Leaderboard

So Saturday we smoked spare ribs and a brisket in our new smoker This was early in the smoking before the ribs were sauced and wrapped in aluminum foil and before the brisket was swaddled in butcher paper.

Both the power supply and amplifier chassis are approximately 290 mm × 400 mm × 90 mm, so it's actually fairly compact considering it's a full-size T2. The power supply uses five GRHV regulators and features plug-in bias daughter boards, making it easy to switch between different bias voltages. Right now it supports both Normal Bias and Pro Bias outputs. The PSU also includes about a 50sec high volt soft start. In addition, there's an AC inrush limiter on the mains input. After roughly one second, a relay bypasses the current-limiting resistor, reducing the inrush current seen by both the filter capacitors and the tube heaters during startup. On the amplifier side, most of the passive components are SMD, which helped reduce the overall PCB and chassis size. The amplifier topology stays very close to Kevin's original T2 schematic, but I added support for several different implementation options to make the design more flexible. It supports three different CCS configurations:10M90, 10M90S + DN2540, and the original T2 complex CCS. The active battery section is also configurable. It supports: LED string reference, LT1021 reference. For the 2SK216 and 2SJ79 positions, I added an extra pin so they can be replaced directly with TTC and TTA devices without modifying the PCB. The overall goal wasn't to redesign the T2, but rather to preserve the original circuit while making it easier to build, maintain, and adapt as some of the original parts become increasingly difficult to source. The chassis is CNC machined by a local machine shop. One detail I paid particular attention to was the top cover of the amplifier chassis. I designed it so that the EL34 tube sockets sit perfectly flush with the top panel, which I think gives the amplifier a much cleaner appearance. Additional ventilation slots were added in the center section for airflow. The side heatsinks are sandwiched between the top and bottom panels. This not only gives the chassis a cleaner look and prevents the sharp heatsink fins from being exposed, but also makes it much less likely that you'll scratch your hands when moving the amplifier. To make sure the heatsinks can still dissipate heat efficiently, I also added ventilation openings in the top and bottom panels wherever they cover the heatsinks. I've also been thinking about turning this project into a group buy, although I'm not sure how much interest in the T2 still exists today. The main motivation would be to reduce the chassis cost, since having a single custom CNC chassis made is quite expensive. If enough people were interested, the machining cost could come down significantly.

All day Radiohead with OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 and KID A MNESIA releases.

Here’s one of my secrets - I’ll take Coltrane and Bill Evans over Miles Davis any day. That’s probably little to do with the artists, but damn is this album great (the cover art is not)