PIMETA Headphone Amplifier
What is a PIMETA?
It’s a PPA-Inspired
META42 successor. It’s about the same
size as the META42 board, but the topology is closer to that of the
PPA.
Features of the PIMETA design:
- Small board size: 3.0" × 2.4" (76mm × 61mm)
- The board should work with most FET-input op-amps in DIP-8 and
SOIC-8 packages.
- Burr-Brown BUF634 buffers on the
outputs.
- PPA-like 3-channel setup so return
currents from the headphones don’t disturb the signal ground.
- Reverse power supply voltage protection
- With low-voltage op-amps, minimum supply voltage is 5 V on a
minimal feature set.
- The op-amps can be biased into class A.
- The buffers’ bandwidth can be scaled to balance current draw
with sound quality.
- The board will accept either the small and cheap Panasonic EVJ or
ALPS RK097/RK098 potentiometers or the nice, big and expensive ALPS
RK27 series potentiometer (a.k.a. “Blue Velvet”).
- All resistors are on 0.100" × 0.300" spacing so you can put
a DIP socket in their place and socket the resistors for easy
experimentation. Similarly, many other holes are placed on 0.100"
centers to allow the use of socket strips.
- It strikes a careful balance between spaciousness for things like
large, premium capacitors, while still keeping the board small enough
to fit in small, portable cases like the Serpac H-65.
- The board’s layout is optimized for minimum trace length and
no vias.
Where To Next?
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