DIY Gene on eBay - Aleph 5 boards

[monarodan]

Hello Everyone!

Sorry if this is a double post - I got an unusual message and I'm not sure if the first post succeeded (I can find it, so I'll assume it got lost in the ether).

I have been planning to build an Aleph 5 for way too long now. In my travels I came across a seller on eBay called "benytlau" who has an eBay store called "DIY Gene". He is selling an amplifier based on the Aleph 5 (you can bet it's identical) called the M-10.

Here is an example listing of a pre-assembled and tested amplifier module:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260016252358

The seller is based in China, while I'm based in Australia (added risk to me). The seller does have very good feedback and replied to my inital queries very quickly (and in very good English). Has anyone had experience with this seller? Any thoughts on the products? Any questions I should make sure I get answered? What about the price? All comments welcomed!

Thanks in advance,

Daniel Paull

 

[Netlist]

Opinion?

There is no fun in building a stolen design.

/Hugo

 

[Zen Mod]

find another way to build it;
ask for help and advices here ,and you'll have both.
steal whatever you want (as we all other do ) for personal purposes (meaning -I want one amp ) ,but do not support someone's illegal business.

no offense intended to you.....

 

[mpmarino]

Wow, that's pretty bold, and as far as I know it's against Ebay policy. I'd bet NP could shut that down with 1 email.

 

[karma]

saying Circuit design based on Pass Labs Aleph 5.
and not pass labs aleph 5, kinda covers his butt legally.

he could just turn around and call it a m-10 class a amp. under another ebay account its hard to stop these guys.

im not going to say how you can have up to 5 accounts on ebay
with the same adress but i do

and no i dont use them for illegal purposes

cheers

 

[monarodan]

Yeah, I'm not full bottle on the copyright issues and patent infringements that this person may be facing. So, it's a heads up the NP I guess.

For all I know, this fellow could be authorised to sell the amplifiers. But, until I hear othherwise, I assume he's dodgy and steer clear.

Really, I'm just after PCBs as this is the one part that I'm going to find diffficult to manufacture myself, and hard to justify the efforts for only 2 amps!

My preferred option is the boards from Brian:

http://www.diyamps.com/aleph/aleph.shtml

However, his order page states that they are "out of stock". Perhaps I'll shoot Brian an email shortly and see if he can help. Can anyone offer advice on souring PCBs?

 

[gl]

The PCB looks familiar. I believe that this individual displayed the layout on this forum a while back and asked for comments and advice. It was represented as a personal DIY effort. This is a pretty distastful situation IMO.

Speaking for myself, I avoid all of these commercial or psuedo-commercial efforts to make money off Mr. P's IP. Do it yourself - from scratch.

Cheers,
Graeme

 

[Netlist]

Alephs are really not that complicated.
Building them on a vero board has given me the most pleasure. Mount the gate resistors directly to the mosfets, build your power supply and solder the remaining parts point to point. Connect everything with some neat wiring and you’re done.
Don’t forget the blue LED.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14979

/Hugo

 

[vpharris]

I agree with Netlist.

You'll get at least twice as much satisfaction out of wiring the whole thing yourself as you will from stuffing a board that somebody provides for you. You'll learn more about how it works, too. With a little time spent on layout, it will look pretty cool too.

 

[Variac]

He has other amps for sale too, including a "Jeff Rowland Clone"

I hope Nelson can go after him...

 

[tube-lover]

hi,

I was chinese, I was shame to see this thread. but in my opinions. pls did not send any PCB go to china to OEM for it.
Otherwise will face this problem. In my 1541a dac IV. I also test nelson 's design was quite good than the standard Op-amp output stage. I email to nelsonalready & ask for him tha can I partly use his design, but nelson hadn't call back. So I change to 2sk389 or BC109. I gauss we must protect this forum & copyright.

this is my opinions. sorry my english is not good. But I really love this forum, I hope can saw more diy project in here & really good P/C ratio items which will benefit to more diyers.


thx

thomas

 

[Nelson Pass]

He has other amps for sale too, including a "Jeff Rowland Clone"

I hope Nelson can go after him...

Perhaps Jeff will save me the trouble.

 

[monarodan]

hi,

I was chinese, I was shame to see this thread. but in my opinions. pls did not send any PCB go to china to OEM for it.
Otherwise will face this problem. In my 1541a dac IV. I also test nelson 's design was quite good than the standard Op-amp output stage. I email to nelsonalready & ask for him tha can I partly use his design, but nelson hadn't call back. So I change to 2sk389 or BC109. I gauss we must protect this forum & copyright.

this is my opinions. sorry my english is not good. But I really love this forum, I hope can saw more diy project in here & really good P/C ratio items which will benefit to more diyers.


thx

thomas

Thomas, you are a diamon in the rough. Thankyou for your comments.

Perhaps Jeff will save me the trouble.

From this comment I will assume that the seller is not authorised to use Nelson's designs.

 

[monarodan]

I agree with Netlist.

You'll get at least twice as much satisfaction out of wiring the whole thing yourself as you will from stuffing a board that somebody provides for you. You'll learn more about how it works, too. With a little time spent on layout, it will look pretty cool too.

I agree to a point... I have wound transformers in the past, and enjoyed the experience. However, I have nothing new to gleen by winding yet-another-transformer, so I tend to source transformers from third parties.

In the case of the Aleph, if I were modding the circuit, the I'd be inclined to to the PCB layout and etch them myself. However, for two amps of a stanfard design, I have nothing to learn by making my own PCBs, so I'd rather souce them from third parties.

The aim of building the Aleph 5 is to get some experience in chassis design and sourcing componentts before tackling an Aleph X - now thatss where the fun begins!

A member on this forum has agreed to part wiht some PCBs to help me along, on the condition that I promise to build the damn thing and post pics to this forum, to which I agreed whole hartedly, so watch this space!

Thanks all for the comments and encouragement!

 

[banzas]

Hi Guys,

The aleph boards that GENE sold at ebay, they seems soberb and well made, the only thing are, the final mosfets; it has 8 IRFp240 per chanel, and the MPSA18 was replaced by MPSA42, (what do you think about this, remember the 42 is high voltage transistor and a work worse, the defuncted 18 is low noise and very fragile, but I am not shure if it is the best choice) I have to assemble the pcbs with best components, and will see, this is not a copy 100% of original N Pass, this boars also has DC proctection with delay in the same board, which is very nice indeed. About PSU The transformer is a toroid with 800VA with 4 windings with 28V, with 2 bridges 50A each, and 4 X 47000UF bypassed with PP 20Uf.

Thanks for everyone for excellent posts
Miguel

 

[mpmarino]

this is not a copy 100% of original N Pass,

That is irrelevant. That's just a way to attempt to hide the fact that it is patent infringement (my assumption). It doesn't matter what you give to it or take from it, if it has an Aleph's patented topology... it's illegal.

 

[jacco vermeulen]

I have to assemble the pcbs with best components

Miquel,

sounds like you already bought the boards.

Personally, i'd rather drive a fake Daytona than a stolen Ferrari.
(Da.., the MV movie is soo much better than Don Crockett and his woman hairdresser partner)

 

[banzas]

I agree with all of you, but I have just bought only the pcbs with schematic of course, to see if it was a copy or not, by the way the pcbs was cheap enough so this not a great business for them.
I don´t have yet the pcbs probably in the next week. About other guy that sold aleph pcbs form Croatia, Kristijan, also sold me a few pcbs (aleph 1.7) and a Valve Zen, the last one it is very interesting ans easy to build, I have built in the past some projects with tubes, but never an hybrid. Can you tell me more about this hybrid.
Here two of my tube projects, the monoblocs are with 845 with tamura transformers. The litlle one of the meadle it was a joke for a friend of mine, easy to buils like V8 with KT88.

Greetings

 

[Babowana]

. . . by the way the pcbs was cheap enough so this not a great business for them.

There are many copied DVD . . .
Very cheap . . .
Price nothing . . .

Not a great business for them . . .

 

[banzas]

I received the pcbs, they are very well made, the schematic is a copy of aleph, they replaced the mpsa18 with 42, and had more two final outputs fets than the original sch. The delay protection is simple but efective.
Here you can see my last tube SE project enjoy!
tubes: 211, 300b, 6sn7, Amp, PSU 5u4 and 3B28 xenon rectifier