N4LTA
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« on: January 04, 2012, 04:50:28 PM » |
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Below are a couple of photos of my holiday project. I made it for my son to use at college with his IPOD. Right now it is playing a Sam Cooke album and it sounds just great. Probably be about the last time it sees a Sam Cooke song. It is nice and warm and should help warm the IPOD sound . It is modeled after the Dynaco low power circuit A410 and uses a pair of 6AQ5As with a 12AX7 phase inverter. Uses Hammond iron. It runs the 6AQ5s at full till (12 Watts) in Class A1. Idle plate current is just slightly less than full output plate current. I paid special attention to grounding and had to use headphones to adjust the hum balance pot because it is so quiet. It is the quietest tube amp that I have ever built. I used the new Hammond chassis with walnut ends. Back to Radio Pat   |
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W7TFO
WTF-OVER in 7 land Dennis
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IN A TRIODE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOUR SCREEN
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« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2012, 05:02:31 PM » |
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Cool.  A good tube amp will definitely take some of the edge off of the "bucket of nails in a cement mixer" playback of MP3 files.  73DG |
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Just pacing the Farady cage...
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Steve - K4HX
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« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2012, 05:50:36 PM » |
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Very nice! Probably be about the last time it sees a Sam Cooke song.
LOL. |
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K7EDL
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« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2012, 06:52:13 PM » |
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Beautiful Build,
I raised my kids right, ages 22 20 and 15 and all listen to oldies, mostly 70-80s but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them listening to Sam Cooke.
73
Eric
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N4LTA
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« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2012, 07:36:37 PM » |
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Both my boys are amateur musicians (drummer and lead guitar) and are very good at it. The both hate hip hop and modern pop music but some Sam Cooke tunes might be pushing it a bit. They love to shag, especially my youngest son and my daughter and love beach music that was popular when I was in high school. Matter of fact, I have had some great times at frat parent parties at Clemson. My daughter is getting married in May and the band will be one that I heard at Clemson this Fall. The college kids in the south still listen to a lot of old stuff at parties
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W2PFY
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« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2012, 10:58:57 PM » |
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The secrecy of my job prevents me from knowing what I am doing.
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K9PNP
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« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2012, 12:08:03 AM » |
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Good job, Pat. Great choice of chassis for the application.
It's got a lot more new parts than my projects. That's just because I'm frugal [most call it 'cheap'].
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73, Mitch
Since 1958. There still is nothing like tubes to keep your coffee warm in the shack.
Vulcan Theory of Troubleshooting: Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
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KX5JT
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John-O-Phonic
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« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2012, 12:48:30 AM » |
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Cool. A good tube amp will definitely take some of the edge off of the "bucket of nails in a cement mixer" playback of MP3 files. 73DG Didn't you get the memo? All the cool kids now listen to FLAC (lossless)! FLAC files sound amazing because there is no loss in the compression algorithms. That sure is a nice looking amp! |
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AMI#1684
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Patrick J. / KD5OEI
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« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2012, 12:56:36 AM » |
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Cool. A good tube amp will definitely take some of the edge off of the "bucket of nails in a cement mixer" playback of MP3 files. 73DG Didn't you get the memo? All the cool kids now listen to FLAC (lossless)! FLAC files sound amazing because there is no loss in the compression algorithms. That sure is a nice looking amp! FLAC eh? That's got to give the audiophiles a twist from hating MP3's. |
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Radio Candelstein - Flagship Station of the NRK Radio Network.
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W7TFO
WTF-OVER in 7 land Dennis
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« Reply #9 on: January 06, 2012, 03:00:44 AM » |
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FLAC? FLAK? Wasn't that the goofy guy on MASH with 20 different identities?  Never mind.... 73DG |
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Just pacing the Farady cage...
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kb3ouk
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« Reply #10 on: January 06, 2012, 06:12:49 AM » |
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You mean colonel Flagg
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Clarke's Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is by venturing a little past them into the impossible
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K5UJ
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« Reply #11 on: January 06, 2012, 09:37:31 AM » |
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I have holiday project but not by choice. fixing leenyar (died on Christmas day no less) so I have some kind of signal again before I move on to chosen projects. But it has presented an opportunity to drill and blast and experiment. OTOH result may be blowup and QRT for several months. We'll see...
Vy nice looking pp amp. I use EL84s but not hb--heathkits. nowhere near as pretty.
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"Not taking crap or giving it is a pretty good lifestyle."--Frank
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N4LTA
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« Reply #12 on: January 06, 2012, 09:59:40 AM » |
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No - I am a few years behind the audio curve - maybe this FLAC is a good thing - audio has been on the downswing for a while in my opinion. The technology is surely there for good quality high speed digital sampling - but like the old scanning TV - it seems to be frozen in the old 44 Khz standard.
The stuff in the amp is new Hammond stuff but mainly because I get it cheap (well cheaper) - I am a scrounger as good as any of yall. You can't walk through my garage and my storage mini warehouse is stacked full.
My resolution (not new years - they don't work) is to clean up and organise and FINISH one project before starting another - This amp is finished but the 75 meter am SS reciever is a pile of boards on the bench and the longwave converter board is not tested on the bench at the side and the softrock board for receiving Hifer beacons is right beside it waiting for someone to install the ssm components, and the Losmandy G11 telescope mount is still in the box in the garage waiting patiently..... And too much other stuff unfinished to list!
Pat
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AJ1G
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« Reply #13 on: January 06, 2012, 10:02:23 AM » |
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Very nice...you probably can get some of the audiophools to buy copies from you at several kilobucks per! Just market it with a lot of their flowery specs..you did use all oxygen free wiring, and extra virgin silver solder didn't you?
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Chris, AJ1G
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Todd, KA1KAQ
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« Reply #14 on: January 06, 2012, 03:54:14 PM » |
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Nice amp, Pat. Good to see a neat little project like that. The best part is, it's usable for amplifying better signal sources too. Even the "CD quality bit rate (320 as I recall) sound a bit stiff to my ears. Haven't heard any FLAC yet, hopefully it's an improvement. Any way you look at it, converting an analog file to digital and back to analog is going to introduce distortion. Ears are analog, so is the human voice and most music.
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known as The Voice of Vermont in a previous life
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N4LTA
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« Reply #15 on: January 06, 2012, 04:30:43 PM » |
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Well we think we are analog - but some cosmologists are talking about quantum theory leading to some evidence that the whole universe is granular in nature and may look like a super high speed digital simulation. I am not ready to buy that yet but the universe is a strange place at the sub atomic level.
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K9PNP
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« Reply #16 on: January 06, 2012, 08:35:46 PM » |
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Well we think we are analog - but some cosmologists are talking about quantum theory leading to some evidence that the whole universe is granular in nature and may look like a super high speed digital simulation. I am not ready to buy that yet but the universe is a strange place at the sub atomic level.
That would explain why transporters would work. Interesting. |
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73, Mitch
Since 1958. There still is nothing like tubes to keep your coffee warm in the shack.
Vulcan Theory of Troubleshooting: Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
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KX5JT
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« Reply #17 on: January 06, 2012, 11:54:28 PM » |
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Audiophiles (fools? well not all of them I suppose) are trending towards converting VINYL that has been encoded in FLAC for the best audio experience. *shrug* I know my son has an expensive home system and he listens to nothing but FLAC now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Audio_CodecDidn't mean to hijack the thread... carry on! |
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AMI#1684
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kb3ouk
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« Reply #18 on: January 07, 2012, 08:02:42 AM » |
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ok, that's which one i thought it was, it was created by the same people who created the Ogg container format, Vorbis audio codec, Speex voice codec, and Theora video codec. for compressed audio, i prefer ogg vorbis over mp3. smaller file size but better quality, even when the bit rate for the ogg file is lower than the mp3 file. i've done ogg files down to 70 kbps that sound as good as or better than a 128 kbps mp3.
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Clarke's Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is by venturing a little past them into the impossible
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