AMP7 start to finish

[luka]

Ok so I got my 2nd 41hz.com kit today, this one is a bit more powerful, its AMP7.

First impressions are:
PCB is 3oz, and you can tell that by weight alone, but there are traces sticking out of the board, really love tick traces... also PCB is black, looks just awsome!

Before I got kit, I was looking at schematic and all I could find about it, and I saw that this board, amp itself is no joke. It has just about everything on it one could want. Want to bridge it? No problem, all it take is ONE jumper on connector south of IC. PCB has many connections for power in and out, signal and other important connections. It should even be able to parallel its outputs, and if so, this means this could be 1R amp!

Now that i've got the kit, which came in 2 days(Monday morning, was orderd and payed, and this morning, on Wednesday it was already here(best service ever, thanks!))
Looking inside of really nicely packed package, there were components and PCB. After looking a bit over them I found out, this is nothing like AMP2, not saying AMP2 is bad in any way, but this one is a step further on! Not only component and PCB were in it, there are spacers, washers, screws and what was best here, ceramic insulators for fets, which I had to order for AMP2 myself[]... So just about anything you need to finish the amp inside casing. WOOW!

There are no assembly instructions yet, but its not all that bad, it will just take a bit longer, to check everything 3 times

More to come,
Luka

[kp93300]

Hi Luka,
Will be following this thread with interest as i love my Truepath and hoping to get further improvement .
Hope you can post pictures of your progress.
Thanks
kp93300

[luka]

Hey, sorry I didn't post nothing





I still have to take photo of finished amp, and sadly I don't have none from in between, it is hard to stop putting components on

Anyway if there is something you would like to know, just ask..

Btw, amp is already working, first day I did all settings resistors and caps, 2nd day power components, like fets, toroids[where I love the wire that was in kit, all it took is heat to remove insulation... just used solder... so simple]

Let me tell you, there are so many connections to the board, you have 4x for every connection, 4x Vpp, 4x Vnn, 4x gnd, 2x 2x speaker out, and same goes for its ground. And I set and tested both channels, even bridge, which takes only one jumper on connector, and its done!

Sound seems to be the same, better yet, better then on amp2, A HELL OF A LOT OF speaker contron, tight kick bass... I had 8R speaker, 200w, and it wanted to just out of the basket

[kp93300]

Hi
What transformer and what size heat sink did you used ?
Tight bass seems to be trademark of Tripath chips .
The black board look cool.
When you bridged it , do you get any improvement in sound quality ?
Thanks
kp93300

[luka]

Hey

I used
Gives +/-57Vdc at 13v input. Has a lot of capacitance on board. Funny thing is, this was still power only from 13v@10A current limited supply, but I made supply pretty damn good

As for the amp, no heatsink for test, got only warm at best
Will be something like 5mm or so tick AL plate, that will carry on this amp, amp2 and supply, that about it for heatsink. I can tell you that IRFP4321 is several times better then AMP2 stock, stw34n20[I think this is what were they]. So to anybody that will make Cladd D amp, use only good fets, heat is way lower among other even more important things

SQ is never improved in bridge, since output resistance is double, but I could say it stays the same coz you can use twice the impedance. In any case, sound comming from any tripath[I've heared bigger ones, tk2350,ta3020 and ta105a] is...well is like

[kristleifur]

Thumbs up

[luka]

Thanks!

Now I need to find base AL plate, size of 40x 20cm or something like that, to I can put AMP2, AMP7, this smps and smaller one on and close it off

[kp93300]

Luka,
Nice work.
Have you compared smps to linear power supply in terms of sound ?
In assemblying amp7, do you need separate power supply for 5V and 10V dc ?
Can you upload a high resolution picture of a fully stuffed amp 7 ?
The picture will give me more confidence to assemble the amp !
Many thanks for sharing

kp93300

[luka]

Hey

No I didn't use it on normal trafo, but sound shouldn't be any difrent. In any case, I don't even want to try using 2 trafos (each is +/-30Vdc) and 20000uF for each rail, I can get away with my smps with 6600uF per rail and way smaller size...I will stick to smps's

Yes you need 2 voltages, I added 2 more secondarys on my trafo, one that makes about 8-12vDc, for onboard 5v regulator, and external 10v stabilizator. Again this 2 are independent from each other

But be carefull, there are lot of mistakes in BOM, so don't just solder components in!

Picture is comming up..

[luka]

Hey

They are on my page under Projects > amp7
Tell me if you won't see them(as long as my comp is online)