| moe29 |
I wonder how Pass Labs feels about the pictures included in that
article? Are the demo amps completely disassembled for these
pictures? Or does the magazine purchase it's review pair?
I suppose anyone could buy a pair and reverse engineer the whole
amp if they really wanted to... just wondering.
Could anyone translate the captions for the pics, since we're
seeing them?
(as usual, excellent workmanship! I'm sure this German magazine
fully appreciated and could relate to what they were seeing!) :)
m. |
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| GRollins |
Er...that circuit's already been reverse engineered.
Kinda sorta, anyway.
Grey |
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| fcel |
| Aug/Sept 2004 issue of The Absolute Sound also has a review of XA-160 by AHC. I can't remember what was written but I know there wasn't any internal pictures of amp. |
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| Peter Daniel |
German magazines are much better than American, as they actually always show the detailed pictures of everything they review, why wouldn't they?
Each time I see pics like that, makes me want to build another amp. ;) |
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| xcel |
As a matter of fact, the amps are usually opened up for pictures in German magazines. Sometimes the amps are completely taken apart, and reassembled after the photo shoot, all with the approval of the local distributor.
Makes for great study material..;)
Xcel |
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| moe29 |
This is what i worked out for the summary box at the end of the
.pdf article. Seems like a solid review. If you can afford a pair of
XA 160's you don't worry about Praxis! :devilr:
I agree with Peter, Pass amps are just pure works of art :)
Klang [Sound] = 61 out of 70? (or 100)
Messwerte [Measurements] = 8/10
Praxis [Practicality] = 3/10
Wertigkeit [Workmanship] = 10/10 |
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| zinsula |
More or less they say that the XA160 sound's about on the same absolute level as the X600, and there is only one amplifier they tested yet which sounded better in their opinion (62 points...). It's a Single Ended Triode I believe, and the Name is "Double Kronzilla" or similar.
The only thing they complained about the X160 is that with difficult loads (less than 4 Ohms) ist does loose a little bit control, compared to X600.
BTW, in the same issue, a fully balanced phono stage from Ayre (Charles Hansen) got an excellent review too, and plays on the same lavel as the XOno :eek: with MC. And those are the absolutely best Phono stages in their opinion.
Nelsons work is highly regarded by this magazine.
Cheers, Tino |
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| xcel |
And I've heard this single-ended tube amp (Kronzilla) in it's latest incarnation in a direct comparison with the X-600. And although the Kronzilla is obviously a superb amplifier, it was clear that the X-600's were definitely better.
But that's just little old me talking ..... although the majority of the crowd seemed to agree.
;)
Xcel |
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| till |
from the pdf:| quote: |
Die Drossel-
Luftspulen bilden
zusammen mit den
Netzteil-Elkos ein
Filter, das (anders
als Induktivitätsbehaftete
Eisenkern-
Drosseln)
hauptsächlich
höherfrequentere
Störungen
ausschließt.
|
Its new to me aircoil inductors do profit from having no inductance...
... Hifi mags. - bähhhh. |
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| Peter Daniel |
| Although I don't read German, I would suspect that those might be 10p caps made out of wire, as I don't see those caps on board anymore (like in case of X250). |
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| till |
no, they refer to the aircoil inductor of power supply CLC filter. They claim special advantage of aircoil above ferrite core inductors is they are non inductive.
Obviosly this is the way an audio magazine writers brain does work. |
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| phase_accurate |
| quote: | | Obviosly this is the way an audio magazine writers brain does work. |
do you want to say that their brains contain more air than ferrite ?:confused: ;) :D
Regards
Charles |
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| till |
| yes, and it must be hot air. And the qualify for beeing audio magazine write by beeing non indictuve, of course. |
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| HBarske |
I apologize in the name of the author, who really is a nice guy - I know im quite well.
On the other hand, you can be sure that things like the one above don't necessarily represent the level of knowledge of the average German reviewer. |
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| Blues |
| Whoa! You guys need to roll out a barrel of German beer and toast DIY audio!!!:drink: |
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| lumanauw |
| It got 10/10 for workmanship. Does Passlabs do their metal-works and casing finishing theirself? |
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| dobbeln |
quote:
Die Drossel-Luftspulen bilden
zusammen mit den Netzteil-Elkos ein
Filter, das (anders als Induktivitätsbehaftete
Eisenkern-Drosseln)
hauptsächlichhöherfrequentere
Störungen ausschließt.
Nobody said, that they are noninduktiv! Otherwise they wouldn´t be called "coil" but "wire".
But the aircoils shall be better for high frequency suppression than ferritecoils.
Perhaps Nelson can give a hint.
I think at lower frequency it works more than a CRC , giving more "L" at higher frequencies.:xeye:
Greetings from Germany |
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| wuffwaff |
dobbeln,
well, if you read it, it certainly suggest the air-core -chokes not to have any inductivity:D I suppose this was just a slip of the pen...
Did anyone notice the power measurements? 136 watts 8 ohms, 63 watts 4 ohms. Almost no influence when a little capacitance is added. This means that it is clearly optimised for 8 ohm operation.
It´s a pitty they don´t mention the power consumption though.
William |
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| Upupa Epops |
| Too high output impedance ( low damping factor ), big distortion at high level. Why is this amp good evaluated ? |
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| phase_accurate |
| quote: | | Why is this amp good evaluated ? |
Maybe because it SOUNDS good ?!
Distortion raising with output signal is usually considered better than vice-versa.
And a DF of 10 can also be more than enough, depending on what speaker it is combined with.
Regards
Charles |
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| Upupa Epops |
| If you don't distinuish distortion in signal, maybe for you sound good, but I know it. Amp, which output power fall from 160 W on eight to 63 on four, have not DF 10. |
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| till |
| whats your point? bashing passlabs ??? |
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| Brian Donaldson |
| The output falls quicky as impeadance falls because it is ccs loaded and current starved below 8 ohms, not because of output imp. |
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| Upupa Epops |
To Brian : You are correct, I forget, mea culpa :( . But show me a box, which have flat impedance characteristic.
To till : Excuse me, if I touch your God :xeye: . |
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| till |
| i still do not understand your point. just trolling around?? |
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| zinsula |
Upupa Epops, as I mentioned in a previous post, they write that the Amp give best performance at higher Loudspeaker loads, and they complain about a little lower sound quality when the amp has to drive loads below 4 Ohms (in this case the Thiel CS 7.2) - so one of your concerns (damping factor) may be correct (although I assume that even then this amp will beat many many others.....)
If you have any amp to offer and think that your Amp is better *sounding* than a X160, I suggest that you'll give them one for review. You may start a career like a rocket :devilr:
Cheers
Tino |
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| Upupa Epops |
| To Zinsula : My amps was compared with older Pass amps in many times, but results must say to you other people, 'cos I don't do it. On this thread is defending different designs of amps hopeless fight. Even so I like Mr. Pass ;) . |
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| GRollins |
Ah...so his motive is revealed to be self promotion.
Grey |
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| Upupa Epops |
| If you think.. |
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| jh6you |
| Hm... The beauty of a girl hardly depends simply on hight of nose or size of mouth... High nose is just a high nose and big mouth is just a big mouth... Narrow eyes see only one or two trees... nothing else... |
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| Upupa Epops |
| Gentlemen, you have your own thruth and I have own. My eyes see on graphs distortion and my ears listen it. Nothing more. You must have for pleasant experience in reproduction distortion, I can't. Nothing more. Only I say again, in natural sound isn't distortion and amp isn't musical instrumend, only machine for reproduction. Nothing more. |
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| phase_accurate |
| quote: | | in natural sound isn't distortion |
Why are you so sure about that ?
regards
Charles |
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| Upupa Epops |
| In nature distortion can exist only by extremly accoustical presure. All sounds in nature are natural sounds. Distortion is something which is adding to the natural sound - can nature somethig add to youself ? |
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| phase_accurate |
Our ears are also a part of nature. They add distortion and they add a lot of it ! 2nd order is dominant and THD is also rising with SPL , a behaviour like the PASS amp. And the pass amp still generates less of it than our hearing does.
An amp that has high THD at low levels that is decreasing with rising output power (like crossover distortion) is far less ideal in this respect.
I do also agree that an ideal amp would show no distortion at all, but this amp doesn't exist in real life. So why not make it at least sonically pleasant ?
Regards
Charles |
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| Upupa Epops |
| If nature ( or God ) was making our ears with this, for me it is enough ;) , I don't need something like square power of distortion :cool: . By the way, this distortion rise distinctive only by high accoustical presure. |
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| Leeuwarden |
Never tought that my post would create a discussion like this...
Jan |
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| phase_accurate |
| quote: | | Never tought that my post would create a discussion like this... |
You'll never know in advance if you're the one to start WW3. ;)
To the figures: As an example, k2 @ 1 Watt is around 0.003 % and at 10 Watts it is around 0.035 %. There are amps around with worse figures than these !!!!
One has to watch out to correctly interpret the measurements. They don't give THD but the ABSOLUTE voltage of the specific harmonics. In these kind of diagram the amps showing horizontal lines are by far the worst ones since this is a sign for large small-signal nonlinearities (if these are not veeeeeery low).
Regards
Charles |
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