2011

STEREO TONER CONTROL CIRCUIT

OBJECTIVE: Bass, Treble and MIDI control: Passive Approach with Bass: 300; MIDI: 300-3000; Treble: 3000-20000; with adjustable gain of 18dB.

SYED MASHHOOD HAFEEZ

1/20/2011

INTRODUCTION :
Filtering one frequency or range of frequencies out of the mixers of different frequencies is sometimes desirable. To have this filtering, we need circuits capable of selectively filtering one frequency in a circuit. A circuit designed to perform this frequency selection is called a filter circuit, or simply a filter. A common need for filter circuits is in highperformance stereo systems, like we have used in our project, where certain ranges of audio frequencies need to be amplified or suppressed for best sound quality and power efficiency. We all are familiar with equalizers, which allow the amplitudes of several frequency ranges to be adjusted to suit the listener's taste and acoustic properties of the listening area. Here, in our project we use bass and treble adjustment for the same purpose. Like for trance lover of music, bass must be high and treble must be low to enjoy the drum beats. We are also familiar with crossover networks, which block certain ranges of frequencies from reaching speakers. A tweeter or in other words a high-frequency speaker is inefficient at reproducing low-frequency signals such as drum beats, so a crossover circuit is connected between the tweeter and the stereo's output terminals to block lowfrequency signals, only passing high-frequency signals to the speaker's connection terminals. This gives better audio system efficiency and thus better performance. Both equalizers and crossover networks are examples of filters, designed to accomplish filtering of certain frequencies. Although we havent use tweeter model in our project, but the basic concept of tweeter is to block low frequency signal and give us better sound. These low and high pass filter will be discussed later in this report. In short, A filter is an AC circuit that separates some frequencies from others within mixed-frequency signals. Now according to the objective of our project, our filter circuits are composed of passive elements. Which is further explained on a theoretical part.

PASSIVE APPROACH FOR FILTER:

A passive filter is made only from passive elements, since most filters are linear, in most cases; passive filters are composed of just the three basic linear elements; resistors, capacitors and inductors. According to the basic concept Inductors block high-frequency signals and conduct low-frequency signals, while capacitors do the reverse. But A filter in which the signal passes through a resistor, in which a capacitor provides a path to ground, ( i.e. RC filter) presents less attenuation to low-frequency signals than highfrequency signals and is a low-pass filter. Capacitive high-pass filters insert a capacitor in series with the load; If the signal passes through a capacitor, and has a path to ground through a resistor, then the filter presents less attenuation to high-frequency signals than low-frequency signals and is a high-pass filter. Resistors on their own have no frequency-selective properties, but are added to inductors and capacitors to determine the time-constants of the circuit, and therefore the frequencies to which it responds. A passive filter has several advantages over an active filter:

Guaranteed stability. Passive filters scale better to large signals (tens of amperes, hundreds of volts), where active devices are often impractical No power consumption, but the desired signal is invariably attenuated. If no resistors are used, the amount of signal loss is directly related to the quality (and the price) of the components used. Inexpensive (unless large coils are required) In contrast to an active filter, it does not require an external power source (beyond the signal).

PROJECT EXPLANATION :
Our projects is basically a tone control circuit used to modify an audio signal before it is fed to speakers, headphones by way of an amplifier. The circuits consist of a network of high-pass, low-pass, and band-pass filters. In their most basic form, they attenuate the high or low frequencies of the signal. Active tone controls may also amplify or boost certain frequencies. This is called treble or bass boost or cut, respectively. Attenuate means to reduce or diminish in amplitude. When we turn down the volume control on our stereo, we basically are attenuating the signal being sent to the speakers.

BASS BOOST OR LOW-PASS FILTER:

A low-pass filter is a filter that passes low-frequency signals but attenuates (reduces the amplitude of) signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The actual amount of attenuation for each frequency varies from filter to filter. It is sometimes called a high-cut filter, or treble cut filter when used in audio applications. A low-pass filter is the opposite of a high-pass filter By definition, a low-pass filter is a circuit offering easy passage to lowfrequency signals and difficult passage to high-frequency signals All low-pass filters are rated at a certain cutoff frequency. That is, the frequency above which Our Bass or Low pass circuit the output voltage falls below 70.7% of the input voltage. This cutoff percentage of 70.7 is not really arbitrary, all though it may seem so at first glance. In a simple capacitive/resistive low-pass filter, it is the frequency at which capacitive reactance in ohms equals resistance in ohms. In a simple capacitive low-pass filter (one resistor, one capacitor), the cutoff frequency is given as:

The transfer function for Low-pass filter of our circuit is :

T(S) for low pass filter

TREBLE BOOST OR HIGH PASS FILTER:

A high-pass filter's task is just the opposite of a low-pass filter: to offer easy passage of a high-frequency signal and difficult passage to a low-frequency signal. A high-pass filter, passes high frequencies well but attenuates (i.e., reduces the amplitude of) frequencies lower than the filter's cutoff frequency. In our project the cut off frequency is at 3000*2. It is sometimes called a lowcut filter or bass-cut filter. The simple first-order high-pass filter shown in Figure is implemented by placing an input voltage across the series combination of a capacitor and a resistor and using the voltage across the resistor as an output. The cutoff frequency fc, at which the output power is half the input power, is,

Our Treble or High pass circuit

The transfer function for High-pass filter of our circuit is:

T(S) for High pass filter

MIDI BOOST OR BAND PASS FILTER:

A band-pass filter works to screen out frequencies that are too low or too high, giving easy passage only to frequencies within a certain range. Band-pass filters can be made by stacking a low-pass filter on the end of
a high-pass filter, or vice versa. There are applications where a particular band, or spread, or frequencies need to be filtered from a wider range of mixed signals. Filter circuits can be designed to accomplish this task by combining the properties of low-pass and high-pass into a single filter. The result is called a band-pass filter. Creating band-pass filter from a low-pass and high-pass filter can be illustrated using our projects MIDI diagram:

T(S) for MIDI circuit OR Band pass filter

What emerges from the series combination of these two filter circuits is a circuit that will only allow passage of those frequencies that are neither too high nor too low.

GAIN ADJUSTMENT (18 DB):

Gain controls on an amplifier or equalizers here, are basically just small potentiometers or volume controls that allow us to adjust the incoming signal to the amplifier or like here in our project it is used to adjust the gains of different equalizers, so the amplifier works well with our choice of bass treble etc. or simply say, to match the level of other amplifiers in your system. Here in our circuit, after each of the filters, we used such order of the combination of op amp and potentiometer so that we can get the adjustable gain of 18dbB. The circuit defines the design of such adjustment.

Our Gain adjustment circuit

OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIER:
We have used an active device such as an op amp to set out the gain i.e. 18dB. The operational amplifier is arguably the most useful single device in analog electronic circuitry. With only a handful of external components, it can be made to perform a wide variety of analog signal processing tasks. To facilitate true AC output from an amplifier, we can use what is called a split or dual power supply, with two DC voltage sources connected in series with the middle point grounded, giving a positive voltage to ground (+V) and a negative voltage to ground (-V). Split power supplies like this are frequently used in differential amplifier circuits. Most amplifiers have one input and one output. Differential amplifiers have two inputs and one output, the output signal being proportional to the difference in signals between the two inputs. The voltage output of a differential amplifier is determined by the following equation: Vout = AV(Vnoninv - Vinv)dback, which constitutes the foundation of almost all automatic control processes. Op-amps typically have very high input impedances and fairly low output impedances. According to our project, the op-amp used with characteristics given below: Connecting the output of an op-amp to its inverting (-) input is called negative feedback. This term can be broadly applied to any dynamic system where the output signal is "fed back" to the input somehow so as to reach a point of equilibrium (balance). When the output of an op-amp is directly connected to its inverting (-) input, a voltage follower will be created, usually known as buffer. Whatever signal voltage is impressed upon the noninverting (+) input will be seen on the output. A voltage buffer amplifier is used to transfer a voltage from a first circuit, having a high output impedance level, to a second circuit with a low input impedance level. An op-amp with negative feedback will try to drive its output voltage to whatever level necessary so that the differential voltage between the two inputs is practically zero. The higher the op-amp differential gain, the closer that differential voltage will be to zero. A summer circuit is one that sums, or adds, multiple analog voltage signals together. There are two basic varieties of op-amp summer circuits: noninverting and inverting. We have used the inverting one.

STEPS INVOLVED IN DESIGNING OUR CIRCUIT:

We selected the values of passive elements (resistors and capacitors) according to the requirement of the filter which we have to design. The transfer functions of low, high and band passes respectively are given below:

T(S) for low pass filter

T(S) for high pass filter

T(S) for Band pass filter

We used an active element, i.e. op-amp as a voltage buffer at the input so that it isolates the impedance of the circuit and the input signal. Also for MIDI, we cascaded the bass and treble (i.e. high and low pass) circuits to make a bandpass filter. Again for cascading e used buffer. After each filter we used a voltage buffer for the same purpose as mentioned above. Then we use an op-amp (i.e. an active element) with inverting configuration to set the gain according to the objective of our project i.e. 18dB. For that we use variable resistors for each of the filters to vary the gain from -18dB to +18dB. Then all the three output of the toner is summed through a summer amplifier, and then connected the output of the summer to the power amplifier. We have also built the power amplifier, a class AB power amplifier.

The circuit diagram below contains all the practical information and all the values of elements we have selected.

PCB: