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The hybrid approach used in the BHK Signature takes advantage of the best traits technology has to offer, unavailable in traditional solid state or tube designs. While vacuum tubes are the perfect input stage, they cannot make the same claim on a power amplifier’s output. Conversely, solid state designs are correct for output stages, but suffer when used as inputs. Only a hybrid approach takes advantage of the best in both disciplines.
A power amplifier connects its reservoir of energy to the loudspeaker through a type of valve (solid state or vacuum tube) controlled by the input stage. If the input stage has done a good job of preserving music’s subtle details, textures, timing and phase information, transferring it without loss to the power stage and eventually the loudspeakers is best handled by a tube-like solid state device known as a MOSFET.
MOSFETs handle power without the additional circuitry needed by tube power amplifiers, and they sound better than tubes or their solid state alternatives, bipolar transistors. Field effect transistors were first invented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925 and because they require very little current and operate with an invisible field, their sound is more closely related to vacuum tubes than transistors, without suffering any of the issues driving loudspeakers typical of vacuum tube power amplifiers.
Not all MOSFETs are the same, their differences characterized by their relationship with the input signal and the power supply driving them: N-types for the positive going signals, P-types for negative. It turns out that N-types have lower distortion and perform better than P-types. Despite this anomaly most power amplifier designs use both types of transistor in a configuration known as complementary symmetry. The BHK takes a different approach, one that avoids the problem of uneven performance between N and P devices altogether. Using only N Channel MOSFETS in its output stage, the BHK Signature produces a near-perfect balanced waveform without the degradation inherent in a complimentary design.