spritzer

Here is a picture of the volcano, shot yesterday by my dad on a xrappy Kodak camera: Uploaded with ImageShack.us Here is what it is doing to the countryside...

For a seasoned engineer the prototyping cost would be lower. I'm sure they experimented with different transformers and operating points but that shouldn't have been too expensive. Still the markup has to cover that cost plus all other aspects of the design. Whether the amp is worth 10K$ is not for me to say but Todd is only following what others have done. Ray has sold quite a few of horrible "preamps" at insane prices and for most people, MOAR $$$ = MOAR GOOD!!!! As for Mikhail, the guy used the cheapest crap he could find for everything (often running the parts out of spec) which is why we have hundreds of amps which will not last very long. He also reused parts which could be clearly seen in my ES-1 as the EL34 sockets had cut wires on all 8 pins but they aren't all used plus you have spliced wires all over the place.

I'm still waiting on the J271's...

Welcome to the other side Frank. Transformers certainly have enough merit for me to make a genuine attempt at the high end. I've been logging a lot of hours on my two transformer boxes lately (Lundahl LL1630 and vintage Koss iron) and even from a lowly Gainclone they are well worth the time and expense. All my time until CJ is booked with finishing current projects but after that I'll order up some D3a's and some custom iron.

Markup of 3 times the cost of parts is about as low as you could possibly go for a boutique product sold directly. Normal high end markup is much, much higher with distributors, dealers all taking a cut.

Shots anybody? I still have fond memories (or lack there of) of two weeks spent in Greece drinking nothing but 160proof Stroh rum.

Happy Birthday Ari!!

Epic fail there...

Happy Birthday!!!

That's just brilliant!!

I'm pretty sure all of the Aleph amps would handle the Quads well. The Firstwatt would also be a good option and should sound great (not that I know since mine is basically an oven at this stage ).

You can't go wrong with either Quad but I'd personally go with a 63 too just because they are easier to live with. You shouldn't need new protection boards but diodes do age and components drift so why not get a new set. Better to spend a bit here to be sure they are protected. There are a lot of good Class A amps out there and even more amps that remain in Class A for the first few watts. Old Krell, Pass, Bedini, some of the Accuphase amps and the list goes on and on.

I just finished my morning HC read when I got a call that the proofing room in the bakery was leaking quite a bit of water. Not wanting to waste a shit load of cash by calling the repair guys on a Saturday I decided to try and DIY a fix for it. After some disassembly it turned out to be a small 2$ plastic piece (often used to secure cable entries and make them watertight) that was broken. 15 minutes later I had it replaced and bought a spare just in case it would ever fail again. Being in in a good mood I decided to give the car a much needed spring cleaning. Took 3 hours but it's nice and shiny now.

Happy Birthday!!!

Try to find double sided adhesive sheets at a local crafts store and cut it into the right shape. I've also used polyurethane in the past which good results but superglue won't work and epoxy is just nasty. Ehhh somebody not getting the concept of a high impedance bias supply... Also, a rather odd way of hooking up the transformers.

Strip about an inch of each conductor, take a lighter to the wire and burn off the enamel coating and then tin the wire. To solder the plugs I push the conductor through the plug and then insert solder through the top ( I always have some 0.031" Kester around for this purpose) and heat the side of the pin until the solder starts flowing. Then I continue to feed solder into the pin until it is pretty much full.

Do I even want to know how much voltage those things can handle? Something like this would make a 'stat amp for speakers "easy" to build., makes a lot more sense then to use a regular tube amp on an ESL. The sky is the limit here but mercury is a nasty stuff to deal with. I would probably go for a tube rectified PSU with no electrolytic caps and plenty of chokes. Might even regulate it with tubes too.

Happy Birthday!!

Very, very nice!! I just love "scrap" components, makes us look thrifty.

Yeah and a question so hard that 95% of all Icelanders would get it wrong. Reykjav

You need a UK IP-address to be able to access the i-player. Other great series would be Foyle's War and Wire in the Blood. Very different from anything US based...

Yeah... about that. That is one serious tube!!!

This concept has interested me for a while now given just how simple the amp could be made. Just two tubes per channel and then a phase splitting output transformer makes for a stark contrast to something like the T2. Now whether this simplicity is better or worse isn't the issue for me, I just want something different. I figured it was time to get the concept of these amps outside of the random thread on HF and PM's. I've been talking to Frank Cooter about this and given how happy he is with his D3a/KT88 amp I'm going to try something similar. I'm always a fan of using what I have (hence my Exstata is a bit different from all the others) so soemthing like the 3d21A or 7403 in place of the KT88 could work well. The 7403 does interest me since it can handle so much voltage. Any suggestions here would be welcome, the more obscure the better. As for transformers, they are a large part of the this project and no doubt, a large part of the over all cost. That said, people are willing to pay a small fortune for the updated output capacitors of something like the Woo WES for which you could get amouphous core Lundahls made. Since the transformers provide so little (if any) stepup they should be fairly linear. Given the currents and voltages involved, we could even get away with using stock interstage tranformers. Frank used the Electra-Print 3436 in his amp and at roughly 100$ each it's less then a V-cap. Now the 35mA might be a bit small but the 3035 model can handle 70mA and isn't that much more expensive. Now the true beauty of these amps, the ability to use DHT's without needing 12 of them. The same amp could also be used for dynamic headphones or even speakers with the right output transformer.

Brilliant to say the least.