spritzer

Using a Dynahi to drive speakers is a bad idea IMHO unless you have huge heatsinks and a PSU which can handle the load. Even two Sigma22's will struggle to keep up so why not just build a F5 for speaker use with its super simple PSU?

My plan for the LCD-2 if I ended up hating the sound was to transplant some Omega drivers into the frame...

The pots won't be a problem at these voltages and with this setup (same as on the ESX) you can adjust each output to 0VDC. These improvements can be added to the Egmont as well plus some feedback would make it quite good. Pretty much the improvements I did to my ECC83/6S4A version.

True but it takes a real man to don 1kg headphones with a headband that's way too small. Never heard the HE-6 but the HE-5 was the biggest steaming pile of crap I've ever heard. Even the bad Grado's were good by comparison. Given just how bad the Jade was then I don't have a lot of confidence in HE... For me the LCD-2 rev.1 is a baby 007 and it's good enough for me not to touch any of my stats for a month.

Anybody complaining about LCD-2 weight should use the Koss ESP-6 for an hour or so and report back....

It's 540V... Doesn't really matter though since they work just fine off 580V.

Happy Birthday!!!

Not a bad idea, not only for 230V but also for HE90, HE60, Beyer ET1000.

That one is on me. It was in my insane buying spree days when I acquired a few sets and found them to be awesome. Posted that it was odd nobody talked about them given how good they were and the rest is history...

But... but... then I can't use my Stax....

Hmmm... now I need to look for a robe and start leading people in earnest...

While the design works perfectly in a ES-1, I doubt it will fit any of them. Max 10cm or so on either side of those massive transformers and that's the only space available in the psu box.

The PA89 is more a joke but it certainly would work. File it with my tiny transformers and other such novelties. Doing anything for money spoils it IMO but with Stax you have a limited number of employees who are probably not building amps in their spare time. In the late 60's Hayashi-san was very prolific and published numerous designs, some very much of team overkill. Then they diversified into other markets but I have no doubt that there are some truly inspired designs lurking in some backroom. Producing those might be problematic at best though... We on the other hand aren't bound by such concerns and can come up with truly crazy stuff using rare parts at will. Amps like the Bate aim to bring this to the masses but without somebody selling the PCB's and other necessary parts it is always a bit out of reach.

Possible, yes, but I just don't see the point of doing it.

800V across a cold ECC83 would certainly not be a good idea. I for one see no reason not to use ECC83's in this amp and please stick with the new JJ's as they are simply better than anything else out there, new or nos. For caps the layout will fit Wima MKP10's but given their rather large size, most other standard polyprop caps should fit. The double wound Mundorfs will probably not but most other boutique caps should also fit. We could go with a full CCS madness for this but the whole point of this amp is something simple that truly anybody can build.

Silly people people who don't want to fork out for 300+$ opamps...

The ceramic units are only about 2$ each and the quality isn't that bad.

Glad I looked at those PCB's since I can't understand what I was thinking with the psu caps... That would work. 6CM7's appear to be in plentiful supply too. We could always do a CRC psu...

For a small amp then we could do ECC83 input and 6CM7/6CS7 for the second and third stages. Can be made quite small indeed. I know Kevin doesn't like them much, but the differential amp (aka. Egmont) is bloody tiny, fully balanced too.

So the LL boards are pretty much ready for production and I've ordered boxes for my version of the A-10. How about "Pyrite" for a name... Yup, even my dastardly plan of having my friends take some of this stuff doesn't seem to be working all that well either.... I really should start to sell some of this stuff as the pile just keeps on growing as I build more and more "crap". Looking over my desk I have the chassis for a tiny triode Stax amp, Hiraga Le Monstre amp and PSU boards, heater transformer and PCB's for my ultra simple poor man amp, PSU board for a SRA-12S, two amp boards from a SRA-10S, mini ESX output stage, numerous high voltage PSU's (five in total) and two Exstata V2 channels all waiting for some attention and/or parts. This is also after I cleaned up a bit over the weekend...

Happy Birthday!!!

Yeah, it's "bright flash" at least that's the intended name. As with everything in Icelandic there are numerous other ways of translating it though.

The root cause of this are the origins of the Exstata design. I was there in the "super secret design forum" when somebody linked to the High-amp.de site which features a design shockingly close to the SRM-1 Mk2. Things spun off from there but with that basic blueprint there are only a few ways to go to improve the design. Different ways such as using zeners instead of resistors (not a good call IMO due to the noise) but the end result is the same. There is a problem with this though as some of the finer points of the design become lost in the translation which is why for instance the Exstata sounds a lot worse than the SRM-1 Mk2 and the measurements back this up. Same problem with the ES-1 amps. Mikhail was working from a schematic which didn't feature the heater wiring and I'm sure he never spent a moment wondering why Stax used unequal rail voltages (+250V/-350V)... Now for the LL, why on earth is he using mosfets instead of BJT's? They are far worse but it does take some experience with 'stat amps to know why. I've been having some problems lately sourcing high voltage TO3 BJT's to repair my old Stax amps. I can get some old stock at lofty prices as these haven't been made for at least 20 years since the world moved to to220 but this isn't really an option. Now what I can get in ample supply are mosfets but they all have the problem which makes them unsuitable for this role, high capacitance. Same thing applies to the LL, they may give you a certain sound signature but I for one think amps should be as neutral as possible.

I thought this was given in the same fashion as some Stax models have a midrange resonance while others don't using pretty much identical drivers. Being harder/easier to drive means nothing in this regard.

Knowing Kevin he's not too worried about it being kosher or not...