spritzer

Yes, distortion is a wonderful thing. There was a good USB comparison in the latest Hifi News...

That was excellent. Here is one that took me minute to figure out the first time I heard it on the TV:

Andy is in trouble if I'm ever in So.Cal...

You do know that I was going order for you... If that's all you want then I'll send it in right away.

Just got a brand new SRS-2170 from Japan and why do Stax always do this, make the base model so bloody good. The other Lambda models always have some issues (too fucking bright being my biggest issue) but this one is brilliant even with the SRM-252S. I guess it is their way of making the more expensive models sound "better" but for fucks sake...

There has to be some ancient order of soldering monks that teach this shit as I just don't know how to do it this badly. Needless to say, that PCB went up in flames even after I tried to fix it...

This is a good example of how you should not solder a diode in a +/-500V supply.

This is about as simple as it can get but care has to be taken when soldering in the tubes. There are no cheap sockets available for sub-mini's so they have to be soldered in. I didn't care enough to make a new footprint for them so this is a TO-5 base which is quite small. Should be fine with non-Hennyo solder skills.

They are certainly the best dynamic ever made, I brought the Senn dealer here an impedance adapter this week for them to try out. They were pleased by the difference but I'll have to visit them again once they've had some more time with it.

Crap!!!! Nahhh... just kidding. The production version is a bit different.

Now something to use with the mini switcher above, a subminiature tube electrostatic amp. The pcb is less than 120*90mm for both channels and it is fully balanced from input to output. Only one B+ for both given the voltage constraints of these tubes so limited voltage swing but who cares... it will look cool.

Better yet, use a phono stage. That's really vintage!!

Sovshiller liked them so I have my doubts...

There are voltage issues at play here so stick with the 1K pot.

Just a tad...

Which version are you using, IXYS or the A1968? Personally I'd only do this on the Sanyo part... As for how much current, until there is smoke. You can also tweak the offset series resistor to give you more range.

Let's put it this way, throw water on the amp and it evaporates quickly enough to not short out the circuit...

Yes but it isn't true as you can do much better matching than the factory job and link the two dies thermally. This guys claim was more than there were still plenty of P-fets to be found in duals as he was able to get some.

I'm a bit amazed you could read that thread. The guy is a bit of a case but in a nutshell he wants a separate PSU for the low voltage section (which draws almost no power) but not for the high voltage (which draws all of the power), less feedback and bigger caps. He also calls the amps cheap in terms of build quality and shames Stax for using single transistors matched into pairs. The guy has clearly never built anything as a product or indeed lives in the real world.

Nothing springs to mind.

The heat aspect is hard to judge, way too many variables but dust inside the unit can also be a factor. It the amp is one of the first built then you can be running into cap problems given the super simple power supplies.

Hey!!! I just got home from work... 400V isn't enough for any serious amp. I have some 3900uf/550V caps here somewhere and some 3*110uf/630V film caps. Two of them are the size of that 717...

That smoked on the trainwreck board I'm repairing so it is worth a shot.

All the grounds on the Alpha PCB are connected to the ground plane so everything is shared. If you ground the inputs directly into the PSU then one wire to the pot is all you need.