OP AMP Capabilities in Supporting 24 bit bandwidth

My first reaction to Sean's comment about the benefit of a noise floor much lower than other ICs and far below audibility is "so what". But then I remembered my own experience in designing tests of complex electromechanical equipment, and my insistance, (against strong resistance from bosses and even the customer, the US Navy) on implementing procedures that were significantly more accurate than the test accuracy spec we had to meet. My argument was that there will be sources of test error that will come to light later, and so you do each part of the procedure as well as you know how so as to leave room for these circumstances. More than once there was near panic when a new error source was discovered, and I was a hero when I could stand up and say "it's OK. We still meet requirements".

But, this (overly?) conservative approach did cost you poor taxpayers some money :-)

El: That's why i said "bookworm" engineers i.e. those that design things so that they look good on paper according to the theories and formulas in their textbooks, but really have no idea as to how things will work under various operating conditions in the field. These are the kind of idiots that should be made to use their own products that they design. Then they could see how we as end users have to deal with all the flaws, glitches, quirks during normal use. After that bit of education, then they should be forced to repair these items once they fail. Just going through the process of having to figure out why it broke, how to repair it and how / where to get the necessary parts would blow their mind. I think that both their design philosophies and design prowess would both change for the better i.e. less "design revisions" and more getting it right the first time.

Other than that, i've always thought that one should design and build for the "worst case" scenario. If you do that, any other type of situation is simply easier on the gear. Then again, something that has to strain to keep up or get the job done obviously won't work as reliably in the long term and / or may provide less consistent results in the short term. At the same time, keeping things simple also helps as there is less to go wrong. More unnecessary features, functions and gadgets only means a longer signal path with more connections and things to go wrong. In that respect, the ELAD is based upon several different tried and true design premises. Sean
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The dean of the mechanical engineering school where I went told us that the final exam would be to design a ten ton crane hook, and stand under it as full load was applied.

For most things, worst case analysis is not conservative enough...a "safety factor" is added. However, sometimes you must go with something less than worst case, so that a failure is not impossible. The best example of this that I know is the plumbing of a multifloor apartment house. You simply cannot design for the situation where every toilet in the building is flushed at the same moment. Few airplanes have the structural strength to withstand aerodynamic forces that the pilot can easily cause by manipulation of the controls. (And I fly to Arazona tomorrow).

Sean...And to lower the tone a bit further, consider the design of residential sewage disposal fields. For ages everyone designed for "worst case" and then made it larger for "good measure".

Turns out that an oversized field is a bad idea. Parts of it will dry out, and the microbes that break down the sewage will die.

In audio (remember that) I once thought to improve a regulated power supply by adding capacitance. Bad idea. The regulator became unstable.

So I guess that every situation must be understood and accomodated in the design.
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I agree that everything has to be factored in. Then again, if EVERYTHING is built "gonzo", nothing is left to go wrong : )

As to regulation circuits, most are piss poor. This is why there is a lack of dynamic headroom in regulated amps. That's because the regulation circuit is both too small and too slow to pass the necessary amount of current that the circuit requires on a dynamic basis.

Since the entire amp would be pulling juice through the regulation circuit, the regulation circuit itself should be sturdier with more capacity than both channels of the driver and output stages combined. I've never seen a regulated amp built to anywhere near this level, let alone heard anyone ever discuss such things. Sean
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