AUDIO & VIDEO

Booster for Audio Signals

Cranks up bass & treble
By Markus Aebi (Switzerland)

Dull and washed-out sound?

With modern recording
technologies this is unlikely to
happen.
There are nevertheless situations
where a fuller sound would do no
harm (live bands, for example,
but cheap headphones could
also benefit). A small amount of
‘effect‘ could make the sound
experience just ‘perfect‘.

Weak bass and dull treble frequencies are ductance amplifier (OTA), which is con- decoupling capacitors and the PCB is fitted
things of the past with this circuit. The figured as a VCA here (Voltage Controlled with additional 100 μF buffer electrolytics.
ingenious principle of the project described Amplifier, IC4A and IC4B respectively). The
here makes the reproduction more delicate, ‘Dynabass’ potentiometer P2A (P2B) deter- Construction
fuller and subjectively louder. The circuit mines how much of the original signal is When assembling the PCB you follow the
was originally intended to be built into a processed. RC network R16/C11 acts as a traditional procedure: first the ‘small’ parts
mixing desk (immediately before the Mas- variable low-pass filter (and also has a vari- such as resistors and diodes, then the ‘big-
ter Fader), but works just as well as a stan- able phase shift with respect to the original ger’ parts such as capacitors and transistors.
dalone device when the input and output signal, which results in a subjective ampli- We used sockets for the ICs so that swap-
voltages are adjusted appropriately (about fication of the low frequencies). The values ping the op amps for a different sound is
1.5 Vp/0 dB at the first op amp). of the RC pair affect the tuning of the filter. very easy. The construction is not all that
The selected resistor of 33 kΩ in combina- difficult because no SMD components are
The principle tion with a capacitor of 22 nF gives optimum used.
The high and low frequencies are processed tuning. In our prototype we chose to use headers
independently of each other. The left and right The control current of the VCA, which deter- and sockets for the connections to the two
channels are identical, with the exception of mines the gain of this IC, is generated with double potentiometers. These are men-
the part of the circuit controlling the ampli- the circuit around T3. This circuit works as tioned in the parts list. It is, of course, also
fication of the low frequencies, which is used a kind of limiter circuit (quasi limiter func- possible to omit those headers and connect
for both channels and therefore does not need tion) and shows via LED D7 how much the potentiometers directly to the board
to be implemented twice (see Figure 1). ‘control’ is applied. The processed signal is using short wires.
After the high-pass filter with C4 (C15 for added to the signal immediately after the The double-sided PCB has been made as
the right channel) the high frequencies are ‘Harmonics’-potentiometer (P1A and P1B compact as possible (88 × 69 mm) and has
amplified ‘quick and dirty’ with the circuitry respectively). not been designed with a specific enclosure
around T1 (T2). The diode pair D1, D2 (D3, D4) When both potentiometers are set to in mind (see Figure 2). The PCB layout can
generates higher harmonics which are added their minimum positions the signal passes be downloaded from the project page [1].
to the original signal with potentiometer P1A through unchanged.
(P1B). This makes it sound ‘fresher’. An external symmetrical power supply of Measurements
The low frequencies are separated from the ±15 V completes the story. The current con- The two graphs summarise how the circuit
original signal with the network around IC1B sumption at this voltage is about 40 mA for influences the signal. The graph in Figure 3
(IC2B) and subsequently passed on to the the positive supply rail and 35 mA for the shows the amplitude characteristic of the
current-controlled operational transcon- negative supply rail. Each IC is provided with low-pass filter. This shows that the low-fre-

elektor 11-2009 67
 +15V
R6

3k9
R5 C6 D2 C7
390k

C5
1n 1N4148 470p
C1 R7 R8
3 10p T1
R4 C4 D1

10k

10k
1
220n
R1 IC1A 1k
2
3n9
L 1N4148
BC550C
100k

P1A
3 C10 R10
R2 1
4k7 C8 IC3A 100R
+15V log. 2
92k

10u
C3 220p 50V L
IC4A
11

R3
47n 3 R9
R12
92k

R11 R13

39k
2
47k

4k7
1k5

5
C9
7
IC1B 4
6 1u
6

5
7

P2A R14 R15 R16 R17

C2 -15V C11 +15V R18
2k2

10k

33k

4k7

4k7 D7
10n log. +15V 22n
10k
R39 R38
+15V -15V
+15V
10k

4k7

IC1 = NE5532
D6 R37
C31 C25 C27 C29
470R T3
IC2 = NE5532
C24 1N4148 C23
100u 25V 100n 100n 100n IC3 = NE5532
8 8 8
D5
0 IC1 IC2 IC3 10u 220n R36 IC4 = LM13700
4 4 4
63V BC547B
+15V
10k

C32 C26 C28 C30 1N4148

R24
100u 25V 100n 100n 100n
-15V
3k9

-15V
-15V R23 C17 D4 C18
390k

C16
1n 1N4148 470p
C12 R25 R26
3 10p T2
R22 C15 D3
10k

10k

1
220n R19 IC2A 1k
2
3n9 1N4148
100k

R BC550C
P1B
5 C21 R28
R20 7
4k7 C19 IC3B 100R
log. 6
92k

10u
C14 220p
50V R
IC4B
R21
47n 14 R27
92k

R29 R30 R31

39k

15
47k

1k5

4k7

5
C20
7
IC2B 13
6 1u
9
16

12
10

P2B R32 R33 R34 R35

C13 C22
4k7
2k2

10k

33k

4k7

log.
10n 22n

-15V 080094 - 11

Figure 1. The schematic may strike as quite sizeable, but the dimensions of the PCB are very reasonable.

quency part of the circuit operates below between the amplitudes of the input and this is that the low frequencies are accentu-
about 100 Hz. At the high-frequency end output signals of the VCA (green curve), ated a bit more and the entire sound sounds
the circuit operates from around 5 kHz, measured at pin 9 of IC4. It shows that the fuller.
based on the clipping of T1 (T2). curve is linear up to about –10 dB, after The same graph also shows the distortion
The second curve (Figure 4) shows the ratio which compression occurs. The effect of of the output signal at 60 Hz and 1 V input

68 11-2009 elektor
 COMPONENT LIST Semiconductors
D1–D6 = 1N4148
Miscellaneous
11 pcs PCB solder pin
Resistors D7 = low current LED, red, 3mm 4 pcs 3-way pinheader (P1,P2)
R1,R19 = 100kΩ T1,T2 = BC550C 4 pcs 3-pway socket
R2,R3,R20,R21 = 92kΩ T3 = BC547B PCB, # 080094-1 see [1]
R4,R22 = 1kΩ IC1,IC2,IC3 = NE5532, 8-DIP case
R5,R23 = 390kΩ IC4 = LM13700 16-dip (e.g. Farnell #
R6,R24 = 3.9kΩ 1651866)
R7,R8,R15,R18,R25,R26,R33,R36,R39 =
10kΩ
R9,R27 = 39kΩ
R10,R28 = 100Ω
R11,R29 = 47kΩ
R12,R30 = 1.5kΩ
R13,R17,R31,R35,R38 = 4.7kΩ
R14,R32 = 2.2kΩ
R16,R34 = 33kΩ
R37 = 470Ω
P1,P2 = 4.7kΩ logarithmic, stereo

Capacitors
C1,C12,C23 = 220nF, lead pitch 5 or 7.5mm
C2,C13 = 10nF, lead pitch 5 or 7.5mm
C3,C14 = 47nF, lead pitch 5 or 7.5mm
C4,C15 = 3.9nF, lead pitch 5 or 7.5mm
C5,C16 = 10pF, ceramic, lead pitch 5mm
C6,C17 = 1nF, lead pitch 5 or 7.5 mm
C7,C18 = 470pF, ceramic, lead pitch 5mm
C8,C19 = 220pF ceramic, lead pitch 5mm
C9,C20 = 1µF, lead pitch 5 or 7.5mm
C10,C21 = 10µF 50V, radial, bipolar, lead
pitch 2.5mm, diam. 8.5mm max.
C11,C22 = 22nF, lead pitch 5 or 7.5mm
C24 = 10µF 63V, radial, lead pitch 2.5mm,
diam. 6.3mm max.
C25–C30 = 100nF, lead pitch 5 or 7.5mm
C31,C32 = 100µF 25V, radial, lead pitch
2.5mm, diam. 8.5 mm max.
Figure 2. The components are quite close so the circuit will fit on a compact PCB.

voltage, measured at pin 9 of IC4 (blue). This is naturally not a circuit of particular (080094-I)
The –10 dB value is also represented in this interest for audiophiles. But they probably
curve, with the difference that the distor- only use flawless signal sources. For every-
tion increases exponentially from that point one else who would like their sound to be Internet Link
onwards (this makes sense because the sig- fresher and livelier this booster circuit is a [1] www.elektor.com/080094
nal is compressed above that value). good alternative to an equalizer.

Elektor Elektor
+3 30 +10
+0 20
+5
-3 10
-6 +0
5
-9
-5
-12 2
-15 -10
d 1
B -18
THD + N %

dBV

0.5 -15
V -21
-24 -20
0.2
-27
0.1 -25
-30

-33 0.05 -30

-36
0.02 -35
-39

-42 0.01 -40

20 50 100 200 500 1k 2k 5k 10k 20k -40 -35 -30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 +0 +5 +10
Hz 080094 - 12 dBV 080094 - 13

Figure 3. This clearly shows the frequency range of the low Figure 4. The gain and distortion of the low frequencies depends
frequency part of the circuit. on the input voltage.

elektor 11-2009 69