New Power... [My Baby Died]

[Myren]

My Sansui AU 919 stopped working. Turned it up too loud, and now all it does is blow fuses. Thats my baby, there, twitching on the floor. I could go on, for a long long time.

I'm still in a state of shock. I feel like i just lost a beloved relative or something. What i need, now more than ever, is music.

I'm looking for at least 150 watts/channel. I'm not an audiophile, but sound quality is signicantly important. I want the most cost effective solution i can find (most money for the buck). DIY or not.

Recommendations?
*tear*
Myren

[planet10]

Originally posted by Myren
I'm looking for at least 150 watts/channel. I'm not an audiophile, but sound quality is signicantly important. I want the most cost effective solution i can find (most money for the buck). DIY or not.

Why 150 w/channel? What speakers are you driving?

And just to make things more complicated there are 200 W amps that don't play as loud as 20 W amps.

The best bang for the buck will be DIY or you are going to find it 2nd hand.

dave

[Myren]

rectilinear IIIb's for speakers. 150 is just an arbitrary minimum cut off point i've assigned myself.

diy is what i'd love to do. i've been digging for high quality 150 wpc+ designs, and turning up suprisingly little. the leach amp is the noted exception, but i've heard nothing good about its quality.

i can solder anything, but i'm still only a sophmore computer engineer. while i hope one day to be able to design audio amplifiers, i do need a reference now....

does anyone have recommended resources?

myren

[Dustin Haug]

Never heard one myself, but Leach amps are supposed to sound pretty good from what I've read.

Check out www.aussieamplifiers.com for some nice scalable high-powered stuff. Or if you can live with less power (output not consumed ) Aleph 2's or 5's.

[planet10]

Originally posted by Myren
rectilinear IIIb's for speakers. 150 is just an arbitrary minimum cut off point i've assigned myself.

you should give yourself a 150W =/- 3 dB range. That would allow you to include a large number of 100W amps including the big AKSA kit. Also amps from Rod Elliot and you can check some of the links here.

Are the rectilinears 3-way? Bi-amping would mean you could get away with 4 amps of about 50 w and still have the headroom of a single 150 w amp -- and it would probably sound better to boot.

dave

[Myren]

the manual classifies different tweeter (quantity: 3) and supertweeter (quan: 2) sections, but i havent checked the crossover to see if they're really wired differently. i suspect 3 way, but dont quote me.

externally though, theres only one binding post. is modification possible?

[planet10]

Originally posted by Myren
externally though, theres only one binding post. is modification possible?

Certainly. Given <$25 (maybe more depending on what you spend on terminals) in bits and the opportunity to get inside they can be dramatically improved -- and that isn't even considering tweaking the passive XO.

dave