spritzer

Well Mercer takes being stupid to new levels so none of this is surprising. It's typical Cavalli though, the product is crap that doesn't sell so have some idiots shill it for you.

Happy Birthday Jeff!!

The whole goal of the KGSSHV was never the high voltage, that was just a side product of the parts available. The main focus was the new PSU design and indeed the CCS for the third stage where the old KGSS had resistors as current sources. Given that we could push to +/-500V we did it but there is nothing wrong with +/-400V. The higher the voltage swing, the further away from the limits of the circuit is the "normal" listening volume and the circuit is thus more linear. Now if 4686A's were still in production then it wouldn't be a problem to run at +/-450V but they are already in short supply so we need to look ahead. The fets do work but very high input and output capacitance makes them a less than ideal choice for this role. The new Moto part is promising and I'm looking everywhere for high voltage BJT's and might have some news on that front soon. It will cost me more than a BHSE to secure them (f it is even possible) but it will also mean a lot of new KGSSHV's can be built. I'm a pragmatic man though so with parts like the Fairchild F5027 in current production it makes sense to extend down to +/-400V with no performance hit.

The offboard one? It was a special version done just for my uses so no need for the IXYS parts. It's also a 400V version so it can use BJT's that are in current production.

I doubt you upgraded the power transformer. The Keen Ocean transformers Craig uses are pretty nice once you force them to build it not "china style" i.e. I'm willing to pay more than next to nothing.

No conditioners actually work unless you are completely regenerating the AC. Better stick with a good isolation transformer. Ahh the evils of background noise, well if the amp has any then it should be fixed and properly at that.

I wonder why people never upgrade the transformers in the components instead of the cables. They are a crucial part and all that. Well I guess that would take some resemblance of brain activity to do so why bother with something like that...

Most of our designs are finalized. There are some offshoots which are discarded but the general idea is finished and then either improved with a later version or put aside. Most have PCB's that go with them, either rough drafts or finished boards which is great when we revisit the designs.

Hand painted sinks... that would be a neat idea... Having some very mild hum issues in the amp so time for some trouble shooting. I'm guessing the input wiring from the pot to the PCB's as it's unshielded.

Yup, trackpads are a no, no for delicate PCB work.

There are quite a few that haven't been released....

Yeah, always better to do that. Though with a KGSSHV psu it is almost impossible to overload the input...

Can't go wrong with Antek. Dirt cheap and very well made.

Well the big brother of the mini KGSSHV I posted above is up and running. Huge sinks on this one so I could play with the current a bit. Running at almost 12mA now @+/-400V... Not happy with the quality of these boxes though so this one will be a one off. Managed to wash some of the anodizing off the heatsinks...

845's aren't a problem, the EML tubes Kevin used in the front end of that other amp are.... Around 4-5k$ in tubes alone. The Beast is a pretty neat design. The quality of the choke is crucial but it's nice to have CCS loaded front stages.

The last paragraph of that Stereophile test report says it all. In the circuits DHT's are mostly used (i.e. as old as the hills) they are simply painting a pretty picture that's not truly accurate. Similar in many ways to vinyl which has its issues and can't ever match the resolution of redbook but sounds "nice". The whole notion that tubes have a "sound" bothers me no end, just look at the BHSE distortion data Justin posted on HF. Here is the Beast. The quality is pretty crap as it's a huge schematic taken off a single page in a small book. Bonus points to anybody who sees why this one works but the WES fails so miserably? Kevin also has a design with a dozen DHT's but he hasn't even let me see it. Says I have to promise to build it before he does so....

The 3296 line would be a better fit in that spot. We never do the BOM's so no control over them...

They always used mylar until they switched to what I can only assume is PEEK. None of the other plastics really work for this role...

Even better.

My reply would have been: "DSD? That's so last year, now everybody is for retro red book. Aren't you keeping up?"

The thing with Woo is that the higher up in their lineup you go, the worse it gets. Something like a bog standard WA2 or a WA6 would be a pretty good choice for the money but nobody would go for them. Something like the WES is just fucked, they can't even get the bias and the ballast resistors for the bias right. This is crucial for something like the HE90 so I for one would never connect a HE90 into a WES. The risk is simply too great that the amp is slowly chewing up the 7k$ drivers...

Power supply technically doesn't work (look at all that rectifier tube rolling) and the amp circuit is terrible so not something I've ever recommend. For me it ticks most of the "fuck it, let's just make some money" boxes. 6SN7's driving 300B's is always going to suck but marrying it to cheap as dirt iron from China with a PSU which breaks all the rules for tube rectified PSU's just takes the cake. There are also small issues such as how the filaments are done (AC with a hum pot... in a headphone amp) and the Woo spirit of slapping on some upgraded parts that don't matter. Same can be said about the DNA amps, they are pretty much terrible and again, dirt cheap transformers and fucked filament supplies/PSU. I'm well aware how expensive iron is but opting for the cheapest off the shelf Edcor unit is just fucked. Alo Studio Six is also guilty of this as well as one of the worst tube amp designs I've ever seen.

Goes hand in hand with the two entities in the title...

Yeah, I'd like to know what the fuck they are smoking. Unless they are confusing warm and bright as all hell...

Exactly, everybody knows headphonia, 6moons, hifi+ and all the others are just garbage written by people who couldn't even buy a clue.