What a curious attitude to take! Here we have a web site that says in big letters diyAudio.com and on it we have a fellow who says he can't be bothered to diy.
Ah, the irony.
40 to 60 watts and simple. Hmmm. In Pass terms, that would be something like an Aleph 3 or 30 or, on the upper end of that range, an Aleph 4 (is that the 60W one or is it the 5?) or 60. Note that there's enough 'flex' in the basic Aleph design that you can pretty much dial in however much wattage you want with minimal changes to the circuit; maybe change a resistor or two. These are all class A amps, meaning that they will run hot.
I don't know if Holton's got anything that size, but I seem to recall that he's got a scalable design or two. Assuming that I'm recalling correctly, his designs are fairly simple. (Those with a sharp eye will note that one resembles several Zen amps in parallel.)
Petter has a nice thread on X amps (see near the top of this page). There might be enough information in there to build yourself a 60W X. That could be either class A or class AB, depending on your desires. You could do worse.
Grey
P.S.: I, too, can buy things by specs and have them meet my expectations. But then, my expectations for the likes of Crown aren't all that high, so it's not particularly difficult to meet them.
17 amps? Is that all?
P.P.S.: The style is different from H.H.'s, but the abrasive know-it-all attitude is similar. Just what we need, another troll.
Ah, the irony.
40 to 60 watts and simple. Hmmm. In Pass terms, that would be something like an Aleph 3 or 30 or, on the upper end of that range, an Aleph 4 (is that the 60W one or is it the 5?) or 60. Note that there's enough 'flex' in the basic Aleph design that you can pretty much dial in however much wattage you want with minimal changes to the circuit; maybe change a resistor or two. These are all class A amps, meaning that they will run hot.
I don't know if Holton's got anything that size, but I seem to recall that he's got a scalable design or two. Assuming that I'm recalling correctly, his designs are fairly simple. (Those with a sharp eye will note that one resembles several Zen amps in parallel.)
Petter has a nice thread on X amps (see near the top of this page). There might be enough information in there to build yourself a 60W X. That could be either class A or class AB, depending on your desires. You could do worse.
Grey
P.S.: I, too, can buy things by specs and have them meet my expectations. But then, my expectations for the likes of Crown aren't all that high, so it's not particularly difficult to meet them.
17 amps? Is that all?
P.P.S.: The style is different from H.H.'s, but the abrasive know-it-all attitude is similar. Just what we need, another troll.
I had 17 commercial amps . . .
Jeez . . . there were still many better amps than the 17 . . .
I was jealous . . .
I felt sick with jealousy . . .
I wanted to kill my jealousy by repeatedly saying . . .
“They are terrible amps . . .
Mine are the best . . .
I will not take them even if they have zero price tacks.”
But it didn’t work . . .
I wanted buy more . . .
Dammit . . . No more money . . . All spent . . .
I decided to do diy . . .
By chance I found www.passdiy.com . . .
Now I’m building Pass amps and my minor variations . . .
I have full of fun . . .
And get nice sounds!
My old 17 amps . . . ?
All buried 6 ft under the ground . . .
Regards
jH
Sorry guys, i left a connecting link in the split off bit, but didn't in this one....
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=699415#post699415
dave
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=699415#post699415
dave
Given the level of paranoia rnrss seems to exhibit, I'd think a padded cell would be more appropriate than a thread.
On the subject of choosing amps and power ratings, I'd recommend thinking about the kind of music you listen to and what demands it might entail. Be honest. On one extreme you'd have something like solo voice with acoustic guitar, or chamber music. Even with relatively inefficient speakers you can get by with a small amp. On the other hand more complex music, such as classical, can take a fair amount of power on peaks, even though the average amount of power used is much, much less.
Those who prefer to listen to acdc at 135dB might want to hold out for the Monster amp.
The thing to remember is that it's a log relationship. The majority of your volume comes from the first watt. (Hmmm...wouldn't that make a nice name for an amp company?) Or, to put it in other terms, when they say that a speaker is rated at 90dB when fed 1W, they mean it. Think about it for a minute. 90dB is fairly loud--roughly equivalent to a lawn mower. True, peaks get louder, and that will take more power still...yet a single watt can make a fair amount of racket.
Yes, I've oversimplified the case. The tests are run using a sine wave, whereas music is a lot more demanding to reproduce. Still, the principle is applicable. For most people, most of the time, with speakers of average efficiency, you're just not going to need a huge amount of power.
And a voice says,"But wait, Grey, I thought you had a quad-amped system with about 8 gazillion watts. What's up with that?" Good point. I don't need very much power for listening to jazz, but I like having a little more elbow room on the peaks when I listen to classical. Couple that with the fact that my speakers are only of moderate efficiency, and it's nice to have a little extra juice on hand. Besides, I can build amps pretty much any way I like 'em and not have to worry about ten watts here or there. For mid-bass on up, I usually aim for about 75 to 150W (remember that my speakers are inefficient), but don't get too flustered if it comes in above or below that. My subs are a different story--we can talk about that later.
In the long run, it's up to the user to come up with a realistic assessment of how much power they'll need.
Grey
On the subject of choosing amps and power ratings, I'd recommend thinking about the kind of music you listen to and what demands it might entail. Be honest. On one extreme you'd have something like solo voice with acoustic guitar, or chamber music. Even with relatively inefficient speakers you can get by with a small amp. On the other hand more complex music, such as classical, can take a fair amount of power on peaks, even though the average amount of power used is much, much less.
Those who prefer to listen to acdc at 135dB might want to hold out for the Monster amp.
The thing to remember is that it's a log relationship. The majority of your volume comes from the first watt. (Hmmm...wouldn't that make a nice name for an amp company?) Or, to put it in other terms, when they say that a speaker is rated at 90dB when fed 1W, they mean it. Think about it for a minute. 90dB is fairly loud--roughly equivalent to a lawn mower. True, peaks get louder, and that will take more power still...yet a single watt can make a fair amount of racket.
Yes, I've oversimplified the case. The tests are run using a sine wave, whereas music is a lot more demanding to reproduce. Still, the principle is applicable. For most people, most of the time, with speakers of average efficiency, you're just not going to need a huge amount of power.
And a voice says,"But wait, Grey, I thought you had a quad-amped system with about 8 gazillion watts. What's up with that?" Good point. I don't need very much power for listening to jazz, but I like having a little more elbow room on the peaks when I listen to classical. Couple that with the fact that my speakers are only of moderate efficiency, and it's nice to have a little extra juice on hand. Besides, I can build amps pretty much any way I like 'em and not have to worry about ten watts here or there. For mid-bass on up, I usually aim for about 75 to 150W (remember that my speakers are inefficient), but don't get too flustered if it comes in above or below that. My subs are a different story--we can talk about that later.
In the long run, it's up to the user to come up with a realistic assessment of how much power they'll need.
Grey
Like I said, different people have different music taste. I have seen a lot of High-end power amp, some have a lot of power, such as Krell, Mark Levinson, but some only provide very little power and very expensive, such as Audio Note Ongaku, Goldmund(more power than Audio Note). And for me, Audio Note Ongaku is the best sounding amplifier I've ever heard(My opinion). And Goldmund, inside the power amplifier is only a simple circuit, but why the sound can so fast, very fast? Krell and Mark Levinson, a lot of muscle, very powerful sound, but not as fast as Goldmund, Why? Actually, Hi-Fi or Hi-End doesn't mean that more power is better. I heard a power amp using only TDA2030A I.C to drive a Sonus Faber Cremona Auditor, a very simple power amp. When I listen to it, I can't believe that the sound so sweet, detail, control and fast(in moderate volume level). I told my friends, no one believe me. Once they heard the power amp, they all agreed. The sound is very sweet, even better than Krell.
Simple amp!
Matthew, a very simple, cheap, and good sounding amp is the old Pass citation 12 mosfet. Parts can be had for under $100.00 and it is a simple circuit to breadboard. With +/- 50 volt rails will easily do 60 watts into 8 ohms. If you need the parts, email me and I can fix you up as I have a good stock of them. Regards, Steve
Matthew, a very simple, cheap, and good sounding amp is the old Pass citation 12 mosfet. Parts can be had for under $100.00 and it is a simple circuit to breadboard. With +/- 50 volt rails will easily do 60 watts into 8 ohms. If you need the parts, email me and I can fix you up as I have a good stock of them. Regards, Steve
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