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”

DIY Op Amps — Nelson Pass / 1998

Carl Sagan observed, "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." If you want to build an audio circuit, you will make the decision as to how much you will actually build yourself, and how much you will buy fabricated. The line is always drawn somewhere. Will you be melting down some sand to make your transistors? Probably not, but it is always in the mind of the hobbyist to do as much as possible. Many of the project articles in AE and elsewhere employ commercially available integrated circuits, usually operational amplifiers.… More...

Miscellaneous Projects — Webmaster / 2013

Here are some great project-submissions folks wanted to show-off.  They don't directly correspond with a single PassDIY project, but we still fealt like they should have a home.  Great work everyone!  More...

Build The Amazing FET Circlotron — Michael Rothacher / 2008

Cue the Theremin music! This article is about building your own all-FET Circlotron. It smashes atoms. No, strike that. It won’t smash atoms like a cyclotron, but it has a really cool name and it is, technically speaking, powered by atoms and very, very good at amplifying music. Alpha M. Wiggins of Electro-Voice is generally recognized as the inventor of the Circlotron amplifier although other inventors developed similar circuits around the same time period in the 1950’s. The Circlotron’s transformer-coupled vacuum tube output circuit, a floating bridge, was often drawn in a circular fashion; hence the name. Later, Circlotron-type output… More...

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