Suggestions To Mod My Aleph 30

[stlblue]

Greetings:

I have an Aleph 30 I want modded. Any suggestions on who to do the work? What experiences have others had doing this? What should I have done? About how much will it cost?

Many thanks,

stlblue

[MikeW]

Nelson Pass.
One Billion Dollars!

[breguetphile]

While I would hate to see an Aleph 30 modded, about the only thing I would possibly change about it is possibly the power supply. I'm not sure if it is even worth the trouble, but a lot of people have used power supplies similar to this:

http://web.vip.hr/pcb-design.vip/power-3.html

You may be able to get better results with either a CRC or a CLC power supply arrangement, but as the ripple is already minimal and mine (actually an Aleph 3) works great with just a huge capacitance bank I repeat, I do not believe it would be worth it.

You say you want it modded, what don't you like about it? No reason to mod just for the sake of modding, you need to have a goal that is worth approaching. If you just want to give away money to mod it send it on over!

[till]

why do you want to mod it? you are sure it will be better past modding it than before? better go and build a own version of the aleph circuit and compare vs. the original one.

I bet best "mod" would be to connect the original aleph to speakers he does like.

[Alain Dupont]

stlblue,

You have one of the finest little class A amplifiers on the market.

You could replaced a few caps here and there, with Nichicon N or Muse capacitors
give it a better transfo to be able to make a CRC, or CLC if there is room; play with R7 ; You could replace the rectifier bridge with specialty diodes ; but you will be limited by the enclosure, you cant increase the total power without overheating.

And the final with it's IRF 244 is top notch.

Regards.

Alain.

[hifi]

You can remove the modulation on the current source

/ Micke

[stlblue]

Thanks for all your replies. I should have clarified...I recall reading a post where someone had asked how to improve on the Aleph 30 and Nelson suggested better caps, resistors, wire, outboard transformer (I think), etc. I am wondering if anyone has taken this advice and gotten great results.

Thanks,

stlblue

[till]

A new aleph isn´t that hard to build. In case you allready plan new caps and transformer, it will make no difference in the amount of money to spend to build a complete one than mod the old - except you will need some large heatsinks in addition. Everyone who will spend the money for caps and transformer would think about the alternative, leave the original as is, amd build his own.
http://www.passlabs.com/pdf/aleph/a3srvr0.pdf
http://www.passlabs.com/pdf/aleph/a30manr0.pdf
all information for this is provided at passlabs and in this board.
depending on your speakers it may be the better idea to build an aleph2 and biamp with diy-aleph2for bass and your original alpeh30 for tweeter.

[tomchaoda]

If you want to keep it to you for long, long time and know exactly what you are doing, then go ahead and enjoying the mod...

If, however, you do not plan to keep it for a long time and may exchange it with another better one; then, I suggest either not to touch it or leave it to an expert... The reason I said that is I once own several good amps and preamp, which I did the mod myself. The first question people will ask about the mod is what is it and who did it? Everytime I told them the truth, the transaction stop! Many of them probably don't know what it is or why I did this! I think what they care is they want to make sure the amp or preamp is in original condition or the mod they know of (most of them don't know).

My personal suggestion view only! (I have on original Aleph 3 and the sound is very good already!)

Thomas

[Mark A. Gulbrandsen]

The Aleph 3 is one of the very few modern pieces of electronics that has already achieved classic status. Why would you want to ruin that aspect of it plus end up with an amp that would have less value that it does now?

If you want to mod an Aleph 3 then build one from scratch like the rest of us have done ane oput your unit on the lower shelf and just admire it.

Mark