spritzer

Flux shouldn't cause shorts under any circumstances but it won't do any harm to clean the boards.

Those of us who are truly insane just buy everything in multiples of 100...

All of the PSU's acting up does point to the transformer or something wrong with the ground. They are the only shared elements. That's indeed the rub. There is something to be said about beginners luck....

Yeah, that's not out of the ordinary but the true test is under load to to the heat rise. One thing I wouldn't rule out is a short on the board. One of my HV amp boards is going onto the trash heap since the PCB has a short somewhere.

How much voltage is the transformer putting out? If it runs too hot then it might develop a short and boom, way too much voltage for the parts.

They will fit since the Vishay CMF60's are also 1/2W.

The plan is to introduce a relatively simple amp that can drive any headphone to destruction and be fully Class A. The EF-6 is a nice design for the price but we can't settle for something commercial.. For the transformer, bigger is usually better and with Class A amps you should spec at least double the max current draw. Be vary of the inrush current though.

For the fuse I use 2A slow blow but I use that for pretty much anything smaller than a T2/BH/ESX. Hey... I'm using those cases too.... So exact same setup with an even smaller box (2U) and no heat issues, in fact it runs cooler than my old KGSS. Now take the normal thermal drift of the IXYS parts (the 2SA1968 are much better in this regard) add forced cooling and there will be some very interesting results.

Happy Birthday Gary!!

Happy Birthday Al!!!

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.