spritzer

I've ordered some prototype PCB's of the onboard and PSU to try out. The offboard has become a massive headache to modernize so I have to either do it from scratch or go to a 3 layer board...

I have a lot of reservations about the Total Dac to say the least. Now if Lavry could just update the 2002...

The MSB DAC IV and the Analog dac can both do DSD. They refuse to upgrade the DAC III's even though mine has pretty much the same USB interface as the IV. Fuckers...

Hey, it's a real problem...

It's worth a shot...

I've seen spots on the utterly fubar Stax sets but that's about it. No large levels of corrosion and it wouldn't have any effect on the sound of the drivers. The drivers could be completely covered such as ML does.

I already did the diode tests but said fuck it and replaced everything in the amp. It's not like I don't have a few 3675's to waste. Still didn't fix the issue though. Might be a blown resistor but how unlikely would that be with no visible marks... As it stands now all the sand except the servo has been replaced but no change. One thing that worries me is that the front end CCS doesn't light up as it should. All the active parts are new so it should be fine but that might be a cause. Another could be the servo but it appears to be working just fine. When the amp first turns on the main CCS's light up but are turned off half a second later as the servo kicks in.

Up or down doesn't matter.

So I've been busy. Changed all the free standing 2SA1486's and 2SC3675's, the 10K pots and the 3675's that are in the batteries but located on the sinks. I know the LED's work so it has to be the 2SK216's in the front end CCS. Just has to be as everything else has been changed. Might do the 2SA1486's in the front end while I have the heatsink off. The main CCS behave the same way on the good channel with the batteries not connected so they should be ok.

That's pretty much what happens to mine. I get a small change at one point but it's from around 802V down to 790V.

Do you remember which parts you took out?

Have you tried just replacing everything? This is clearly a damaged part somewhere in my case as the amp did work before things started to short out. I'll first try to rebuild the batteries and then work my way outwards.

Anybody have a problem where the batteries are stuck at 797-820V (max adjustment range)? Mine is acting up as before and it started after one of the K216's in the front end CCS had shorted through the insulation and a 3675 in the main CCS had also shorted. Changed all the offending transistors, the J79's and the 100V zeners plus the K216's in that stage. I also swapped out the fet and C3381's in the batteries but no change. The batteries are fully lit but most of the other LED's are not. The EL34 CCS both have only two LED's partially lit and since both batteries behave the same way it leads me to believe it's a more centralized issue. What exactly I don't know...

It's better that way... or not...

Týr are awesome!!!

Well... there is no inductive load to drive here. Bridged amps are just a cheap way of getting more power by doubling up the amp modules. It's similar in practice to electrostatic amps with one pole driving each side of the transducer. In fact some of the very high power bridged amps with high rail voltages can be used to drive Stax... All of this does remind me that I really should do some electrostatic articles for Tyll but I'd rather just spend my time building something.

One thing to remember is that we measure amps phase to phase, so stator to stator. That is how you measure voltage swing so something like the GES has a B+ of 600V so it can swing 600V+600V aka 1200Vp-p. The gap between the two stators with the diaphragm in the middle is what the amp "sees" so when one stators swings + the other must swing - (phase that is since we are talking about AC) to push-pull the diaphragm. This is a system so you have to think of it as such, one stator pushing or pulling the diaphragm means single ended which means a lot of distortion... I can't get the Java stuff to load but ground is just what you make it. Take the standard BH PSU and many other bipolar PSU's that do not use a center tap for example. It's two identical + supplies essentially that give say +350V each. Now run one PSU normally and the potential between ground and + is +350V. Now take the other psu and attach the + of it to the other PSU's ground... what happens? The potential is still 350V between the poles but since the + is now ground the potential has to be - so -350V. It's similar to when you stack PSU's so the power supply I use in my amps (B10, GES, WES etc.) is just two +300V supplies one referenced to ground, the other to the +300V output from the other supply. The potential is still +300V but since "ground" is +300V as well it yields +600V. This saves on caps since they only need to be rated for 350V in both supplies... I must admit that the second harmonic stuff was just to annoy the shills on HF and to see if they would try to use it against the BHSE. They were naturally stupid enough to do so... What.... I can't be naughty at times...? Kevin does add a tiny amount of flavor into his designs but it's tiny and it's more of a tiny tradeoff to get big rewards elsewhere. I for one will take a controlled compromise over an uncontrolled clusterfuck any day. Krell, Pass, Ayre and others seem to agree with this stance as well... As for the cancelling of distortion, in an ideal world and with fully complementary amps then this would happen but we have neither. No electrostatic amp is truly complementary (well there is one but it has never been built... yet) so most are "balanced" amps with single ended output stages. At these voltages it's the only way to do it. You can do fully balanced with tubes but then you have the wide variance of the tubes to account with which means the two halves will not be able to be identical and thus not cancel each other out There is no ground in electrostatics since they are essentially not referenced against ground in terms of AC. Just like an XLR cable or the power coming out of your wall the two poles are just referenced against each other and you only see the potential difference.

Justin's KGSS used the Graybox and the 19"*400mm version would fit even the original boards.

I think there is some cosmic rule that calls for at least two competing standards in every field...

At least the Bybee does something. Installing a 1R 5% resistor in series doesn't do a lot but it's something... That is indeed the question. Stax does it stator to stator but some manufacturers do it from stator to diaphragm.

It's useless crap aimed for stupid people so yeah, just like the Bybee's.

Priced like one though...

This is pure win!!

I've seen the insides and there is nothing new there. Same bias supply as the PS2 box and they were pretty stupid to combine all the grounds and just switch the hot in an age of bridged amps....

Nothing on my end. The board is fully populated save for the tube sockets which should be here soon. I'll probably finish the BATE before I ever get to the Megatron though...