What's the highest power amp you've built?

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esorcc said:
What's the highest power amp you've built?


My highest amplifier ever
is my own medium power Class AB.
Including power supply and everything
the height is almost 30 cm ( ~1 foot )
Because it is more built to be high, than wide,
the heatsinks will have a more optimal area of cooling.

This is my highest, so far.
But who knows what may come soon ......
:cool:
 
This isn't wattage, but maybe the highest pure class A, it was loosely based on Nelson Pass's 20watt Class A from 1977.
It was biased up to 150pure class A, then 300AB
8kva dual secondary transformer,
500,000 filter caps per channel with a further 50,000uf bypassing ever decreaseing down value to .47uf plastic.
24 Hirel outputs per channel (pnp eb204 npn ed ?) for memory they were 20amp 200watt 20mhz continuous each. what ever happended to these magnificent tranies
The system had a huge milled heatsink with 4 tunnels lenghtways and water was serpentined through to a quiet water pump, then to and parralel flow airconditioner radiator which was fan cooled with a Garrad turntable motor attached to a Davis Craig automotive 17" plastic fan which cooled the water (coolant) flowing through the radiator, a thermometer was used to monitor the water temp which was held at around 110F.
For memory the amp (which was a two man lift) took some 15amps continous from the 240v mains (special mains socketts were mandatory).
When switched on this amp physicaly moved the mains wire that came from the street the the house upwards about 2".
I built another four of these after that but used the house water to feed the heatsink instead of the pump radiator setup, the excess hot water was fed to the outside which eventually watered the garden.

That was a few my amps that I built from the late 70's
Unfortunatly not a single photo of them, but may gobsmacked wittneses in Australia Allen Wright being one of them.

Cheers George
 
This amp drove maybe an even more bizarre system,
A pair of Otto Major/Chris Feillafe (improved mid/high panel) double stacked 57 quads
A pair of Decca Kelly ribbons xover at 12k
Two 36’ Hartley subs 15hzfo xrossed at 100hz mounted in the double brick wall using the adjoining room as sealed speaker boxes
The front end was a Stax tube electrostatic cartridge, which took 1 hour to tune in using an oscilloscope and remained in tune for about 20mins then had to be retuned again.
This was in a early Lin, Black Widow arm setup my pre/riaa then into my Lightspeed Attenuator volume control.
With this amp and system the sound still has not been bettered even today say those who heard it.

Cheers George
 
Hi

The biggest I have built;

In class A, 60watt, 75watt and 100watt class A monoblocks.

In class A/AB I have made classA to 40watt/class AB to 200watt amplifier.

For me the power is limited by the physical size and weight ( around 80lbs )

I do have some electrocompaniet Electro 25's and Kelvin labs 30 watt class A amps that I use occasionally. I have upgraded both and given them regulated power supplies on the front end and more final stage power reserve. They are great on voice and provide tremendous detail. However I still prefer to listen to a around 100watt class A or A/AB amp. It just seems to give a more balanced sound to me.

Don
 
1500W/2R - front end resembles a Lynx but phase splitter is common emitter (similar to Carver and early Crown and PV), outputs resemble the S-Leach - class AB (monoblocks) and class G (stereo). I've used these for years.

900W/2R (x4) - finished and working class H prototype - similar circuit to above, but with upper slave banks replaced with the QSC rail switch.

2000W/2R (x2) - target for new amp in progress. 3-tier version of the above prototype with extra outputs, much better PCB, and full supply supervisor, thermal protection, and front end processing. Building four identical units simulatneously.

Highest power class A - Nelson Pass' old 1977 design with 2N6259 outputs (8 per bank) running off a Signal 80-25. 125W or so monoblock. Breadboard prototype only - will go back and re-build permanently one day after I build the wind turbines to alleviate the utility bills. I kept the 25W version.
 
rayfutrell said:
I used to design control systems. The last amplifier I worked on was to drive 50 HP servo motors and would put out +-400 volts at 200 amperes. We had a 10KW dummy load consisting of series-parallel connected heater strips that are used in heat pumps.


Too bad brain dead youth aren't more financially endowed. Your company would have had a huge market for that amplifier technology to power automotive subwoofers.
:xeye:
 
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