All Amplifiers are Analogue, but Some Amplifiers are More Analogue than Others

Groenenberg R, Putzeys B, van der Hulst P, Veltman A. All Amplifiers are Analogue, but Some Amplifiers are More Analogue than Others. In: AES Convention 120. Audio Engineering Society; 2006. Paper 6690. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=13494

@inproceedings{Groenenberg2006_13494,
  author = {Groenenberg, René and Putzeys, Bruno and van der Hulst, Paul and Veltman, André},
  title = {{All Amplifiers are Analogue, but Some Amplifiers are More Analogue than Others}},
  booktitle = {AES Convention 120},
  note = {Paper 6690},
  year = {2006},
  month = may,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=13494}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - All Amplifiers are Analogue, but Some Amplifiers are More Analogue than Others
AU  - Groenenberg, René
AU  - Putzeys, Bruno
AU  - van der Hulst, Paul
AU  - Veltman, André
T2  - AES Convention 120
M1  - Paper 6690
PY  - 2006
DA  - 2006/05/06
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=13494
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - This paper intends to clarify the terms "digital" and "analogue" as applied to class-D audio power amplifiers. Since loudspeaker terminals require an analogue voltage, an audio power amplifier must have an analogue output. If its input is digital, digital-to-analogue conversion is executed at some point. Once a designer acknowledges the analogue output properties of a class-D power stage, amplifier quality can improve. The incorrect assumption that some amplifiers are supposedly digital, causes many designers to come up with twisted digital patches to ordinary analogue phenomena such as timing distortion or supply rejection. This irrational approach blocks the way to a rich world of well-established analogue techniques to avoid many of these problems and realize otherwise unattainable characteristics such as excellent THD+N and extremely low output impedance throughout the audio band.
ER  -