Seems a reasonable setup.
However, we have built many amplifiers using BP4078 and SPS80 where the chassis is connected to mains earth, and the INPUT/OUTPUT GNDs are isolated. This is connected to other equipment, with or without earth, and we haven't experienced any groud loop.
I say this just to encourage users to start the easy way, it can be more than enough, although more ellaborate ideas are welcome, of course!
However, we have built many amplifiers using BP4078 and SPS80 where the chassis is connected to mains earth, and the INPUT/OUTPUT GNDs are isolated. This is connected to other equipment, with or without earth, and we haven't experienced any groud loop.
I say this just to encourage users to start the easy way, it can be more than enough, although more ellaborate ideas are welcome, of course!
Many times I hear people make the statement that their amp/speaker/cd player or whatever is sooo frightingly good that's it's unlistenable with bad recordings. Many people blame the recordings very quickly. My personal experience is that even the baddest recordings have much more on them than you could possibly imagine, when played on a very good system. When a lot off recordings are unlistanable there's obvious something very wrong in the setup, wich either means that it has a certain preference for some music wich might be a good match to the system. Anytime someone makes that statement I see it only as a bad recommendation for this certain type of equipment. That doesn't mean that a system has to be "flawed" or be very "forgiving" to bad recordings, at the contrary, on a very good revealing sytem there's more to explore in everything you play on it.
I did have the same thoughts on the subject for years but I have come to the conclusion that I was wrong, very wrong on that. What most people like to see as "clean" sounding, most of the times it's sound "sterilic"and lifeless to me. That's how most of the so called nowadays High end systems sound like, clean, sterillic, and lifeless (for example Avalon, Kharma, Dynaudio, Krell, Epos and many many others I have heard), I can't listen to them for more than a hour or so. When I'm at home I listen to music for 4 to 10 hours a day and I think that a good system is one witch forces you to listen to all day long, and not only to those audiophile records, Oh boy, do I hate Diana Krall, yes it makes a lot of system sound good but what a nasty music. (well actually what these type of recordings do is that they make small systems sound larger than they actually are, but that doesn't mean all the other recordings are bad, it simply means that your woofers are too small). And yes I agree that the Red Hot Chilli Peppers are some of the worst pop recordings ever but believe me on a systems with a deep an tight lowend it still has grunt and energy in it, play it on a typical bookshelf speaker with small woofers and nasty dome tweeters it sounds like hell.
Sorry for being off topic and sounding a bit offensive but this is no offence to anyone, specially not to classd4sure who I qouted, it's just my point of view, your milage may vary offcoarse.
Hi Sjef,
Not to worry, nothing in that at all was found to be offensive, just your POV straight up, and that's just fine.
However based on a few things you said I think I'd like to elaborate just a little bit so that you better understand where I come from. So here goes nuthin.
Without regard or prejudice to the systems you named as being sterile, as I haven't heard them, I know what you mean. I've had that experience at some point along my ucd build. It was clean, yet uninvolving, I guess some would say, non musical is another way of putting it. With a little tweak to the wiring/grounding or whatever... became musical. The enjoyment factor went from nothing to skyrocket get up and dance, problem solved. It was no less true to the source of analytical either. So basically I've found no need for an amp to be "forgiving" in order for it to be musical. So I maintain the goal of an amp being as true to the source as possible.
I can fully agree that with a bad recording there's more to be heard... that's problem!! What's more to be heard is nothing good. Depending how bad it really is, some are more tolerable than others.
All that said, I'm not the sort to be throwing out CD's or anything. When testing my work via listening you just need to start with a good source though, anything less really just serves to confuse the issue a great deal. That's to say you sure won't be trying to evaluate any system to red hot chilie peppers, right? They're an exception anyway, exceptionally poor that is. I really can't stand to listen to it given all the clipping in the mix, and I bet that would hold true for just about any system. I can't help that they shot themselves in the foot with it. Are you aware my speakers are geared to cater to deep low end grunt? 4ohm, 400W, 102db sensitivity, dual ported 15" woofer.. and I won't insult them with chilie peppers just because it might have bass... it's pure crap.
I'd never sink so low as Dianna Krall either
I listen to mp3's alot just because it's quick and easy, either 320 or even variable bitrate is often enough quality that I can evaluate the system with. Right now I'm listening to the latest Iron Maiden album in FLAC format .. it's excellent too, super clean, musical, I'm enjoying it alot. It's more than good enough to evaluate an amp with. Though, when it comes to being natural sounding or transparent, you really do need natural sound.. orchestral, woodwinds etc.
There's however some threshold where poor recording/mix quality takes over, regardless of the type of music it is, and all the extra you're hearing, as you put it, is nothing but garbage.. non musical noise. This renders it far less listenable, some can still be enjoyed though, if it helps make it "part of an era" perhaps, like old black sabbath or hendrix just has it's own sound and you gotta love it for what it is.
However if you think a true to the source, analytical type amplifier (made well enough to still be musical) is the type of an amp to favor anything, clearly, it favors a higher quality recording/mastering. As far as listening to chilie peppers go for instance... I guess some people have a higher threshold for pain than others, but I honestly can't take it. That doesn't mean a 4 track demo from tool or sabbath made in the basement or garage or some back room of a bar can't be an experience of it's own though....which I maintain is a better experience on a truer system, but it's also very likely not the best thing to be evaluating the cleanlyness, dynamic range, or musicality of an amp with either. So it is useful to search for something better to test a system with.... preferably something you can stomach. If you can't stand Dianna Krall like I'm sure I can't, maybe give that battlestar gallactica soundtrack I mentioned a try, or Hans Zimmer (almost anything). I find this most sufficient.
As you can tell from this post alone that orchestral stuff isn't my forte, but on my amp it's impressive enough in dynamics, cleanlyness, raw bass, and all the little details that shine through, that I learned to enjoy it alot, almost immediatly.
Some of what you said though actually reminds me alot of the old days when all I had for my speakers was a cheap commercial Pioneer receiver... where you needed the ultimate song on the ultimate CD to make it pound... in such a case I agree it's a bad system and a bad recommendation, but my friend, from there to here, we're worlds apart.
Not to worry, nothing in that at all was found to be offensive, just your POV straight up, and that's just fine.
However based on a few things you said I think I'd like to elaborate just a little bit so that you better understand where I come from. So here goes nuthin.
Without regard or prejudice to the systems you named as being sterile, as I haven't heard them, I know what you mean. I've had that experience at some point along my ucd build. It was clean, yet uninvolving, I guess some would say, non musical is another way of putting it. With a little tweak to the wiring/grounding or whatever... became musical. The enjoyment factor went from nothing to skyrocket get up and dance, problem solved. It was no less true to the source of analytical either. So basically I've found no need for an amp to be "forgiving" in order for it to be musical. So I maintain the goal of an amp being as true to the source as possible.
I can fully agree that with a bad recording there's more to be heard... that's problem!! What's more to be heard is nothing good. Depending how bad it really is, some are more tolerable than others.
All that said, I'm not the sort to be throwing out CD's or anything. When testing my work via listening you just need to start with a good source though, anything less really just serves to confuse the issue a great deal. That's to say you sure won't be trying to evaluate any system to red hot chilie peppers, right? They're an exception anyway, exceptionally poor that is. I really can't stand to listen to it given all the clipping in the mix, and I bet that would hold true for just about any system. I can't help that they shot themselves in the foot with it. Are you aware my speakers are geared to cater to deep low end grunt? 4ohm, 400W, 102db sensitivity, dual ported 15" woofer.. and I won't insult them with chilie peppers just because it might have bass... it's pure crap.
I'd never sink so low as Dianna Krall either
I listen to mp3's alot just because it's quick and easy, either 320 or even variable bitrate is often enough quality that I can evaluate the system with. Right now I'm listening to the latest Iron Maiden album in FLAC format .. it's excellent too, super clean, musical, I'm enjoying it alot. It's more than good enough to evaluate an amp with. Though, when it comes to being natural sounding or transparent, you really do need natural sound.. orchestral, woodwinds etc.There's however some threshold where poor recording/mix quality takes over, regardless of the type of music it is, and all the extra you're hearing, as you put it, is nothing but garbage.. non musical noise. This renders it far less listenable, some can still be enjoyed though, if it helps make it "part of an era" perhaps, like old black sabbath or hendrix just has it's own sound and you gotta love it for what it is.
However if you think a true to the source, analytical type amplifier (made well enough to still be musical) is the type of an amp to favor anything, clearly, it favors a higher quality recording/mastering. As far as listening to chilie peppers go for instance... I guess some people have a higher threshold for pain than others, but I honestly can't take it. That doesn't mean a 4 track demo from tool or sabbath made in the basement or garage or some back room of a bar can't be an experience of it's own though....which I maintain is a better experience on a truer system, but it's also very likely not the best thing to be evaluating the cleanlyness, dynamic range, or musicality of an amp with either. So it is useful to search for something better to test a system with.... preferably something you can stomach. If you can't stand Dianna Krall like I'm sure I can't, maybe give that battlestar gallactica soundtrack I mentioned a try, or Hans Zimmer (almost anything). I find this most sufficient.
As you can tell from this post alone that orchestral stuff isn't my forte, but on my amp it's impressive enough in dynamics, cleanlyness, raw bass, and all the little details that shine through, that I learned to enjoy it alot, almost immediatly.
Some of what you said though actually reminds me alot of the old days when all I had for my speakers was a cheap commercial Pioneer receiver... where you needed the ultimate song on the ultimate CD to make it pound... in such a case I agree it's a bad system and a bad recommendation, but my friend, from there to here, we're worlds apart.
Pierre said:
No additional results, just that the SPS80 still works fine. Waiting for the SPS30 to power the modules for mids and tweeters. Would be nice if we could add DC protection (switching off the SMPS using some standby pin or something) May actually be possible as there are some undocumented connectors on the board. Maybe Sergio can give some additional info on that.
Best regards
Gertjan
Let's see...
There are two undocumented connectors in the supply:
1. The one in the control board, which has 3 pins, is for synchronization and requires a board that we are not selling by the moment. This interface was developed to offer the possibility to sync the supply with BP4078 modules to avoid noises, but we have found that the simple addition of a choke (that we give away with our packs or the modules) makes this totally unnecessary. This is of little utility for any other purpose.
2. The other one, with two pins, is the 12Vdc supply to the controller board. It is connected to the startup circuit and to the "housekeeping" 12V supply (that holds the voltage once the supply has started ok) using diodes. NOTE that his 12V has its (-) terminal connected to a primary side (high voltage) node, so it must remain galvanically isolated from the amplifiers, inputs, outputs, etc.
A 12V supply with a separate transformer/rectifier can be connected there to control the on/off operation of the supply. However, in order to be useful, you must remove two diodes from the board, effectively disconnecting those two supplies (start-up and housekeeping).
Then you can make a circuit that detects DC on the speakers and turns that 12V supply off with a relay, optocoupler or similar (to keep isolation).
If someone wants to do something like this we can of course provide more details on how to do so.
Best regards,
Sergio
There are two undocumented connectors in the supply:
1. The one in the control board, which has 3 pins, is for synchronization and requires a board that we are not selling by the moment. This interface was developed to offer the possibility to sync the supply with BP4078 modules to avoid noises, but we have found that the simple addition of a choke (that we give away with our packs or the modules) makes this totally unnecessary. This is of little utility for any other purpose.
2. The other one, with two pins, is the 12Vdc supply to the controller board. It is connected to the startup circuit and to the "housekeeping" 12V supply (that holds the voltage once the supply has started ok) using diodes. NOTE that his 12V has its (-) terminal connected to a primary side (high voltage) node, so it must remain galvanically isolated from the amplifiers, inputs, outputs, etc.
A 12V supply with a separate transformer/rectifier can be connected there to control the on/off operation of the supply. However, in order to be useful, you must remove two diodes from the board, effectively disconnecting those two supplies (start-up and housekeeping).
Then you can make a circuit that detects DC on the speakers and turns that 12V supply off with a relay, optocoupler or similar (to keep isolation).
If someone wants to do something like this we can of course provide more details on how to do so.
Best regards,
Sergio
ssanmor said:
Hi Sergio,
Yes, maybe good to know how to do it. Maybe even better in future versions (when a PCB redesign is done) to make this easier to do. I think many people would like to build in some form of DC protection. (I`m running without DC protection by the way but have it always in the back of my mind as something to do at some stage).
Best regards
Gertjan
Well, in fact, we are preparing a small board that will accomplish all the DC protection, thermal management and supply control. Our plan is that it provides a relay to turn the rails off to protect the speakers in case of power stage failure, activation/deactivation of the modules due to overtemperature, variable speed fan control, and possibly toggle pushbutton for on/off of the SPS80. We are even thinking on the addition of a signal-detecting auto power on with delayed turn off.
We will keep you informed...
We will keep you informed...
I think that's an excellent idea, good on you! The "others" are cashing in by adding a certain feature on a certain product and a certain other feature on yet another product.. too much of a cash grab if you ask me, and if you don't want to use the product that feature comes with you're screwed for it.
Now if you made that in such a way that it's not module... or better yet, manufacturer specific, I'm sure they'll sell extremely well. Momentary push button is also a nice option.
Now if you made that in such a way that it's not module... or better yet, manufacturer specific, I'm sure they'll sell extremely well. Momentary push button is also a nice option.
ssanmor said:
That would be extremely welcome additions for lazy DIYers
On/off pushbutton operation would be very nice as well. I wonder, what is the inrush current for 1 supply? If I turn on 2 SPS80 supplies plus 4 SPS30 supplies, what inrush current can I expect (do not want to blow too many mains fuses). What would happen with an SPS80 (and/or 30) if I use a "conventional" soft-start module in its mains lines? Would it start-up nicely?Thanks and best regards
Gertjan
hah! I wonder who took it upon themselves to get a free add on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_amplifier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switching_amplifier
Ghemink,
the inrush current of the SPS80 is low, as it has a NTC resistor just to limit that, so no problem in switching several supplies with a proper relay.
Chris,
The double delay is a good idea, we'll consider it.
BTW: not exatly a "free ad". I contributed to the writing of that small article: before I touched it, a lot of big incorrections were written there, some of them were purely technical and others were simply unfair or old-fashined statements such as "Class-D amplifiers are suitable only for subwoofers ;-)"
It is nice to have a link to our web there, of course, but it is justified because you can also find some good info on Class-D on our website. There is not only the one in the text, you can see some links at the References sections as well. Sorry, but we don't see anything wrong in placing a link there as soon as some useful contribution is made.
the inrush current of the SPS80 is low, as it has a NTC resistor just to limit that, so no problem in switching several supplies with a proper relay.
Chris,
The double delay is a good idea, we'll consider it.
BTW: not exatly a "free ad". I contributed to the writing of that small article: before I touched it, a lot of big incorrections were written there, some of them were purely technical and others were simply unfair or old-fashined statements such as "Class-D amplifiers are suitable only for subwoofers ;-)"
It is nice to have a link to our web there, of course, but it is justified because you can also find some good info on Class-D on our website. There is not only the one in the text, you can see some links at the References sections as well. Sorry, but we don't see anything wrong in placing a link there as soon as some useful contribution is made.
Yes, we know... we are delaying from the estimated launch date, but the reason is that we are making some improvements in SPS80 that we would like to incorporate to SPS30 from the start. We can't commit to a date (a lot of work), but it will likely be released in 2 months aprox.
By the moment we recommend our customers to try the SPS80 if they want to evaluate our technology, as it is basically the same circuit with oversized components, offering doubled power capability. The SPS30 price will be around 80% of SPS80's.
Thanks for your interest
Sergio
By the moment we recommend our customers to try the SPS80 if they want to evaluate our technology, as it is basically the same circuit with oversized components, offering doubled power capability. The SPS30 price will be around 80% of SPS80's.
Thanks for your interest
Sergio
Jan-Peter said:
We have started with designing a 1000W SMPS + PFC. At this power level it is intersting to have a PFC.
Thereby we find it a big advantage if we do not have to use switches to change for different mains voltages. Besides this because of the PFC we will have a partly regulated SMPS.....
Jan-Peter
Jan-Peter said:In about a few months we will have more information available.
Besides all our other work the design of this SMPS+PFC is on top of our list....
Jan-Peter
Hi Jan-Peter,
Maybe I missed something but how are you progressing with a SMPS+PFC for the UcD modules?
Cheers
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