My NI chipamp Mark-II - Mr. Ed :)

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Russ White

Russ White

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Joined 2005
twistedpearaudio.com
carlosfm said:


Hey, can you point me where did I protest?:confused:
Let's talk in a civilized way, with no tricks, ok?
I'm glad to see you are happy with that bypassing on your circuit.
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Carlos, relax, I was just kidding, I was anticipating your virtual objection to the lack of snubbers. ;) Really, it was not meant to be offensive or tricky. I apologize if you thought so.:yikes::D

The honest truth is on my next PCB I plan on adding resistor pads and extra cap pads to allow me to test various snubber configurations. :) I just happen to believe they do not always sound better. Certainly I do have an open mind about it. Why not? Everything in DIY is about experimenting and trying new things. :up: I am just not yet completely sold on snubbers.

Cheers!:drink:
Russ
 
Russ White

Russ White

Member
Joined 2005
twistedpearaudio.com
squalor said:
Russ,
Carlos builds amps that sound good with his Epos speakers. What speakers do you listen to ?
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Well, I have been building speakers quite a lot longer than I have building amps, so I have quite a set. My latest favorites are an amazingly simple 2 way called the "Cryolite". LouC (a forum member) designed them. They are a great project. I make it a point to test all my amps against those speakers, but I have many others as well, many of my own design. I loved the Cryolites so much I built 7 of them for my HT :).

Most commercial speakers are way overpriced for what they are, thus I would never buy a piece of gear like Epos. Call it a character flaw, but I would sooner rather try to figure out how to build a pair myself. :D

Cheers!
Russ
 
Russ White

Russ White

Member
Joined 2005
twistedpearaudio.com
squalor said:
I'm in the process of building Fostex 206e back loaded horns using the Ron Clark Dallas II design. They are sait to be a little on the bright side.
What kind of amp should I be considering ? What do DIYers have against EQ ?
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Well, I would just build a plain vanilla NIGC first, something like MR ed would be great, or one of BrianGTs kits, whatever.... Then if you think the amp/speaker combo is overly bright(you may not after all) you could do things like adding a ~.3ohm 7W resistor to the outputs which will tone it down a little. :)

Looks like a good design BTW, and those are great drivers. Have fun!
 
C

carlosfm

Banned
Joined 2003
Russ White said:
Well, I would just build a plain vanilla NIGC first, something like MR ed would be great, or one of BrianGTs kits, whatever.... Then if you think the amp/speaker combo is overly bright(you may not after all) you could do things like adding a ~.3ohm 7W resistor to the outputs which will tone it down a little. :)
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Exactly as I thought, Russ.
We have different priorities and tastes soundwise, and that shows from this comment above and from the amps you have been building.
BrianGT's amps (and the same goes with my snubberized amps too) are very revealing and 'fast'.
They will reveal a bad source component with all it's nastyness.
But given a good source, it's something that scarily approaches live, unamplified music.
This is not to everyone's taste, though, and some prefer a smoother presentation that never offends, but is also (in my view) a little far from reality.
 
Russ White

Russ White

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Joined 2005
twistedpearaudio.com
carlosfm said:


Exactly as I thought, Russ.
We have different priorities and tastes soundwise, and that shows from this comment above and from the amps you have been building.
BrianGT's amps (and the same goes with my snubberized amps too) are very revealing and 'fast'.
They will reveal a bad source component with all it's nastyness.
But given a good source, it's something that scarily approaches live, unamplified music.
This is not to everyone's taste, though, and some prefer a smoother presentation that never offends, but is also (in my view) a little far from reality.
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Carlos, your taste may be different than mine for sure(I am nearly certain of it), but there are many ways to get to "revealing and fast". Certainly I would never like an amp that "hides" anything... :D That is why I have left tubes by the wayside. This is also precisesly why I discarded snubbers (well so far anyway). I didn't like that they seemed to muddy up the soundstage, made the music overly warm. At least that is my experience. Pure bypassing seemed to clear things up.

Also my suggestion was based purely on practicality, so don't read too much into it ;), though I am quite sure he like whatever he builds.
 
squalor

squalor

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Joined 2005
geocities.com/squalor_ed/UGTECH.html
The Cryolites have a much different crossover than the Epos; a greater component count. I'm very new at this so pardon me if I'm wrong; I've read that a complex crossover can sometimes color the sound. This (and the fact that it was cheap) was what led me to build a horn - no crossover.
What ever amp I build will probably be my last amp. If I tried to educate myself to the level of you or CarlosFM my wife would probably dump me for ignoring her :cannotbe:
I know I don't want a Tube amp and an Aleph seems too complex. I think I want a mauro My-Ref ver3 with active volume and Carlos' 815 preamp. I just don't know how it would sound running a Fostex 206.

How much can a speakers crossover network change the way an amp sounds ?
 
C

carlmart

Member
Joined 2001
preciseaudio.com
squalor said:
The Cryolites have a much different crossover than the Epos; a greater component count. I'm very new at this so pardon me if I'm wrong; I've read that a complex crossover can sometimes color the sound. This (and the fact that it was cheap) was what led me to build a horn - no crossover.
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The Cryolite crossover, which I just had a look of, is not that complex: plain second order.

It may suffer of what seems to be a DIY speaker mania: zobels on tweeter and mid/woofer. If they were mine I would first listen to the speakers without the zobels. A primary zobel objective on a speaker is to flatten impedance peaks, but they also introduce delays and other things that a DIYer should listen to first to see if the cure doesn't introduce other nasties.

But you are wrong when you say there's no crossover on a horn. A horn can be considered an "acoustical inductor" and it introduces maladies of its own. I don't quite like them, and are a necessary evil on small power tube amps.

Full range speakers are a different thing, but also may lack low and high frequencies.

Some speaker designers, like Sonus Faber, start from quite flat speakers and use first order crossovers. I think some Epos do that too.


Carlos
 
C

carlosfm

Banned
Joined 2003
Russ White said:
Most commercial speakers are way overpriced for what they are, thus I would never buy a piece of gear like Epos. Call it a character flaw, but I would sooner rather try to figure out how to build a pair myself. :D
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Suppose you bought a pair of Epos ES11 for 250€.;)
That's what I did, 7~8 years ago, I bought them used.
Of course, I tried them at home before buying.
I was blown away by their neutrality, detail, dynamics, soundstage.
I don't know why do people think I buy expensive speakers?
I don't, I just buy good speakers.:D
And I have made several speakers too.
For such high quality and unique drivers that these speakers have, 250€ was a gift.
Then there's an impressively well built (double) enclosure.
All in all, a fantastic deal.
 
Variac

Variac

diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
BurningAmp.org
Paid Member
On the article on his website, the creator of the Cryolites says they use a Dayton RS 180 woofer. It looks a lot like a Seas product, but I doubt that it is at that price. Probably more like a clone. It has a metal cone like a lot of Seas, and a phase plug. It would be interesting to compare the specs of a same size Seas and Dayton RS series...

Edit: Gmorris- looks like we posted at exactly the same time!
With similar messages...

BUT wwe're getting off topic here, that topic is a chip amp...
 
T

tobias_svensk

Member
Joined 2004
Hello quint, actually the package is in Eagle3D already, or at least kind of :)

look in your ic.inc (use povray)
look for the "#macro IC_MULTIWATT(value,H_V)" line...

in the end of that macro you should find the row:
union { object { MWBody (value) rotate -90*x translate <0,3.5,6> } object { MWPinV(8, 7) } }

try to change that for:
union { object { MWBody (value) rotate -90*x translate <0,6.5,6> } object { MWPinV(6, 5) } }

That (8, 7) comes from being a 15pin package, (6, 5) would yield a 11pin.

the other value you change is the spacing between 'em.


if that doesn't work let me know :)

Cheers
 
C

carlmart

Member
Joined 2001
preciseaudio.com
Gmorris said:
Oops...:xeye: I meant the Cryolites use a Dayton aluminum woofer that is as good or better than the Seas drivers for substantially less cost.
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A substantially less cost, yes. As good or even better than Seas: seriously doubt it.

Doing speakers is probably an art form that can't be replicated. You may use the same parts, and they have to be EXACTLY the same parts, and your would still get a different result.

Seas, Scanspeak and less Dynaudio nowadays, with perhaps Vifa close behind, are among the best speaker manufacturers there are. The problem is that not many, like present Seas speakers, sell quality drivers to the public.

The Dayton drivers may be good, but from what I saw on the article are not even close to a Seas.


Carlos
 
Variac

Variac

diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
BurningAmp.org
Paid Member
Just thought I chip in and mention that I'm not going to post off topic anymore either. Oh, while I'm here, The links Gmorris posted state that the Dayton driver is better in some ways and worse in others. The tester sums up saying he would prefer the Dayton in a 2 way. Depending on the particular test , it sometimes has the best results. This Dayton RS series driver has surprised a lot of people,

It is NOT a clone of a particular Seas model. (seas makes cheaper drivers as well as the Excel line) As carlmart states, that is a difficult way to go. Instead it is possibly better in some ways and worse in others. IMHO Speakers more than any other component demonstrate that Audio is a series of trade-offs. There are some highly regarded commercial speakers that don't use extremely expensive drivers,- A big part of it is how they are used...

ScanSpeak, Vifa, and Seas are all still available to the public.
 
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