Talk:Gain (electronics)

Ambiguity

[ EDIT -- The previous paragraph doesn't make sense. In any context where it isn't clear whether it is voltage or power gain that is being referred to, the statement "Gain = 20 dB" is ambiguous. It could mean either "V₂/V₁ = 10 , P₂/P₁ = 100" or "V₂/V₁ = 100 , P₂/P₁ = 10000". If what was meant was "unless stated otherwise, it's assumed that gain refers to power rather than voltage", then that's what should have been said. Edit to Edit - The original statement is correct because a 10x voltage increase is equivalent to a 100x power increase, and both a 10x voltage increase and a 100x power increase correspond to a gain of 20 dB. Therefore, it is uneccessary to specify if the gain refers to a power increase or a voltage increase as the two are related. ]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.235.73 (talk • contribs) 05:46, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Split

I have split up gain so that now this aritcle only discussed the electornics side of things. See Gain (disambiguation) for where the other info ended up.--Commander Keane 20:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Split looks good as is. The paragraph on antenna gain is probably OK here, especially since the decibel equations above it are essentially correct for antenna gain calculation as well. --ssd 12:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the antenna gain deserves a place in here. Anyone looking for more information on Antenna Gain in particular can go to the link, those who just want a general overview of gains regarding electronics can only "gain" (heh heh!) from seeing that it can be applied to EM design also. --Diom1982

I think antenna gain should be kept with antennas. Electronic gain requires energy input from a power supply. Antennas dont provided gain in this sense, they just capture more energy than an isotropic reciever would.--Light current 17:44, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I have moved antenna gain stuff to antenna now.--Light current 17:51, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Back here the lead introduced a definition of antenna gain that was actually the definition of antenna directivity, which is always greater than gain (and strictly so in the likely case that your antenna is lossy). Fixed (I hope) 32 months later, let me know if you see see a problem. Vaughan Pratt (talk) 10:19, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Huah?

This article sucks. It has no preamble to describe what gain is. Maybe you electricians understand it, but it's useless to others. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.97.234.72 (talk) 19:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

I agree. It's apparently the result of editors trying to out-math each other. I went here from a link regarding high gain as a distinctive part of the band Dinosaur Jr.'s sound; I still have no idea what high gain sounds like, and I don't want to crunch equations to make sense of the article. Can someone with practical knowledge improve this article a bit? Vbdrummer0 02:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted by a vandal. — Omegatron 22:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The example of GAIN

The example is very strange. I think the answer is 20(dB)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.87.130.18 (talk • contribs) 06:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ahem. I was wondering when you would notice that. Sorry, my mistake. --Heron 18:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The example is still confusing, the rest of the article talks about gain in terms of decibels, and the example has gain in terms of V/V. Shouldn't I see a logarithm in there somewhere? Is this equivalent to 10 db (voltage) gain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.127.124.14 (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Gain measured in ohms

I sometimes see references to gain being measured in units of resistance. I admit to not understanding this, or whether there are only certain circumstances when this might be appropriate (e.g., transimpedance gain, which appears not to have its own article or mention in this one). My best guess is that it refers to a voltage gain per some input current current gain per some input voltage, per Ohm's law. Can any experts explain why gain might be measured in units of resistance, and under what condiitons it ought to be? Robert K S (talk) 15:00, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

A transimpedance amplifier is one that converts a current input to a voltage output. The units of its gain, volts per ampere, is ohms. Dicklyon (talk) 17:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

After your strikeout and rewrite: the current out per voltage in is what you get from a transconductance amplifier. Its gain is reciprocal ohms, mhos, or siemens. Dicklyon (talk) 17:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Please make less specific

Gain is a mathematical concept, and this is an article about its APPLICATION. can you move this to gain (electronics) or something, and leave the maths/signals here? I'm trying to link in from runaway climate change and it doesn't make sense.Andrewjlockley (talk) 01:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of it as a mathematical term, and there is no math page on the disambig. Are you talking about finance, compounding interest, something? And even accepting that there is something in mathematics called gain, I think you're wrong stating this as an application of it, because I don't think there's a specialized term for the log of a ratio. Awickert (talk) 02:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations

It is clear that the definition of decibel in this article is based on actual practice; as a result it turned out one of the very few on Wikipedia that contains no obfuscation and is also mathematically rigorous.

Having said this, I would suggest three things for which a change is needed.

The first is disambiguating log by writing either $\mathrm {log} _{10}$ or lg; unfortunately the latter can be confused with the base 2 logarithm.

Second,

$G_{dB}=10\log G_{W/W}=10\log 100=10\times 2=20\ \mathrm {dB} .$

should be

$G_{dB}=10\log G=10\log 100=10\times 2=20.$

Indeed, according to the definition of power gain at the start, 20 dB = 100, and so the last part of the chain as it currently stands amounts to $10\times 2=100$.

Also, since the chain starts with $G_{dB}$, standing for "G expressed in decibel", it is wise to follow the usual good practices for handling units. If the length of something is 3 ft, then its length in feet is 3 (a dimensionless number), not 3 ft. In formula form, $\ell _{\mathrm {ft} }=3\Leftrightarrow \ell =3\,\mathrm {ft}$ and $\ell _{\mathrm {ft} }=3\,\mathrm {ft}$ is wrong. Similarly for decibel: $G_{\mathrm {dB} }=20\Leftrightarrow G=20\,\mathrm {dB}$.

A third point is the V/V and W/W notation. This seems like a comment, since, mathematically, these units cancel out and V/V = 1 = W/W. Formalizing the intended effect may not be worthwhile. Better keep this "null information" out of the formulas and provide real information in the text. Simply using fitting identifiers like Pgain and Vgain is also an option. Boute (talk) 04:14, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Both the V/V and W/W ratios are nondimensional; yet to get to decibels, you need to know which it is. In the case of voltage ratios, the dB equivalent is 20log(ratio). That's one problem with your attempt to rationalize dB into a numeric operator. As to your 10 x 2 = 100 comment, that doesn't make sense within the usual interpretation of these equations, which doesn't include the homomorphism that you're basing your interpretation on. Dicklyon (talk) 05:14, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

You must indeed know whether V or W is involved, but writing V/V kills that information. So this does not work, which is why I suggested keeping that information in the (con)text or use proper identifiers. By the way, I am not rationalizing dB into a numeric operator any more than already follows from the NIST standard Special Publication 330, as the derivation on the decibel talk page shows. Note that the definition in the gain article writes ${\text{Gain}}=10\log \left({\frac {P_{\mathrm {out} }}{P_{\mathrm {in} }}}\right)\ \mathrm {dB}$ and not ${\text{Gain}}_{dB}=10\log \left({\frac {P_{\mathrm {out} }}{P_{\mathrm {in} }}}\right)\ \mathrm {dB}$. The rest of the article has to be consistent with that. Finally, it follows from the nearly universal practice of working with units (most often already taught in high school) that $\ell _{\mathrm {ft} }=3\,\mathrm {ft}$ is wrong, and since dB is considered a unit, so is $G_{\mathrm {dB} }=20\,\mathrm {dB}$. The correspondence $\ell _{\mathrm {ft} }=x\Leftrightarrow \ell =x\,\mathrm {ft}$ is also nearly universal practice, up to notational variants. In fact, it is not "my interpretation" but a consequence from the common definition of measurement in units $\ell =\ell _{\mathrm {ft} }\,\mathrm {ft}$. Why make exceptions for decibel?

Afterthougt: I admit there is a difference with the decibel situation. Whereas the practice I mentioned for units is nearly universal, for decibel the number of variations in the ways in which people write up things is extremely large (see the references in my paper), so the "usual interpretation" to which you refer does not exist, only chaos. Many authors and spec sheets write things correctly (sometimes bypassing the poor definitions they presented at first!), but I cannot quote percentages (which would require a larger sample). As regards a list of references showing this, I think you said you had my paper, otherwise I will send you a copy. Boute (talk) 06:32, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I just found that the NIST Guide to the SI applies exactly the aforementioned universal convention for units also in its treatment of dB, Neper etc.: $\{L_{F}\}_{\mathrm {B} }=2\,\mathrm {lg} (F/F_{0})$ and $L_{F}=2\,\mathrm {lg} (F/F_{0})\,\mathrm {B}$. So abuse of notation and ambiguity appears to be avoided by (some) standards bodies. It is the ONLY way to do things properly. Boute (talk) 12:37, 7 August 2010 (UTC) 21:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Note (earlier typo corrected in the preceding): F is a subscript indicating that the formula pertains to field quantities, F is a variable designating a field quantity. For the {L_F}_B = 2 lg(F/F₀) <=> L_F = 2 lg(F/F₀) B issue, this is unimportant, but for the formula itself it is obviously significant. Boute (talk) 13:43, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Warning: in NIST Guide to the SI - html version on which the preceding "correction" was based, italics and normal fonts are known to be displayed incorrectly at various places depending on the browser. The only correct (reference) version is | NIST Guide for the Use of the International System of Units - pdf version, which indicates that $\{L_{F}\}_{\mathrm {B} }=2\,\mathrm {lg} (F/F_{0})$ and $L_{F}=2\,\mathrm {lg} (F/F_{0})\,\mathrm {B}$ as shown first were the correct formulas (in $L_{F}$ the variable is $F$, not $L$ as in some other standards). Boute (talk) 21:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Search for oxymoronic "input gain" came up empty

There is plenty of usage of the seemingly contradictory term "input gain," presumably (?) as the OUTPUT of a preamp or whatever. If gain is the increase in amplitude from input to output, how, without "cheating" like this, can there be an ill-named "input gain." By failing to address this usage, even if it's gibberish, the article falls down on the job. The same goes for the redundant term "output gain." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.93.212.105 (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

In my work in live audio I see many people and manufacturers use the term "input gain" to refer to a passive attenuator—usually a potentiometer—that controls the amount of input signal sent to the preamp. In that case, input gain is not gain at all, it is attenuation prior to gain. Binksternet (talk) 16:24, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

More Ambiguity

The article defines gain as "the mean ratio of the signal output of a system to the signal input of the same system". Therefore when talking about voltage gain, you would expect this to be G=Vout/Vin. The line "The term gain alone is ambiguous, and can refer to the ratio of output to input voltage, (voltage gain), ..." reinforces this idea. Below, under the voltage gain section, voltage gain is defined as G=(Vout/Vin)^2, which seems to contradict the definition of gain above. Therefore this seems to still be power gain even though it's in terms of voltage. I know this is the standard way of doing it, but maybe someone with more knowledge and experience could attempt to distinguish between the two using better names.
Edit: From the article here (http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_3/chpt_1/5.html), it states "Because the bel is fundamentally a unit of power gain or loss in a system, voltage or current gains and losses don't convert to bels or dB in quite the same way". It seems as if the concept of gain is different when expressing it as a dB number compared to just a ratio. In anycase, I think it should be reworded to make this all clearer.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.5.49.58 (talk) 06:06, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 29 July 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 16:16, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

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• Gain → Gain (electronics)
• Gain (disambiguation) → Gain

– I find it a bit astonishing that the electronics term is the primary topic when the use of the term in "Gain (accounting)" seems just as notable, and the primary use of the word "gain" in search engines returns results for "Gain (detergent)". There seems to be three topics tied for an attempt at the primary topic spot, and none of them win, which would default with the disambiguation page being moved to the ambiguous title so that the reader can determine for themselves which subject they are trying to locate. Steel1943 (talk) 20:10, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Besides the topics already mentioned, there is also Gain (singer), which has about the same number of page views as this page (40,000 vs 38,000 over 90 days). kennethaw88 • talk 23:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
• Weakly oppose. I wouldn't mind Gain (accounting) being made primary, but I think either that or Gain (electronics) should be primary; I don't think it should go to a disambig page. I think it's irritating to readers to constantly be sent to disambig pages. The above illustrates the problem with choosing the primary topic by the number of Google hits. Clearly Gain (singer), an 18 year old Korean girl group singer, and Gain (detergent), a laundry detergent product name, are not as intrinsically important articles as the above two, regardless of their Google ranking. There are only two main definitions, lets choose one. --Chetvorno^TALK 06:38, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support. "Gain" is the rightful title of several important topics and none of those topics stands out as primary -- a compelling argument for making the dab primary. Lambtron (talk) 13:59, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. In Wikipedia, “gain” is primarily used in the generic non technical meaning (as in “weight gain”, and similar), or to mean amplification gain (the topic of this article), as can be ascertained performing a search using the built-in search engine. The singer and the detergent are not nearly as encyclopedically relevant as amplification gain; those are just run of the mill. The only serious contender to primary meaning is gain (accounting), and it is sparsely used (again, this can be ascertained performing a search for “gain”). Also, almost all links to gain assume this meaning (more evidence for that this is the primary meaning); if there was a move, who would be going to waste his time changing the hundreds of links to gain to it new location?. There are much more productive ways to spend my time editing Wikipedia, so I am not volunteering on that. Regards. Mario Castelán Castro (talk) 17:31, 30 July 2015 (UTC).

• In my opinion, several links to a disambiguation page as a result of a move is not a valid reason to oppose a move (and yes, I do understand that is only part of this rationale.) A forum at WP:DPL was created to help fix any disambiguation page links, and by looking at it, there are several editors who diligently help resolve these issues. That, and since there is the chance that new editors might link Gain thinking that it may go to a topic other than the current primary topic, I see moving the page bring more helpful that problematic, especially since it will give editors the chance to fix any bad links. And as you said, there is at least one other serious contender to the primary topic claim ... which is actually more reason why the disambiguation page should be moved to the base title because that just proves that confusion exists and is possible. Steel1943 (talk) 17:51, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and I mentioned that this contender is hardly mentioned at all in Wikipedia, so I thought it was obvious that I meant “it is a serious contender but it still loses terribly”.

Despite WP:DPL, the fact is that incorrect links to disambiguation pages exist, so I repeat my concern: who would be going to waste his time changing the hundreds of links to gain to it new location?. If you (generic you) are not willing to fix it, then do not break it. Is Lambtron going to fix the more than 400 links if the move is performed?.

Yes, unless other editors beat me to it. BTW, tools like Dab solver make this quick and painless, so it really makes no sense to object to a move because it involves fixing dab links. Lambtron (talk) 16:38, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

In any case, I do not see “confusion exists and is possible.” as an argument to make gain a disambiguation page. Anyone can get genuinely confused when linking (new or experienced editors); it's part of the human nature to get confused occasionally; moreover, we do not edit Wikipedia to minimize confusion of editors, but to maximize utility for readers, and most readers who search “gain” within Wikipedia are very likely looking for what is described here (again, see the search linked above as evidence, it is by far the most common meaning in Wikipedia), so it makes sense to keep it that way. It would be naive to search for a common noun like “gain” and expect to find the meaning of that word as a proper noun (the singer); another example of the same fact is: searching for “boring” will obviously lead to its meaning as a common noun, not the city with that name. I do not see why either not having the city under boring (and boring as a disambiguation page) or the singer under gain (and gain as a disambiguation page) would cause confusion because it is obviously not going to be found there.

Regards. Mario Castelán Castro (talk) 15:34, 1 August 2015 (UTC).

• I'm unclear about the meaning of "encyclopedically relevant", but it's a fact that the singer's article has more page views than the electronics term, which makes it a contender for primary topic (as Steel1943 pointed out). That said, the collective page view statistics clearly indicate there is no primary topic for "gain", which is exactly why the dab should be primary. As for changing links, I will volunteer to help with that if the move is executed. Lambtron (talk) 18:29, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support: WP:PRIMARYTOPIC requires that if a page is going to be designated the primary topic then it must be: "much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term". Electronic gain definitely does not meet this criteria, and therefore 'gain' should be a disambiguation page. Ebonelm (talk) 16:15, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support: I can't put it better than Ebonelm. There is no primary topic. Andrewa (talk) 01:42, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Decibel base logarithms

"...logarithms to the decibel base $db=10^{1/10}=1.258925\ldots$..." Is this really a thing? I'm not seeing any actual uses in reliable sources. SpinningSpark 13:33, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Guitar amp gain

Korn, your making a lot of unjustified claims in your edit summaries. Guitar players are no more "regular people" than engineers. There are tens of millions of both and the majority of the population can't do the work of either of them. Your addition to the article is more about adding distortion than about gain per se. It all it has to say on that subject directly is that preamplifier have gain controls. Well so what. In any case, you have provided no source indicating that this is a significant aspect of the topic of gain. Unsourced material that has been removed should never be reinstated without a source. I'd also draw your attention to the preamplifier article which currently says nothing about guitar preamps and does not (currently) recognise that non-linearity could ever be desirable. SpinningSpark 18:52, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I think you'll find that just about everyone can turn the knobs of an amp up and down. And since almost everyone listens to music, almost everyone is at least familiar with a guitar, its distortion, and thus the effects of gain in the amplifier. And the knob is labeled 'Gain'. There is no other example where a technical lay person is ever exposed to that concept. It thus provides a very plastic example of where gain is used and this is necessary in order to make this this overly technical article more comprehensible. And this is the reason it should be added here; not because it is important for the topic of gain from the viewpoint of an electrical engineer, but because it is important for an encyclopedic article addressed to the general public that this article make the topic as plastic and comprehensible as possible. This isn't a technical textbook. Furthermore, someone interested in knowing what "gain" does on a guitar amp would open this article, expecting to find an explanation. Thus the explanation belongs here; and it would even do so if it wasn't relevant to the article, even if only in the form of an explanation why it doesn't belong here, followed by a link to the correct place. But while a section about the gain switch on guitar amps would be belong here even if off topic for the article, it is not off topic either, as it is an example of the application of gain in amplifiers. In summary: The information belongs here and its removal decreases the quality of the article as an encyclopedic entry (as opposed to a technical piece), and thus it must be restored. I don't understand the rest of your post, did you remove that stuff because you don't actually believe that amps have a gain switch or that gain increases volume and distortion or are you just demanding sources for the sake of it? Korn (talk) 07:30, 12 February 2022 (UTC)