I have built an amp once using a single power tube, with an input transformer with a high step-up ratio. analog_sa is correct in saying that much of the work is done before this amp, in the preamp. You need a low impedance powerful preamp to drive the STU-001 to get some swing on the 211.
Sakuma's phono pre's were basically low watt power amps.
He was very proud of the STU-001, which he helped to design (STU is Sakuma, Tamura, Uchida) and saw it as an 'easy' way to eliminate a driver stage in his amps.
Those circuits are absolutely depended on specific high cost Japanese transformers so much so that made them a local exotic DIY affair. Beautiful to see, most possibly beautiful to also hear. Regarding presence and tonal color. About resolution not sure at all. I wouldn't realistically expect better THD+N than passable. Maybe just good enough for vinyl. And its normal because that's as retro an approach as being creative with prewar Indian motorcycle design language for an analogy.
STU-001 I think they are now unobtainable. I have recently purchased two pairs of these gardners, they have the same characteristics. Of course I understand that a very powerful pre-amplifier is needed, but the great advantage is thus having one amplifier in two slim chassis, instead of a monster the size of an aircraft carrier. A 437A or EC8020 preamp terminated with a 5K/150 ohm TU would perhaps be able to give the 211 the necessary swing.
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Transformers with these ratios are not that uncommon, as they are usually MC step-up transformers. The Tamura TKS-27, for example, has the same ratio as the STU-001. The main difference between those transformers is the power rating/voltage swing they can deliver. For the TKS-27 it's 10dBm, for the STU-001 it's 5W(!). The TKS-27 is the size of a fat octal tube, the STU-001 the size of an output transformer...
The 211 amp from Sakuma it is a joke as other project of this man.
One consideration , the input pot is 150 ohm.
Have you considered how much will be the Zout of the source to get the right performance at - 6dB of attenuation ( just an example) ?
Also the frequency response (with this type of inupt trafo)?
Then other consideration can be made
Walter
One consideration , the input pot is 150 ohm.
Have you considered how much will be the Zout of the source to get the right performance at - 6dB of attenuation ( just an example) ?
Also the frequency response (with this type of inupt trafo)?
Then other consideration can be made
Walter
Indeed.
This is JC Morrison's account:
Herb Reichert's account:
I am amused by the intellectual perversity of it all though.
JC Morrison's account is pretty accurate. I was one of the first Americans to build all-transformer-coupled amplifiers, back in the late Nineties, but when I heard an all-Sakuma system at the VSAC in Seattle, my amps sounded nothing like the Sakuma amps, or the complete Sakuma system.
My amps sounded typically "American" ... wideband, low distortion, etc. etc. while Sakuma's complete system ... which had been carried by air across the Pacific at considerable expense ... didn't sound like hifi at all. Not Japanese or American hifi in the Nineties, not Japanese or American hifi in the late Fifties (which I remember), and most likely not hifi in the Thirties, either.
Very narrow bandwidth, kind of antique sounding, and the speakers were nowhere close to flat. And despite appearances, not a part of the American WE or Altec tradition. It's Japanese all the way through.
The best way to put it is that Sakuma is a Japanese poet working in electronics ... indeed, the solder technique is part of the esthetic, along with using vintage lamp cord (not joking) as an interconnect. It has nothing to with either US or Japanese hifi esthetic; he's gone off in his own direction, and the music cafe is part of it.
Unlike JC, I don't think it is a joke or a put-on; it's just eccentric in a distinctively Japanese way. If you spend any time in Japan (I was there five years) you'll discover the Japanese can take eccentricity in completely unexpected directions. If Jean Hiraga or Ken Ishiwata represent the "sober" side of Japanese hifi tradition, Sakuma represents the wilder side.
My amps sounded typically "American" ... wideband, low distortion, etc. etc. while Sakuma's complete system ... which had been carried by air across the Pacific at considerable expense ... didn't sound like hifi at all. Not Japanese or American hifi in the Nineties, not Japanese or American hifi in the late Fifties (which I remember), and most likely not hifi in the Thirties, either.
Very narrow bandwidth, kind of antique sounding, and the speakers were nowhere close to flat. And despite appearances, not a part of the American WE or Altec tradition. It's Japanese all the way through.
The best way to put it is that Sakuma is a Japanese poet working in electronics ... indeed, the solder technique is part of the esthetic, along with using vintage lamp cord (not joking) as an interconnect. It has nothing to with either US or Japanese hifi esthetic; he's gone off in his own direction, and the music cafe is part of it.
Unlike JC, I don't think it is a joke or a put-on; it's just eccentric in a distinctively Japanese way. If you spend any time in Japan (I was there five years) you'll discover the Japanese can take eccentricity in completely unexpected directions. If Jean Hiraga or Ken Ishiwata represent the "sober" side of Japanese hifi tradition, Sakuma represents the wilder side.
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It's almost impossible for Westerners to tell if Japanese are doing an elaborate put-on or not. Much of Japanese culture is rigidly hierarchical and conformist, but there is also a wild side that appears bizarre and surrealist to Westerners. The whole Manga culture, for just one example.
Sakuma-san, and his followers, are thoroughly Japanese; the weirdness (to a Westerner) is part of the appeal. Although my own gear sounds nothing at all like Sakuma's, it's still good for inspiration and setting aside the slavish American conformity to Golden Age amplifiers. I also admire the Japanese finding inspiration in classic Western Electric technology; I admire it too, while retaining my distinctively American/Tektronix approach to modern designs.
From my perspective as somebody who grew up in Asia, the "American" approach is fast and powerful, with engineering a little over-the-top but nothing as far out as German or Japanese approaches. Like the Germans, we have a "too much is just enough" admiration for excess (think Top Fuel Dragsters, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, Saturn V and the Apollo program), but we also demand reliability and shy away from complexity for its own sake. The American combination of practicality and audacity is greatly admired in Japan and Germany, who have very different historical traditions of technology.
Our technology was something we had to have to conquer the vast continent, while it was an add-on in Germany, Switzerland, and Japan. In the growing USA, steam trains, steamboats, steamships, telegraphs, and a steel industry weren't optional; they had to be there, and had to be reliable in a vast continent with all kinds of weather conditions. This affected how Americans view technology; big, fast, and powerful, and built tough.
Sakuma-san, and his followers, are thoroughly Japanese; the weirdness (to a Westerner) is part of the appeal. Although my own gear sounds nothing at all like Sakuma's, it's still good for inspiration and setting aside the slavish American conformity to Golden Age amplifiers. I also admire the Japanese finding inspiration in classic Western Electric technology; I admire it too, while retaining my distinctively American/Tektronix approach to modern designs.
From my perspective as somebody who grew up in Asia, the "American" approach is fast and powerful, with engineering a little over-the-top but nothing as far out as German or Japanese approaches. Like the Germans, we have a "too much is just enough" admiration for excess (think Top Fuel Dragsters, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, Saturn V and the Apollo program), but we also demand reliability and shy away from complexity for its own sake. The American combination of practicality and audacity is greatly admired in Japan and Germany, who have very different historical traditions of technology.
Our technology was something we had to have to conquer the vast continent, while it was an add-on in Germany, Switzerland, and Japan. In the growing USA, steam trains, steamboats, steamships, telegraphs, and a steel industry weren't optional; they had to be there, and had to be reliable in a vast continent with all kinds of weather conditions. This affected how Americans view technology; big, fast, and powerful, and built tough.
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But I should mention one thing. Replacing coupling caps with (modern, high-tech) transformers gives a unique tone quality you do not hear from Golden Age amplifiers. Sakuma is completely right about that. There is a certain directness, and emotional intensity (for lack of a better phrase), that comes through.
And that is shared with aspects of the Western Electric sound. That is something that Sakuma and Thomas Meyer (in Germany) have in common, although they are coming at this from completely different angles.
And aversion to transformers has to be tempered with the realization they were all over the place in recordings made before the Eighties, and are still very common in studio use today.
Love analog? Well, those all-analog recordings have many many transformers in the signal path, not just one or two. And think how record and play tape heads work ... yup, transformers there too.
And that is shared with aspects of the Western Electric sound. That is something that Sakuma and Thomas Meyer (in Germany) have in common, although they are coming at this from completely different angles.
And aversion to transformers has to be tempered with the realization they were all over the place in recordings made before the Eighties, and are still very common in studio use today.
Love analog? Well, those all-analog recordings have many many transformers in the signal path, not just one or two. And think how record and play tape heads work ... yup, transformers there too.
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Personally I think that everyone has the personal approach to the music based on his sensibility and experience
But for all the Sakura stuff I haven’t seen any test lab to get something like a certification of reasonable performances
This not to understand if they sound fine but just to see how they works
Regarding the 211 circuit I haven’ t seen any answer to my question about the source that drive the amp
Then the Jap amps like Sakuma are the results of a particular culture and the approach to the music
BUT if I want to listen Wagner on an Hifi stuff in one way that ( far from the real concert) bring me inside the concert hall I need other configurations
I mentioned Wagner because in almost one year I have partecipated 3 live concert ( Naples, Paris, London) + next September in London again+ next October in Paris again
So the total costs are more then Sakuma stuff but NOT comparable as emotion
😃
Walter
But for all the Sakura stuff I haven’t seen any test lab to get something like a certification of reasonable performances
This not to understand if they sound fine but just to see how they works
Regarding the 211 circuit I haven’ t seen any answer to my question about the source that drive the amp
Then the Jap amps like Sakuma are the results of a particular culture and the approach to the music
BUT if I want to listen Wagner on an Hifi stuff in one way that ( far from the real concert) bring me inside the concert hall I need other configurations
I mentioned Wagner because in almost one year I have partecipated 3 live concert ( Naples, Paris, London) + next September in London again+ next October in Paris again
So the total costs are more then Sakuma stuff but NOT comparable as emotion
😃
Walter
In your experience / opinion, how does direct coupling compare to transformer coupling?
A lot of audiophiles are clueless on what's going on in a recording studio that is littered with transformers at almost every junction of the signal path. Microphone input transformers are used at just about every mic input and the output is transformer coupled to maintain balanced signal while the preamp stages are in single ended. And that's often in tube AND solid state circuits. Just about every vocal track passes through an LA2A compressor with UTC transformers input and output in a studio worth their salt and then instruments pass through a vari-mu compressor that's PP all the way through. Some compressors include a interstage transformer. And that's just ONE line level device with 3 transformers in the signal path. And that's not counting the console, solid state or tube.
Famous recording engineer like Sylvia Massy would send her stereo mix through two WE 111C repeat coils just to get some transformer "flavor" as you can see here and here. I heard the final mix of Bonnie Raitt's most recent album that won a Grammy for song of the year. The engineer bounced back and forth from digital to analog tape to various gadgets including multiple compressors and 6 or 7 pedals (!!) on the floor, not just for guitar, to get exactly the tone he wanted. The purist audiophiles would be appalled by such impurity! At the end of the day, the listeners don't need to know all this as long as it sounds "natural." Bottom-line is that the signal path in a recording studio is nothing pure about it that includes multiple audio transformers.
Well, at least until the 80s when guys like Doug Sax started to eliminate transformers in his mastering studio and while the sound of his recordings are superb but the anti-transformer trend rendered recording quality in the 80s taking a nose dive, in my opinion, along with the dreck of early digital. Transformers are having a comeback in recent decades, for good reasons.
to Directdriver & Larry Olson
In my opinion each project published must have a test set results in the real world to certify the functions.
Specially when the simulations are common in the lasts year so there are thousands of new engineer that post circuits in most cases out of the reason ( my opinion)
About irons in the circuit I haven't problem, of course but they must be checked carefully; if in the past the chain of recording was not perfect ( with the eyes of today) this not means that we add other imperfections in the reproduction ( that normally are always present).
I have test a lot of irons and is not so simple to find a right stuff.
In the past each recording engineer normally knows the partiture and they had a heavy background while in the last years the weight of the software helps all artist, production and post production.
And I am asking again in which way you can drive properly a Sakuma 211 circuit of post nr. 99
Walter
In my opinion each project published must have a test set results in the real world to certify the functions.
Specially when the simulations are common in the lasts year so there are thousands of new engineer that post circuits in most cases out of the reason ( my opinion)
About irons in the circuit I haven't problem, of course but they must be checked carefully; if in the past the chain of recording was not perfect ( with the eyes of today) this not means that we add other imperfections in the reproduction ( that normally are always present).
I have test a lot of irons and is not so simple to find a right stuff.
In the past each recording engineer normally knows the partiture and they had a heavy background while in the last years the weight of the software helps all artist, production and post production.
And I am asking again in which way you can drive properly a Sakuma 211 circuit of post nr. 99
Walter
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Joined 2009
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Sakuma liked low impedance drive, his volume controls were usually very low resistance by normal standards. Driving his amps was simply a case of using a suitable pre, no mystery involved.
Here‘s a phono pre based on an 841 driving a 211. And another pre using an 845 driving an 845. Low impedance outputs.
I picked a couple of extreme examples perhaps, he had many designs.
Here‘s a phono pre based on an 841 driving a 211. And another pre using an 845 driving an 845. Low impedance outputs.
I picked a couple of extreme examples perhaps, he had many designs.
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