Gain stage
One section of an amplifier circuit that increases the amplitude of the signal passing through it, usually a single valve or transistor and its surrounding parts.
An amplifier is a chain of gain stages, and the character of the instrument comes largely from how each one is biased and how hard the next one pushes it. Clean headroom depends on later stages staying linear, while overdrive and distortion come from deliberately overloading an early stage and then attenuating the result. This is why the position of a master volume, and the number of stages before it, changes the sound more than the amount of overall gain.
Example: An amplifier that can produce its distortion from an early gain stage and its loudness from a later one will sound the same at any volume setting.
See also
Related
- PageGain
- PagePreamp
- PageHeadroom
- PageAmp in a box
- PageAmp stand
- PageAttenuator
- PageAaron Dessner
- PageAce Frehley