Self on Audio, 3rd Edition

Chapter 21FETs versus BJTs

The linearity competition (Electronics World, May 1995)

Intended title: Power Fets and Bipolars: The Linearity Competition

This short article was published when debate about the linearity of power FETs was raging, or at any rate smouldering, in the letters columns of Electronics World. Many contributors were content to point out that FETs must be more linear than bipolar transistors because everyone says so. This sort of argument has never had much appeal for me, and I carried out several investigations to see if there was any way in which FETs could be claimed to produce less distortion. One of the problems with this is making a meaningful comparison between two rather different kinds of active device.

Here I tried ...