spritzer

That's a fuckload of parts!!! I should have some of those pin strips tomorrow so I can confirm if the adapter boards work with the milled 14 pin sockets.

Did you see the serial number on the set you tried? I think the one they had here was nr.26 so it might be the same one making the rounds...

Ehhh who hit you with the stupid stick? I've lost count of how many tube amps I've designed so I'm well aware what tubes can and indeed can't do. Nothing to do with my amps either, some of my customers have Lampi dac's which is why I know they are such utter shit. Now, since you know so much about tubes...are tubes less noisy than transistors? Are they better at amplifying low level signal than transistors? Are they superior in terms of distortion and other artifacts that deviate from the original signal? Nope, fuck no and hell no respectively. What you fail to grasp is how tubes are used and where they work the best. That sure as shit isn't a tube output stage of a DAC which is ironically fed by a current output dac. Also since you bring up the T2, I'm well aware of it and I'm even revising the circuit boards now to hopefully increase its performance so let's dwell on it for a bit. Is the T2 the best amp there is for electrostatics...nope, it isn't. Would it be better if you replaced the front end tubes with fets and the output tubes with SiCfets? Yup...by quite a bit actually. That has nothing to do with "tube magic" or other such BS claims based on not having the slightest grasp of what is going on. The fet's are simply better devices, made to much stricter quality standards. What tubes do well is simple circuits, even silly simple sometimes and they are forgiving of "designers" who don't know what they are doing. It's hard to blow up a tube...though some people have tried their best to do so. Ohhh and they were excellent for HV output duty but the SiC fets are clearly better. As for these super qualities which are now just coming to light...is there anything to back up those claims or just your own BS? I take it the GG is still using a Soekris dac fed by an off the shelf PSU from ebay and another ebay special USB input. Well shit...I have all those parts...hell even two Soekris boards so I should throw something together and charge somebody 40K$ for it. I have some DHT's too so let's make it super exclusive and throw a tube output stage that does fuckall but looks super cool...ohh and fuckups the sound for good measure.

Yeah, standard Thermasil will do just fine.

Exactly... Buy a cheap TDA1543 dac off ebay with some hacked together tube outputstage and see how you like it. For me it is just baffling that this garbage passes off as high end. I mean isn't the whole purpose of high end sources to be as transparent as is possible and have as little of a character as you can get away with. This sure as shit isn't the road to get there...

This isn't DIY level...this is no skill amateur hour. Also to think that this shit sounds good needs a high level of delusion to work. This does fit with what the garbage peddlers push, that hifi can be suited to your tastes in a way that simply roll the tubes and find the sound you like. More than you find the individual set of tubes that makes the circuit sound the least shitty...

Odd that a proper Dc coupled input is possible... I wonder if Cavalli would complain about the lack of mosfets...

Nothing so quickly, this more of a long term issue.

Since we've had some more talk about garbage like Lampi dacs...there is something else we have to discuss - the ifi iesl. Long story short, I was asked to look into this for a mafia member and well... I wouldn't connect my phones into this. So let's start at the beginning, the transformers have either a 1:16 ratio or 1:32 depending on the impedance switch. The former is certainly on the low side so you need some power to push this. Their claims for the transformer construction is all fine and dandy for output transformers but they never touch on the stuff that actually matters for electrostatic step up operation. The transformer capacitance is paramount and so is to keep the inductance in check. Let's just focus on the shit that doesn't matter instead... Now onto the bias supply and their capacitor "battery" claims are just so full of shit that it isn't even funny. First of though, how is the high voltage for the batteries generated? I can't see any transformer that could do that from the low voltage DC input. There are some chokes but nothing substantial enough. Also, how are they switching the bias? Those cheap arse switches? Sure fucking hope not and no normal relay can handle these voltages. Now for the really bad news, see the first picture, the string of resistors in front of the 5 pin connectors? Those pretty much have to be the ballast resistors run in series to increase the voltage handling. They are also high value resistors but I can't quite make out the value of them. Now follow the trace on left and see the cap that is there? Yup it is 10nf/1kV so it sure looks like the fucktards put a cap after the ballast resistor. Never, ever do that if you like the coating on the diaphragms... As for the whole capacitor based supply claims, if they run them in parallel then they have 3uf roughly of charge which is quite a bit and I for one wouldn't want to have that sitting on the bias supply should anything go wrong. I also wonder if their dielectric claims extended to the rest of the circuit? The PCB's leak at these voltages as do the switches and connectors.

I've got more, just love this pic: This is supposed to be one of the new and improved ones, the Amber Balanced... Looks all clean but that's just one reason for that...it's missing all the fucking wires. I also love just the sheer number of fuckups that are on the board and I sure as shit can't see any HV regulation. Then there is this oldie but a goody... http://www.tirnahifi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2966&start=10 This is worse than single power and that says quite a bit.

No...just no. Show me a picture of the inside of the "well done" boxes with "quality PCB's". Also explain how exactly the tube PSU is regulated and what the fuck that tube stage does with the R2R modules? I'm waiting... Ohhh and what quality components? Compare it to the 600$ Denafrips Ares... In short, this is garbage for gullible people who don't know any better. The classic audiophool who thinks "toobz" make shit better when in fact they have no role here let alone idiotic DHT tubes. How is that good for low level signals? Let's just post this gem... So...this is supposed to be high end but to me it looks just like a random PCB's sourced from China, shoddily crammed into a cheap chassis with some sucky ass tube output. It can't even meet CE specs so by definition, this is illegal for sale in the EU.

Gutsy sound...is that code for distortion and not driving the phones properly? Seriously though, pop the hood off it and post some detailed internal pics and I'll whip up a clone amp in a few hours. There are things about the "design" that I truly don't get, why would anybody use single triodes for the input when a dual triode will be better matched and due to being in the same envelope, drift the same. It's similar to using single fets but a far worse example... I used to build amps very similar to these back in the day and people loved them, they even had a volume knob but then again...only cost 1200$...

True but nothing novel has ever come out of this. The Megatron was kinda born out of the RSA A-10 but not really, more that is sparked an idea on how to do SRPP properly or rather...not call it SRPP when it isn't...

Yeah, that is always a concern based on the other Chinese Stax amps. I'm tempted to pick one up but I'm just tired of buying this stuff and then fixing all the fuckups...

That's the older amp, not the same as this one. This one looks to be similar to the KGDT I did years back...

Hmmm never seen this one before but I knew about their other amp. One crappy internal pic but clearly the cascoded CCS... two output tubes... maybe a T1 clone?

Yup, it is still here. I took one for the team as the T8000 is not popular at all.

IF you use a deputy service then there are fees on top of that.

I can also sell you a T-8000 if you'd like it...

Funny but they are using the boards which don't really work. It was the first draft I did off the multi amp and way too many issues with that one. I also love the small shit that just cracks me up, see the XLR/RCA switch...how they extended the solder terminals to make it a PCB switch? Also the XLR sockets aren't pcb mount but who cares, just bridge it all with solder... My biggest issue would be the unshielded transformer but for this price...sheesh.

Nope, those are his pics. It's a fake listing...

I got mine from Trendsetter so I don't know what is going on...

You could always swap for the Fairchild fets even if they aren't as good or just the new LSK/LSJ versions. Speaking of the F5, did anything come of the electrostatic version somebody was working on?

Hmmm not sure why anyone would cram an opamp in the F5... You could use the SSM2212/2220 combo.

No, that's an opamp.