Favorite designs

[Steve Jones]

Well, I'm not sure whether or not this thread survived
the weekend.  But in the event that it did, I have the
following comment.  Not having agreed upon any criteria,
it's very unlikely that any concensus could be reached.
Judging by the discussion so far, there seems to be at
least two major criteria for choosing one design over
another.  They are the classic 'Ideal' vs 'Economical'.
Also, one advantage to using the discrete designs is that
they allow one to learn a bit more about what's going on.
It depends a lot on what one is after.

We all have our own reasons for wanting be build this
stuff.  One might be willing to sacrifice performance a bit
in exchange for an inexpensive approach that also teachs
him/her about the concepts.  Another person's toes might
curl everytime they hear a VCO start to drift and they
might be willing to spend a few more dollars (or whatever
they happen to spend) to attain better tracking VCO's
or cleaner VCF's etc.  Besides, assuming it's modular,
a person can start with something a little cheesy (but
affordable) and upgrade at a later time.

It would be useful for a person to rate their favorite
design based upon these criteria.  A table could even
be compiled later, e.g.:

              _Cost___Performance___Tutorial_Value_
VCF Design 1 |  2   |     4       |      1         |
VCF Design 2 |  3   |     3       |      2         |
VC0 Design 1 |  5   |     3       |      2         |
VCA Design 1 |  1   |     5       |      1         |
VCA Design 2 |__2___|_____1_______|______5_________|
                      (etc...)


I think this would be extremely useful data to capture.
It would certainly help to avoid 'apple to orange' type
comparisons.

Just my own humble reflections,
steve