preamp for aksa 55

[gaetan8888]

Originally Posted by Professor smith

Alright AKSA, thankyou for your reply. I have a few further questions to you and Gaetan.

What sort of price range are you comparing to?

What is this magic you refer to that I can hope to eventually gain? Can you try to explain a bit more?

To Gaetan:

Can you tell me what the dfference is between the way the inputs are hooked up to the amps in your diagram and just taking a pair of wires from each input to each amp?
I'd like to know how such a minor difference and a short distance could make any difference.
In any case, that is not what the instructions say and that confuses me more.

cheers

Hello Kenji,

I have lot of amps in my life, my best was a Crimson and a Radford, but the Aksa amp was sounding much better than those two amps.

A years ago, in the Montreal Audio Show, I did listen to many many high prices amps, only few very costly amps, like a VTL tube amp costing $15,000, was sounding as good as the Aksa.

Wen the Aksa are properly assemble and connected it sound with a 3D and life-like sound that we can really call magic.

Did you look a my second diagram ?

Even a very short ground loop wil do hum and buzzing.

Don't forget to show us the photo I've ask you.

Bye

Gaetan

[tinitus]

With all those crappy amps out there I can imagine you think a better amp is like magic
Its probably just a good amp
No better nor worse than other good amps
With a good amp the signal passes through with minimal change
What comes in comes out
Well, we may still have to wait fore the perfect amp that leaves the signal untouched

Your speakers and signal defines whether you hear magic or not
How you can promise all people that an ordinary good amp will give you unbelieveable magic is far out
Surely it takes a bit more than that

[Greg Erskine]

Originally Posted by Professor smith

Can you tell me what the dfference is between the way the inputs are hooked up to the amps in your diagram and just taking a pair of wires from each input to each amp?
I'd like to know how such a minor difference and a short distance could make any difference.

In any case, that is not what the instructions say and that confuses me more.

cheers

The standard way of connecting, as per instructions, work fine with my AKSAs. A single star earth with lift resistors on each PCB, but on your system could be different to normal.

When I have my AKSA connected directly to my source (no preamp) it is very quite. Conecting a tube preamp introduces a very small amount of hum that is not usually noticeable. I have tried a couple of cheap DVDs (double insulated) as sources and these caused servere hum when not playing music. Luckily my CD player and Transporter are very quite.

When looking for ground loops you need to look at your entire system not only each piece of equipment. Remember the safety earths are usually connecting all your eqipment's earths together back at the GPO. Look for any equipment that is connected to a different earth potential.

You need to consider if DIY is for you. If you are losing lots of sleep, it might be better to cut your losses and move on.

A good picture of the inside of your amp would be extremely useful.

[Greg Erskine]

Originally Posted by tinitus

With all those crappy amps out there I can imagine you think a better amp is like magic
Its probably just a good amp
No better nor worse than other good amps
With a good amp the signal passes through with minimal change
What comes in comes out
Well, we may still have to wait fore the perfect amp that leaves the signal untouched

Your speakers and signal defines whether you hear magic or not
How you can promise all people that an ordinary good amp will give you unbelieveable magic is far out
Surely it takes a bit more than that

It's all relative and personal taste. You can use whatever terms you like to describe a subjective experience.

[tinitus]

Well, I suppose at first it really is magic
After a while you get used to it, and it just sounds as usually

What can I say
I have heard a very expencive setup with expencive ATC SMC150 Aniversary, top of the line NAIM electronics, expencive cables
No complains, it really did sound good, and I admit I actually expected worse
But it didnt impress me none either
But if you are used to very good sound, whats there to expect
But magic? Please dont call it that
MUSIC is magic
Life would be pointless without music
Electronics i just a tool

I would say too many people expect the electronics to deliver this special feeling of magic
Point is maybe too many people just doesnt understand how to listen, how to feel the music
Maybe we should learn to listen first, learn how to feel the music vibrate in the blood
Thats where the magic of music is

[sandyK]

"When looking for ground loops you need to look at your entire system not only each piece of equipment. Remember the safety earths are usually connecting all your eqipment's earths together back at the GPO. Look for any equipment that is connected to a different earth potential.

You need to consider if DIY is for you. If you are losing lots of sleep, it might be better to cut your losses and move on.

A good picture of the inside of your amp would be extremely useful.- Greg Erskine"

I agreee 100% with everything that Greg has said here.
As not all connected equipment has a hum, it is possible , although unlikely, that the dwelling itself has a faulty mains earth. I had a problem like that many years ago, and the main electrical earth at the premises was corroded. All kinds of hum and interference came through the amplifiers used at the time, until I corrected the fault. This would need to be checked by an electrician,and NOT as I did back then !

SandyK

[Greg Erskine]

Originally Posted by tinitus

Well, I suppose at first it really is magic
After a while you get used to it, and it just sounds as usually

Hi tinitus.

Maybe you should do what I have done, kept every amp that I have built or purchased. This way you can swap between your amps and get the magic over and over.

Yes there are amps out there as good or better, but you have to draw a line somewhere on costs and effort.

I understand your objection to the term "magic" but hey...

regards

[tinitus]

Originally Posted by Greg Erskine

I understand your objection to the term "magic" but hey...

Yeah, a nice magical word
I also object to the use of "science"
Any kind of magical component could lead to forgetting the importance of

Solid engineering
Good craftmanship
Good practice
Hard work
Knowledge by study
And not to forget the use good common sense

Those are the "magical" words

Its like violin building
Most people think its all very delicate work
I can tell you, some of it is also heavy work
And to learn it is hard work

None of it comes easy
Maybe thats the point
That you cannot BUY good sound
It takes hard and serious work

[Professor smith]

Originally Posted by gaetan8888

Hello Kenji,

I have lot of amps in my life, my best was a Crimson and a Radford, but the Aksa amp was sounding much better than those two amps.

A years ago, in the Montreal Audio Show, I did listen to many many high prices amps, only few very costly amps, like a VTL tube amp costing $15,000, was sounding as good as the Aksa.

Wen the Aksa are properly assemble and connected it sound with a 3D and life-like sound that we can really call magic.

Did you look a my second diagram ?

Even a very short ground loop wil do hum and buzzing.

Don't forget to show us the photo I've ask you.

Bye

Gaetan

Hello Gaetan,

here is a video I made which shows the inside:
Download Video.mp4 from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

[gaetan8888]

Originally Posted by Professor smith

Hello Gaetan,

here is a video I made which shows the inside:
Download Video.mp4 from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

Hello

Your video of your Aksa amp are interesting, you go a bit fast but I still can see few things. A photo showing all the inside of the amp in one close shoot would be usefull.

All your wires routing are not very good. Power supply wires should be keep short and you should twist them and put them away from input wires and input section of the pbc.

You have a ground loop wen you connect your Aksa amp to a preamp.

I have extract two frames of your video, and circle the problems.

You use insulator on your RCA, that is ok, but you connected the input wires ground at both end, wen you will connect most preamps you will have a ground loop.

Look at the photos of your amps input wire and look a the two diagrams.

You can see in the first diagram that there is a ground loop wen a preamp are connect to your amp.

You should do as the second diagram.

Bye

Gaetan