Some thoughts on alternative cooling

[454Casull]

I am not sure you completely understood what I meant in my last post; none of my suggestions involve actually drilling into the water conduit. Also, there is never any reason to keep the temperature above what is reasonably achievable as a minimum.

[Alexontherocks]

Is this it?



If it is then I understood you correctly the first time..

Mr Pass states in all his Aleph manual that best performance is achieved after the temperature reaches a specific level and is "stable". This can take up to an hour in the biggest builds (like aleph 1.2 ecc)

[Alexontherocks]

other pics with conventional watercooling radiator and 3 120mm fans (ded quite at 9v)

[Alexontherocks]

the bottom or top casing could be made out of this sort of radiators...

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/9623/005fzq.jpg

those are 38mm fans but 19mm fans would just as well.. the system would still be quiet and yet provide excellent cooling even with a stereo aleph 1.2 unit.

[Boscoe]

IMHO it's a good idea but I like my amps silent, not quiet but 0 noise from them. My other hobby is watercooling and modding comps but that stays with comps. Noisy complex case builds stay with comps silent elegant and simple stays in audio for me!

May latest amp build, will be three Wire amps at 300W a channel. (only want that power for dynamic peaks not continuous before you get on my back andrewt for the size of my sinks!). Home made of course!

[Alexontherocks]

I understand your point of view. However if you have built watercooling systems with undervolted pumps and fans you must know that it gets pretty close to silent if all parts are well chosen and matched.

In some setups a radiator with adequate surface area and positioned horizontally may actually achieve a great deal. Add a single 12v fan underpowered to 6v to slightly force air movement and temperatures would drop greatly.

In my previous setup my cpu was happy at 40°C with only passive radiators (1.6v overclocked e6600). Once you turned fans on (just a couple under the large radiators) anche the temperatures would rop to a Delta of 5°C over ambient.

However I like simple things...but sometimes simple means very expensive and watercooling can (moderately) help in that department.

[LineSource]

Originally Posted by Alexontherocks

if you have built watercooling systems with undervolted pumps and fans you must know that it gets pretty close to silent.
.

My personal experience: I owned a pair of Krell KMA100 100W Class A monoblocks which use a small fan driven at a reduced voltage(fig. 1). To avoid any direct sound path to the listener the fan is horizontal and very close to the floor. The KMA100's are very sweet sounding high powered amps that proved to me that GREAT audio was possible. BUT...BUT...BUT... I COULD ALWAYS HEAR THE FANs, even when they were 20 feet from my ears. Because of fan noise I had to sell the musical KMA100s and bought Krell KSA250 passive cooled amps as a replacement. The treble on the KSA250 was a little harsher than the KMA100, but NO FAN NOISE was more important to me. When the KMA100's were idling between CD's my wife would often say, "what's that noise?...is that on the recording?" I will never own an amplifier with a fan or a water pump. For DIY, there are excellent passive solutions.

Heat sinks like the KL-271 profile can provide under 0.25 C/watt. It helps cooling to also use a large aluminum bar across the backside of all transistors to both provide even pressure against the heatsink, and also a second cooling sink.

My real DIY audio education came when I started to build 95db/watt 3-way speakers. I think this higher level of efficiency offers dynamics and details that are impossible from normal 85db/watt speakers, and SPL linearity without funky breakup or horn honk that 100+ db/watt speaker drivers typically generate. With tri-amping, each low wattage amp is easy to convection cool.

[454Casull]

Originally Posted by LineSource

My personal experience: I owned a pair of Krell KMA100 100W Class A monoblocks which use a small fan driven at a reduced voltage(fig. 1). To avoid any direct sound path to the listener the fan is horizontal and very close to the floor. The KMA100's are very sweet sounding high powered amps that proved to me that GREAT audio was possible. BUT...BUT...BUT... I COULD ALWAYS HEAR THE FANs, even when they were 20 feet from my ears. Because of fan noise I had to sell the musical KMA100s and bought Krell KSA250 passive cooled amps as a replacement. The treble on the KSA250 was a little harsher than the KMA100, but NO FAN NOISE was more important to me. When the KMA100's were idling between CD's my wife would often say, "what's that noise?...is that on the recording?" I will never own an amplifier with a fan or a water pump. For DIY, there are excellent passive solutions.

Heat sinks like the KL-271 profile can provide under 0.25 C/watt. It helps cooling to also use a large aluminum bar across the backside of all transistors to both provide even pressure against the heatsink, and also a second cooling sink.

My real DIY audio education came when I started to build 95db/watt 3-way speakers. I think this higher level of efficiency offers dynamics and details that are impossible from normal 85db/watt speakers, and SPL linearity without funky breakup or horn honk that 100+ db/watt speaker drivers typically generate. With tri-amping, each low wattage amp is easy to convection cool.

I know it is hard to believe, but there are fans out there pumping out 30+ CFM that cannot be heard outside of 1-2 feet away.

[robmil]

wouldn't it be more efficient (heatwise) to just bolt the trannies to the heatsink bypassing all that other metalwork? It is easily done, I have done it and I have seen full production amplifiers use this method.

[Alexontherocks]

you mean with watercooling or with ordinary convection heatsinks?