Design and construct a low-powered, high quality stereo audio amplifier to specification on a reasonable budget.
The ideal audio power amplifier should simply provide gain to a low-level audio signal and be able to deliver this stronger signal to a low, complex impedance load, un hindered by power requirements. What comes in, goes out, only louder.
This has been the actual goal of amplifier designers all along. But, being a skeptical bunch, they have realized the unlikelihood of anything ideal actually existing in nature, and the goals they submit to their bosses are wrought with ``design constraints.'' These constraints place limits on enough aspects of the design so that one might actually have a prayer of producing something.
In the end, I intend to have produced an amplifier that excels at amplifying acoustic music for listening on very sensitive speakers. This philosophy is keeping in step with a recent ``retro'' trend marked by a return to low-power tube amplifiers. In a sense, this design may very well be viewed as a tube-like solid state amplifier.
The product shall be tested and specified in accordance with the ``IHF Standard Methods of Measurement for Audio Amplifiers''[2] publication IHF-A-202. This document defines a power amplifier in the following manner:
A device having separate input and output terminals, whose purpose is to provide a larger output power than its required input power over the audio range (or portion thereof), normally construed to mean 20Hz to 20,000Hz.