@cap + resistor on Rod Coleman regulators... Look back in the thread, I have answered that question (almost) 100 times 
with picture and descriptions. I used Amtrans caps + Mills 12W resistors... It can be fitted later, I did, but more work. The parts give more clarity and dynamics...
@Alexander caps... Do yourself a favor and listen with the original caps in the Tram II (they are teflons = long, long break in). You might experience, that that the standard caps suits you better than the Alexanders... We (DIY'ers) likes to ''upgrade'', but often upgrades does not make the sound better, just different. The Alexanders are warmer, and more natural than the original caps, but they are not as open and transparent. Listen to both...
@Shinkoh... I bought mine from Acoustic Dimension in Holland where I also bought the Tram II kit...
@Mundorf Supreme... Again, many ''upgrades'' are just something different. In this case going from the Obbligatos in the Tram II to the Supremes I would call a downgrade... The parts quality in the Tram II is HIGH...
@EML 45's... Nice tubes, and beautiful bottles. They are really nice and detailed, not quite the dynamics and live-feeling of the 2A3's.
@Cunninghams available... Sorry, I don't understand the question. They are available if you find one for sale... I now use the Chatham-Electronics 6AS7, I like it better than my other 6AS7 tubes: More details, more open and especially better nuances in the bass...
with picture and descriptions. I used Amtrans caps + Mills 12W resistors... It can be fitted later, I did, but more work. The parts give more clarity and dynamics...@Alexander caps... Do yourself a favor and listen with the original caps in the Tram II (they are teflons = long, long break in). You might experience, that that the standard caps suits you better than the Alexanders... We (DIY'ers) likes to ''upgrade'', but often upgrades does not make the sound better, just different. The Alexanders are warmer, and more natural than the original caps, but they are not as open and transparent. Listen to both...
@Shinkoh... I bought mine from Acoustic Dimension in Holland where I also bought the Tram II kit...
@Mundorf Supreme... Again, many ''upgrades'' are just something different. In this case going from the Obbligatos in the Tram II to the Supremes I would call a downgrade... The parts quality in the Tram II is HIGH...
@EML 45's... Nice tubes, and beautiful bottles. They are really nice and detailed, not quite the dynamics and live-feeling of the 2A3's.
@Cunninghams available... Sorry, I don't understand the question. They are available if you find one for sale... I now use the Chatham-Electronics 6AS7, I like it better than my other 6AS7 tubes: More details, more open and especially better nuances in the bass...
Great - Thanks. I will look forward to that.
The faulty Tram was replaced with a Pass Labs XP10 which is supposed to be a Worldclass Pre (and it is..), but I am listening to music through the Pass with the same feeling as a man who prefer blondes, but ended up marrying a brunette...
The response from Diyhifisupply in December 2012 regarding the FCPSU-board was:
""We run out of FCPSU, at first I expect some new ones will come soon then there are some changes at last. We used to use them in power amps well but it became unstable. But if we use them just for preamp it's difficult to meet the MOQ."
I had to google MOQ: "Minimum Order Quantity"
The Order was later cancelled on behalf of diyhifisupply due to inability to supply new Boards.
So treat your FCPSU-boards with care - I am not sure it will ever be made again.
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Great - Thanks. I will look forward to that.
The faulty Tram was replaced with a Pass Labs XP10 which is supposed to be a Worldclass Pre (and it is..), but I am listening to music through the Pass with the same feeling as a man who prefer blondes, but ended up marrying a brunette...
To be honest, I don't find Pass Labs preamps to be world class. Pass Labs are big here in Denmark (as you know) and several of my friends has their power amps, and they also tried the preamps, but did not buy them because they did not find them that good...
IMHO the Tram II (with the various upgrades) sounds quite a lot better - Pass Labs owners tend to agree (we have tried comparing my Tram with the former Pass Labs top model).
Regarding the FCPSU module, then there is no reason for panic. All parts on the module are standard components and can easily be replaced if something fails. But what the info you have indicate is, that the Tram II will soon be discontinued. Or maybe there will be a Tram III in a different chassis with a different power supply module.
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@Mundorf Supreme... Again, many ''upgrades'' are just something different. In this case going from the Obbligatos in the Tram II to the Supremes I would call a downgrade... The parts quality in the Tram II is HIGH...
Morten, you are still using the six Solen 2.2uf tinfoil caps in the output stage in your Tram2?
I have a Philips rectifier tube (same as yours) being listened in a Killerdac against a GEC U52. The person who is doing the A/B comparison builds the dacs and is very interested if this Philips tube is as good as the GEC tube. I will then get this Philips tube for an A/B against the U52 in my Tram2. Will keep you posted.
Peter
Morten, you are still using the six Solen 2.2uf tinfoil caps in the output stage in your Tram2?
I have a Philips rectifier tube (same as yours) being listened in a Killerdac against a GEC U52. The person who is doing the A/B comparison builds the dacs and is very interested if this Philips tube is as good as the GEC tube. I will then get this Philips tube for an A/B against the U52 in my Tram2. Will keep you posted.
Peter
Hi Peter,
I have never used Solen caps. I use 6 x 2.2uF Obbligato tinfoil (I kept the one delivered with the Tram and replaced the 10uF PP with 5 more of the Obbligato tinfoils)... This is one of the better upgrades for the Tram, these caps are really good and not very expensive.
It will be interesting to hear what you think of the rectifiers... My experience with the Philips is, that the break in is quite long so have patience... I still go back and forth between the Philips and Brimar. I can't say one is ''better'' than the other, they are slightly different and the ''better'' one is the one that has best system synergy. The difference between the Philips and the Brimar is much smaller now where the Philips is fully broken in, than it was when I wrote the comparison review earlier...
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Heatsink for Rod Coleman regulator
Hi Tram owners,
I have just made the Rod Coleman DHT regulators for my Tram (2A3 tubes) with Mortens tips for C3 caps and R1 resistors. I have not made the raw Dc supply yet because I need to decide how to design the heatsink first. Rod Coleman suggested that I put a heatsink outside the Tram, but I´m not very happy with that. I have seen Mortens heatsink/solution. Are there any other heatsinksolution for the Colmanregulator that is good?
Best Regards
Mats Falck
Hi Tram owners,
I have just made the Rod Coleman DHT regulators for my Tram (2A3 tubes) with Mortens tips for C3 caps and R1 resistors. I have not made the raw Dc supply yet because I need to decide how to design the heatsink first. Rod Coleman suggested that I put a heatsink outside the Tram, but I´m not very happy with that. I have seen Mortens heatsink/solution. Are there any other heatsinksolution for the Colmanregulator that is good?
Best Regards
Mats Falck
Thanks Morten,
Oops x 2: first, for asking the dumb question, and second, for forgetting that the technician installing the Coleman regs did indeed copy your parts substitution!
Thank you so much for this: i have now asked partsconnection to remove the audio note resistors from my order, and i have ordered Shinkos from AD!
I have heard that removing the 2.2uF cap from the parallel pair (ie leaving only the 10mF cap) improves the sound quality. Has anyone here tried this? For now, I am leaving them alone.
At some point in the future i will try 2A3's. I chose the EML 45s after hearing how good my friend's Tram2 sounded with EML tubes.
- richard
Oops x 2: first, for asking the dumb question, and second, for forgetting that the technician installing the Coleman regs did indeed copy your parts substitution!
Thank you so much for this: i have now asked partsconnection to remove the audio note resistors from my order, and i have ordered Shinkos from AD!
I have heard that removing the 2.2uF cap from the parallel pair (ie leaving only the 10mF cap) improves the sound quality. Has anyone here tried this? For now, I am leaving them alone.
At some point in the future i will try 2A3's. I chose the EML 45s after hearing how good my friend's Tram2 sounded with EML tubes.
- richard
@Rod Coleman regs... Good that he got them installed..!
@output caps... The theory behind using a smaller cap of higher quality and a larger one of lower quality is, that you get the sonic signature of the higher quality one at a lower price than if you build the whole cap in high quality... In reality it's my experience that theory is one thing, reality something else. I have not heard it sound good, and that's why I went for the entire cap as the higher quality tin foils. I think the reason for two different caps not really working well together sonically is because a cap is a resonating circuit (sorry, again I don't have the proper English technical words) and when combining two different resonating circuits there are more problems than benefits. I have tried this many times because in theory this ''short cut'' should work, but in reality my experience is, that using the same cap, for the entire value sounds better. All this to say, that I would not be surprised if the output cap sounds better with the 2.2uf removed, even considering that the 2.2uf tin-foils sounds better than the 10uf gold. But it will sound considerably better if you remove the gold cap instead and use all tin-foils
@Triodes... It depends on what sound we want. I like the explosive dynamics and ''live feeling'' of the 2A3's where the 45's are more polite and focus on coherency. Both are good, it's a matter of taste...
@output caps... The theory behind using a smaller cap of higher quality and a larger one of lower quality is, that you get the sonic signature of the higher quality one at a lower price than if you build the whole cap in high quality... In reality it's my experience that theory is one thing, reality something else. I have not heard it sound good, and that's why I went for the entire cap as the higher quality tin foils. I think the reason for two different caps not really working well together sonically is because a cap is a resonating circuit (sorry, again I don't have the proper English technical words) and when combining two different resonating circuits there are more problems than benefits. I have tried this many times because in theory this ''short cut'' should work, but in reality my experience is, that using the same cap, for the entire value sounds better. All this to say, that I would not be surprised if the output cap sounds better with the 2.2uf removed, even considering that the 2.2uf tin-foils sounds better than the 10uf gold. But it will sound considerably better if you remove the gold cap instead and use all tin-foils
@Triodes... It depends on what sound we want. I like the explosive dynamics and ''live feeling'' of the 2A3's where the 45's are more polite and focus on coherency. Both are good, it's a matter of taste...
Hi Mats,
Some have simply super-glued the transistors on the Rod Coleman regulators directly to the inner sides of the chassis. This is certainly a very easy way of implementing the regulators..! (and quite ''rough'' some might say)...
Inspired by Rod Coleman's posts earlier in the thread and his suggestion of a heat spreader, I have made some from 5mm aluminium which fit inside the Tram2 chassis. They have 2 holes to bolt to the chassis, and 4 threaded holes to mount the TO220 packages and 2 x 5mm stand offs to hold the PC
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I will try to take some pictures when I have time to fit them.
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It's fine sjs, if you're happy with it all is good
Our experience here is just, that the load these type of triodes ''see'' on their output has big impact on the sound and that they need this load on a few K ohm to sound their best. Your experience is different, and that's fine, and with you approach the output caps are cheaper
Desmo, if you have a pair of 1M0 resistors you can risk trying it out and see if it makes any difference
What were the changes between version 1.0 and version 2.1 of the FCUPS modules and have other tram owners had stability issues with either version?
I know one DIY'er who has used 4 modules in two power amps and has had no problems.
As Desmo says the boards contain readily available parts and can be repaired if necessary.
Based on your experience, I just bought one of those on eBay.
I have now also received my Philips rectifier tube. Thanks again for your helpful reports Morten! (Still waiting to receive my replacement CCS board from Simon though... so everything is still on hold...)
My friend with the Tram2 is actually using a very high quality output cap (sorry, i am not sure what it is), but a very low value, only about 4uF. His Tram2 sounds very very good, but i understand that the (too) low cap value may be removing too much bass. I have been told that as long as the capacitance is at least 5-6uF, it should work well. If that is correct, then it may allow us to afford higher quality caps with lower values in our Tram2s. Has anyone else tried lower capacitance on the output caps? Morten, i wonder how your Tram2 would sound if you used only 3 (or 4) of your tin foil Obbligatos per channel?
- richard
This depends on what compromises you want/can live with...
You can easily calculate the corner frequency with different cap values since all the variables are known. The formula is: f = 1 / 2 * pi * R * C where R is the resistance in ohm and C is the capacitance in uF. R = the resistor network on the output // the input impedance of your power amp. If the input impedance is (for instance 47K) then R = 3500 ohm. With 6 x 2.2 uF as output cap the cap total is 13.2uF. Put the numbers into the formula and we have a corner frequency of approx 3,5hz.
One should think this is waaaay low enough since the audible range does not start before 20hz, however there is a ''phase turning'' (no idea if this is the proper English word, I guess not) up to about 10 * the corner frequency, meaning to 35hz in the example. So even with 13.2uF the phase is not flat in the first octave of the audioband. If we change the cap to just 4uF then the corner frequency goes up to approx 11.5hz, meaning that the phase is not flat until around 115hz. Having the phase ''turning'' well into the audio range is not a good thing and personally I would never do this...
So normally output caps are calculated for a corner frequency on around 1hz or so, meaning the phase is smooth from around 10hz or so to have a perfectly flat phase throughout the audio band. But if people think phase is not important smaller caps can be used...
Thanks. This is fascinating. Im struck at how the input impedance of the power amp is critical in the phase shift frequency. If Richard's friend has tubed power amps with input impedance over 100kohm he can half his capacitance value which might explain how he gets away with such a small output cap.
I wonder if subtle phase shift is audible in the lower bass frequencies?
I think the phase shift can cause volume attenuation with large shifts and loss of imaging definition in smaller shifts.
Some say imaging doesnt happen in the lower frequencies anyway?
No, it's the other way around... Input impedance of the power amp has about zero influence on the corner frequency for the Tram II because the input impedance is in parallel with the restor network on the Tram II output. And the network has a value on just 3.8K ohm.
Look at the formula and my post again... I have just described what the corner frequency is using a 4uF output cap. The corner frequency is determined by the resistor network on the output of the Tram, not by the input impedance of the amp (unless the input impedance is very low). So his corner frequency and phase shift is as I have just desribed...
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