hfhimeka

Looking forward to it!

Sweet! The boards look like they arrived nicely. Happy birthday!

Just added my name and qty of boards to the spreadsheet as well.

When do you expect to pull the trigger on this GB? I'm trying to figure out how much time I have to research the # of boards I might need.

Agreed.. probably a better idea for helping with heat dissipation and keeping the units.. "cooler". I guess it's time to buy a shelf / rack!

Today, my DIY T2 has successfully come to life! After a year on and off working on this amp on my kitchen table, I was able to power up today and get music playing. All 4 batteries are sitting around 743V. The +/- voltages for each channel are surprisingly well balanced, and both L and R sit about +10V offset at power-on and gradually get down to about 2-4V offset at steady state. I measured the heatsink temperature -- looks like it's steady at 124F/51C after about 3 hours continuous burn-in. A shoutout to GeorgeP for enabling this build--one of my good buddies helped me reached out to you about a year ago for the case/amp board/torroid set. Thanks KG, Spritzer, and everyone else who posted all the useful information on every aspect of the amp on this thread. I learned a lot through the process of building this amp! One interesting thing I found while testing the PSU was that when I had both HV toroids hooked up and powered, the combined inrush blew through my 3.15A slow blow fuse (at 120VAC from the wall). I take it that the inrush of the 2x HV toroids (at least on my toroids) are pulling closer, but not quite, to 4A, since I was able to power up one HV toroid with a 2A fuse that I had left over. I have a 5A slow blow in there now, and so far no issues! -Kuen

Thanks again for all the positive feedback. The black one was custom 20 series 18"x16" from Par Metal. The gold ones were PRAL-1hc from THL Audio.

Been loosing lots of sleep these last few nights... Prior to the KGSSHV, I used a SRM-006tA followed by the SRM-323S on my O2mk2. If one characterizes the 006tA's bass as 'flabby', then comparatively, the 323S does appear to tighten up the bass with a bit more slam. However, the KGSSHV takes this tightened and controlled bass and runs with it... the presence of bass (where it is intended) is much more present in almost all the music I have been listening to. Soundstage is larger. I listen to a lot of female vocals, and one thing that I particularly noticed was when several voices are singing together, the vocals do not appear to blend into one harmonized tone, but maintain the fragility and definition of those voices. Texture in vocals are also discernible. Everything does sound more "crisp and sparkly" and the KGSSHV presents all instruments and vocals equally and in their place. Using the same source (MBP + Benchmark DAC1), the 006tA did appear to weigh surrounding instruments and vocals differently--I am not sure if this is a byproduct of amplifying with tubes or the particular topology of the stax tube amp compared to the KGSSHV. I guess I will need to listen to a BHSE / T2 to find out! jwzhan: Yes it is! That is a PS1 (1001) that I was using as the cd transport for testing in the kitchen. johnwmclean: I embarked on this project at around a time when there were no group buys (I did not expect so much momentum like right now!), so I had a small batch of PCBs made from a vendor in Taiwan while I was there last year. The sky was the limit for options and almost as if there was an entire rainbow of colors to choose from for silkscreening--so I had blue text over a white background (kind of reminds me of blueberry ice cream...)

After following this thread for almost two years, I have finally finished building 2x KGSSHV amps that I have been working on since April 2012. As these two amps are my first foray into DIY electronics, I can attest that all the information from this thread (as well as from the T2 thread) were sufficient in resolving all my questions/issues that I had along the way. Due to excessive foreign travel, I was only able to work on these amps sporadically (and only when not jetlagged!). The first one (single box unit) was completed using the IXY current source. Unfortunately, the second unit was delayed after I found out that Par Metal had burned down. I finally got around to sourcing the cases and finally finished the second unit (A1968) a few days ago. I want to thank Kevin Gilmore for the awesome design and the members here on the wealth of information shared!