Where to repair a Rawson Aleph 5 clone

Hey, ZM....

So. let me guess...... None of TR's amps are candidates for the coveted Zen Mod Fugly Award, huh?

(I must sign off now, before I start another one of my rants on these "excellent DIY, not-for-sale" amps!)

(Heck, I won't even make a caustic remark about the poor "engineering" on mounting the MOSFETs on the heatsinks)

(I'll deftly avoid cynical remarks about the death-trap PSU job)

(As for commercial theft of intellectual property, I shall not go there..... but.....)

(....now, I go..... silently into the night)
 
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That's been pretty clear from the beginning. :D

I still wonder why the topic is still alive and the user isn't banned. ;)

Aah... I just saw this from eons ago.

Look, I am not, I was not a troll. For years I wanted an Aleph but could never get one, kids, school, wrecked cars, timing, etc... so at some point I ended buying a pair of mono A5s by You Know Who. The price and timing were right. My ICE amps just didn't sound right over the Maggies.

A STORY WITH A GOOD ENDING:

Now then, if you look through the posts, someone posted the link to Audiogon where I got the amps. The pictures are in there. Next time, please, before accusing me do read through the entire thread, thanks. I didn't post pictures because someone beat me to it.

When the amps showed up, one of them wasn't quite working, very low level sound, scratchy, so I opened them up, on a Friday night, didn't see anything broken inside so I asked here.

I wasn't ready for the vitriol that came on my head. Much to their credit, a couple of posters contacted me via IM and offered their help and ideas. Even Nelson Pass himself sort of lent a helping hand about the wiring of the heat protection.... oops... yes.... He did do a mild flame... which I wear as a badge of honor... I mean, "I was sort of flamed by Nelson Pass" is an impressive achievement. But he was constructive with his comments.

Thanks to all of you who helped out at the time.

The next morning, looking through the schematics, I started to trace and lo and behold a wire came loose off of the amp boards. It looked to me like it was carrying a bias from the power supply. I resoldered it and the amp came to life. Yes, I did notice it the chassis was not grounded and the start "ground" went to the neutral. OK, I thought, it sounds good, it's wired like my vintage amps so it can't be all that bad.

Anyhow, for a few years I enjoyed them until last year when I decided to do something about them... so I found someone in this forum who is well thought of and he REBUILT the amps. He did an awesome job, I think the only thing he kept was the transformer, the case, the FETs and the connectors... every thing else, including the boards, caps, etc... added power supply filtering, all got redone. So, now I'm very happy. It drives my current Maggie 1.7s really well.

So, yeah, the sound is awesome. Even before the upgrade, I had a guy with impeccable industry creds, he's retired and now just spends his time rebuilding Linn LP12s... so after rebuilding/upgrading my old LP12 he came to deliver it, we hooked it up, spun some records and he really liked the sound the system made. Nelson's designs are indeed very good. My system sounds like music.

Ever since, I got an F5 on the cheap and had it rebuilt as well. Not enough power, but it drives my vintage ADS L810s very well.

So, since I was on this train, I also got four ACA amps that got upgraded to v1.8, added filtering, etc.... I figure I got some of the best ACA amps in the planet.

Not to be undone by amps, I also had my B1Korg kit built... with some upgrades, of course. I got two now... a plain B1 in a humidor and the B1Korg in its full kit chassis.

So, no, I am not a troll. I honestly didn't know how some people have such a reaction to Rawson. Yikes. Live and learn I guess.

Anyhow, I'm currently having a pair of F2s being built.. using the 5U deluxe chassis ( damn those things are BIG) and hopefully before years end I'll have a pair of F5 Turbo V3, but for those I want a front panel with old style, round VU/Power meter smack in the middle.

Like I said, I've been learning... never too old to stop learning.

Now, you might wonder why I don't pick up the soldering iron myself... Well, it's been a long time since I tackled building PC boards. Mostly I went into building digital components... so getting someone, who really knows this business well, was a no brainer. Even if some of the boxes that we used to ship the amps back and forth across the country gained some frequent UPS miles. And, btw, some of the new A5 boards were a new design... he put my name on them so some of you might be buying those boards too. Just think I was the original impetus for those boards. I believe he also build new amp boards for the F5. Or maybe just one of them... I don't know... I just know that I saw my name in one of the amps board. Which is awesome.

Speaking of UPS... how in hell can they bend those heavy heat sinks even when the amp is well packed and the box doesn't show any damage?

OK? Are we OK now?
 
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