch, but just used 16 gauge to jumper between the two boards. Sometimes simple is better... I would have liked to see a higher build quality and no stupid high current switch...

I guess you could say they where single sided but that has nothing to do with how well it's designed or it's sq. While it's single sided it still had a boat load of smd components.

I don't know how you could compare legacy our pyramid with the es line. The es amps had high end components (Mitsubishi outputs).

[ZTwenty8SSR]

A guy I worked with a few years ago told me a story about his mother going to walmart to get a oil change in her saturn suv they didn't have the right oil filter so they asked can we just leave the old filter on she knew nothing about cars asked if it was ok to do that they said yes so she agreed and they still charged full price for the oil change.
I don't know if it is really true it is not my story but knowing the service in the local walmart I have leaned more toward the true side

[ROBSCUSTOMSAPK]

My boys mom took her car to walmart for an oil change (older cavalier). They forgot to put the plug back in. She drove it home. Kaboom.lol They bought her another motor and paid a real shop to install it tho. The bigger the store, the bigger the insurance I guess. I guess that could be said for their lawyers too.lol

[ttocs]

I am sure those are isolated problems that happened I mean it would not be like wallmart to hire the cheapest worker quality be damned!

No seriously between changing it myself in 20 below, in a snow storm and having them do it I would be at wallmart, but to buy long underwear.

[Kirghiz]

I am sure those are isolated problems that happened I mean it would not be like wallmart to hire the cheapest worker quality be damned!

No seriously between changing it myself in 20 below, in a snow storm and having them do it I would be at wallmart, but to buy long underwear.

Honestly, I am friends with or married to store managers of five different Wal-Mart stores in my area. Each store does at least 25 oil changes per day, every day, except Christmas. I have only heard of them blowing up someone's engine twice in five years. That's pretty isolated imo.

Now, I don't live in a city either, and the city stores are a different deal, but the ones in my area are pretty solid. Not to make a case that YOU should go there, but in my case it isn't as lolworthy as you all make it seem.

[Marcotah]

Hi Guys. I figured out about bringing this back alive, and decide to do it. I think its actually and interesting question, and took a look on "Mr.Google Know It All Fuc*** Specialist" and Look waht I've found:
1 - "There are compromises involved going from single transistor to Darlington to triple. The major benefit is increased input impedance of the output stage, reducing current requirements from the previous stage, and reduced output impedance which reduces load-dependance. This can quite dramatically improve linearity. On the downside, the extra transistors mean an added delay, adversely affecting phase shift at higher frequencies, and the extra transistor introduces some distortion of its own. There are other minor benefits and drawbacks too.

While reducing the number of components is a worthwhile goal, it does not mean that extra components automatically reduce sound quality. If that were true, then no one would ever build anything other than single transistor amps. You need to understand the pros and cons of adding extra transistors to a specific design, be it triple darllington or cascode. In some instances more will be better, in others it will be worse.

Personally I prefer to use MOSFETs for the output stage, rendering the entire subject of triple Darlingtons moot.."

2 - "The choice between the two depends on quite a few things,
among them:

Are you running BJT's?

How much current are you trying to deliver to the load?

How much current can your front end source?

How high is the beta of your output device at high current?

How sophisticated is your frequency compensation system?

I've seen very nice versions of both, but I note from experience
that it is more difficult to frequency compensate a triple, which
can parasitically oscillate on its own, independently of the rest
of the system.

Single darlingtons are usually better in situations like the A40
Class A amplifier at 40 watts. Triples start being useful at
200 watts and above, or if you are planning on delivering more
than 10 amps, in other words a Krell."

Find More About this here, and If you take a better look, there is a lot of reasons to PG amps being TD desings...

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-st ... ngton.html

And a Little more here:

3 - "Low Feedback / Low Distortion
In addition to the aforementioned High-Efficiency design, advanced Filters and Adapting Slewing, M-Series amplifiers employ some good solid amp design principals. Namely, triple Darlington output stages, purely resistive loading of all voltage amplifier stages, and fully complementary / differential design from amplifier input to output—all working together to give the M-Series some of the lowest distortion numbers of any manufacturer, without having to resort to substantial amounts of negative feedback. (Because, lets face it, you probably get enough negative feedback"

http://www.mackie.com/products/mseries/index.html

[Mr. Wild]

I think PG did a pretty good job designing their triple darlington amp circuits. Making the most of its benefits and avoiding pitfalls. PG has always made a big deal about using the fastest devices available, which helps minimizing delay and phase shift at high frequencies.

[leftywhat]

Its 3 transistors connected to each other.

Btw, talking about Sony HU, I had a XR-C800, it was mint, you could change between yellow and green from memory, and it had tilt, had a 10 cd stacker etc.

Thing was the screen light died, so I bought another face (XR-C900 face) thinking it was just the face, however no deal. I think the unit has an external box that might be the power source (has to be) for the lighting. Tried to find someone to repair it but no deal. I thought I'd transfer the EL Backlight over from the XR-C900, but I just plugged the face in and it worked like normal but no light. Anyway, if someone has a schematic, that would be great btw

The thing I liked about the Sony was it was good, clear, and LOUD, no amp required for the speakers. Just that, and the M40 for the sub.

Wish my Panasonic HU was good, sigh, all new stuff seems crap, but I need the HU to play MP3/USB tbh.

Sony should look back to that era of HU's, they were good.