THE SUPPER CASCODE CIRCUIT TOPOLOGY

CASCODING dramatically improves the High frequency performance of the VALVECODE single Ended
Class A Headphone Amplifier by cancelation of the Miller capacitance effect present within all gain
devices. By substantially lowering The high frequency distortion this Cascoding and allows a cleaner look
at the upper octave content of your music by orders of magnitude compared to conventional tube
Amplifier Design.

BEYOND CASCODING I believe that the topology of an Amplifier define its ultimate sonic potential.
Layout and quality component parts can only serve to preserve as much of the Circuits natural Qualities
as possible, not improve upon them. High Speed wideband circuits are more prone to degradation from
layout than the much slower circuits, thus critical attention is paid to layout and packaging so as to
preserve all the glory of this unique circuit design. Many design elements employed in the solid state
HEADCODE to improve linearity are also applicable to the Hollow state implementation of the
VALVECODE cascode circuit. The following paragraphs highlight some of the unique aspects that when
artfully integrated into tube cascode circuits produce an Amplifier that takes the incredible inner detail
and midrange transparency Single ended Class A triode Amplifiers are renowned for into the upper most
octaves of your music, while diving deeper into the Midrange frequencies than ever before.

THE ULTRA-LINEAR CASCODE approximates the ultra-linear pentode circuit by using two triodes. Like the
pentode design, it boasts both lower output impedance and distortion than conventional Cascode
Circuit design, but differs in that the top triode's grid has very high input impedance that is easy to drive
unlike the pentode tube that requires substantial screen grid Current. A further advantage of Ultra-
Linear cascading over the stock Cascode is an increased maximum output Voltage attainable, as the top
triode's plate swings down, so too its cathode moves down. This increase in output headroom proves
significantly better than a stock Cascode circuit at obtaining the most dynamic range from the chosen
Power Supply voltage allowing the designer to optimize for both Low distortion and high output capacity
at the same time.

THE SUPPER CASCODE combines the ultra-linear circuit with additional design trappings to enhance low-
level linearity. Ultra-linear operation naturally provides local feedback around the cascode stage thus
substantially reducing all forms of distortion without the transient response problems. The input stage
utilizes additional current mode feedback to obtain more Transconductance from the stage for better
linearity across the board in full dynamic and spectral balance. The Input stage is also able to provide
plenty of drive current and present extremely low impedance to the following output stage. The output
stage Employs Dynamic Biasing to maintain the output tube deep into CLASS A under all conditions using
naturally occurring local feedback implemented entirely with resistive devices to maintain the highest in
linearity under all operating conditions while maintaining temporal stability. Thus we have two
differently optimized cascaded Triode stages, married together to produce an Amplifier with results
greater than the sum of its parts.