Designing Audio Power Amplifiers

Bob Cordell is an electrical engineer who has been deeply involved in audio since his adventures with vacuum tube designs in his teen years. He is an equal-opportunity designer to this day, having built amplifiers with vacuum tubes, bipolar transistors and MOSFETs. Bob is also a prolific designer of audio test equipment, including a high-performance THD analyzer and many purpose-built pieces of audio gear. He has published numerous articles and papers on power amplifier design and distortion measurement in the popular press and in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. In 1983 he published a power amplifier design combining vertical power MOSFETs with error correction, achieving unprecedented distortion levels of less than 0.001% at 20 kHz. He also consults in the audio and semiconductor industries.

Bob is also an avid DIY loudspeaker builder, and has combined this endeavor with his electronic interests in the design of powered audiophile loudspeaker systems. Bob and his colleagues have presented audiophile listening and measurement workshops at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest and the Home Entertainment Show.

As an Electrical Engineer, Bob has worked at Bell Laboratories and other related telecommunications companies, where his work has included design of integrated circuits and fiber optic communications systems. Bob maintains an audiophile website at www.cordellaudio.com where diverse material on audio electronics, loudspeakers and instrumentation can be found.