High-End Valve Amplifiers 2 (eBook)

At the age of twelve he built his first valve amp and audio plus valves have since been the main theme in his career. He studied applied physics, taught physics and was one of the founders of the Christian Teachers Trainings College in Zwolle (later transferred to the University Windesheim). Around fortyish he made a life changing decision, left education and setup his own engineering company. He applied himself to the designing of toroidal core output transformers with very wide frequency range. These transformers are manufactured in Canada and the United Kingdom. About the background, theory and applications of these transformers, he wrote the book Modern High-End Valve Amplifiers based on toroidal output transformers, published by Elektor and available in four languages. In this book you can see the birth of a circuit that later matured into what is now become known as the 'Super-Triode' circuit. During that time he also reviewed the world's most modern audio equipment and has published over 360 articles in which the main theme was always: 'Do we measure what we hear?' He closely cooperates with Plitron in Canada were he was invited to conduct research, funded by the Canadian government, about the transfer of clean electric power. He invented a special transformer technology, resulting in a unique 'Narrow Bandwidth Technology' patent. He was chairman of the Dutch section of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and published a lot of his research in the form of preprints and papers. He was a member of the review board of the Journal of the AES. Parts of his research were also published by the Dutch Acoustical Society (NAG). Around 2004 he also turned his focus towards valve amplifiers for guitars. He created a new set of inexpensive EI transformers with exceptional properties. These were fully developed in a large study, called 'The Project', which is published on his web site and discussed in this book. In 2006 he founded the academy 'Tube Society', where students are trained to design and manufacture valve amplifiers. In cooperation with Elektor he designed Master classes, where internationally recognized experts share their knowledge within their field of expertise. He gave several masterclasses on high-end valve amplifiers. He is one of the editors of the yearly 'Elektor Audio Special' magazines.