Solid State Guitar Amp Forum | DIY Guitar Amplifiers

I thought this was really cool

IMG_20250912_115305994 (1).jpg

But no I certainly do not understand how it works. 

I don't see how any signal 🚦 is gonna make it to the top rail  :grr against a reverse biased diode.

It looks simple enough to build maybe I'll check it out  :tu:

Reading about the 1N60 is shedding some light on this

 :loco

Quote from: saturated on September 13, 2025, 07:25:54 AMI don't see how any signal 🚦 is gonna make it to the top rail  :grr against a reverse biased diode.

What about the negative alternation of the signal?

Well I think I'm out of my level here

Anyhow I tried to put this together

Having no 1N60 I looked at three different size diodes I had and went with the middle


IMG_20250915_183240370 (1).jpg

Also I had no 100 pf  but scrounged up some 200 pf

IMG_20250915_184324777_HDR.jpg

I thought this was supposed to be a voltage multiplier so I was real cool starting out a low input but the output was much smaller  :grr

Input

IMG_20250915_184331197.jpg

Output (1/2 scale of input)

IMG_20250915_184353888.jpg

So yeah this is something I need to investigate elsewhere the source I got it from was IIRC referencing intermediate frequency so yeah that's a whole nother can of worms.

 xP

A detector in most basic terms it is rectifying the signal to create a voltage proportional to signal strength.  The small value caps allow it to quickly change voltage that is detected, as well as being used in it's 'multiplier' aspect.
1N60 is germanium and used because it has a lower voltage drop and will turn on sooner than silicon type, around .3V for germanium vs .6V for silicon.
Any of your diodes will work for the experiment, you will just need a larger signal strength when using silicon diodes.