Max, it's not really a complement, more like a statement of what is to me a given fact.
I have get a little general here, but over the years on Internet, the one rule which somehow always worked out just right is the simple fact that I find Australians and New Zealanders people I get along with extra well. After so many years of seeing it unfold, I'd have to stupid not to notice the effect. I expect itr has something to do mentality, we seem to have nicely complementary mentalities, but anyway, whatever it is, I'm greateful for it and enjoy it.
I also find Canadians to be people it's easy to get along with. Perhaps Russ (Dawkins) might remember more precisely, but us two have been around for many a year, and will hopefully continue to do so for many years yet. The same goes for my Canadian customers.
With others, it's touch and go. There are good people everywhere, one just has to pay some attention. Same thing here, some awfully good people here, and yes, some pains in the ***. As in every group, everywhere, it's always a mix.
I have get a little general here, but over the years on Internet, the one rule which somehow always worked out just right is the simple fact that I find Australians and New Zealanders people I get along with extra well. After so many years of seeing it unfold, I'd have to stupid not to notice the effect. I expect itr has something to do mentality, we seem to have nicely complementary mentalities, but anyway, whatever it is, I'm greateful for it and enjoy it.
I also find Canadians to be people it's easy to get along with. Perhaps Russ (Dawkins) might remember more precisely, but us two have been around for many a year, and will hopefully continue to do so for many years yet. The same goes for my Canadian customers.
With others, it's touch and go. There are good people everywhere, one just has to pay some attention. Same thing here, some awfully good people here, and yes, some pains in the ***. As in every group, everywhere, it's always a mix.
Frankly, I don't know what an $89k speaker sounds like, never heard one that expensive (outside a showroom). That said, and meaning no disrespect to MiiB, I seriously doubt it can ever be worth that kind of money.
After living with my own 1041 speakers for 13 years, I am still amazed at what can be wreaked out of a reasonably priced loudspeaker if enough development effort is put in. Their price was €1.500, or about US$ 1.740, which is not peanut money, but is truly cheap for what you get.
And the reason why I support Frank's views is that I was myself hit on the head by my own H/K 6550 integrated amp. Out of the box, it sounds all right, but definitely nothing to write home about, even if home is Tasmania. Then, while changing the electrolytics, I decided to change its volume pot as well, just that one thing, moving on froman el cheapo pot to the almost standard Alps Blue, no big deal. But the result was literally earth shaking, the amount of detail and sound stage info increased literally several times over, unbelievable. Frankly, if anyone had told that was possible, I would not have believed him. But it was my own units, in my home, and I knew exactly what was done to it. Insidentaly, it was NOT the power supply other than refreshing it, using the very same caps it originally had purchased from H/K as spare parts. One pot trasformed that so-so device into a truly sonically speaking High End device, and I must say, I haven't heard that much space and details on quite a few High End units costing 5 to 10 times its price. And seeing/hearing is believeing. Meaning I support Frank's views because I have experienced them to be true.
Nige, you really should look at the data sheet of ON Semi's MJL 4281/4302. A damn fime output device, TOp-3 plastic packaging but rated at 230 Watts. A very serious device.
After living with my own 1041 speakers for 13 years, I am still amazed at what can be wreaked out of a reasonably priced loudspeaker if enough development effort is put in. Their price was €1.500, or about US$ 1.740, which is not peanut money, but is truly cheap for what you get.
And the reason why I support Frank's views is that I was myself hit on the head by my own H/K 6550 integrated amp. Out of the box, it sounds all right, but definitely nothing to write home about, even if home is Tasmania. Then, while changing the electrolytics, I decided to change its volume pot as well, just that one thing, moving on froman el cheapo pot to the almost standard Alps Blue, no big deal. But the result was literally earth shaking, the amount of detail and sound stage info increased literally several times over, unbelievable. Frankly, if anyone had told that was possible, I would not have believed him. But it was my own units, in my home, and I knew exactly what was done to it. Insidentaly, it was NOT the power supply other than refreshing it, using the very same caps it originally had purchased from H/K as spare parts. One pot trasformed that so-so device into a truly sonically speaking High End device, and I must say, I haven't heard that much space and details on quite a few High End units costing 5 to 10 times its price. And seeing/hearing is believeing. Meaning I support Frank's views because I have experienced them to be true.
Nige, you really should look at the data sheet of ON Semi's MJL 4281/4302. A damn fime output device, TOp-3 plastic packaging but rated at 230 Watts. A very serious device.
Dan I was so pleased you got the point about cables. It is too easy to assume things. The solid core added to the multi was doing the usual solid core stuff. My feeeling is solid is a better starting point ( spaced by 25mm on tape ). A 2.5 mm cable will sound dull and a 0.25 mm bright. The 2.5 mm is the worst of all worlds as I don't hear better bass when using it. 2.5 is our 27 amp ring main cable. 1 mm 14 amp lights ( that's 10 amp under new regs used at 6 amp ). Most feel OFC transformer wire good value.
Naim Audio detested the use of output chokes. A 0.22R output resitor being prefered. To make some pennies thick Naim cable to keep it at that value. 0.6 mm of that resitance would be an idea and ditch the choke and reisistor. The ringing on square-waves often seen in tests is this choke. Valve amps do it from > 2 kHz. Hypex is not great.
Georfrey Horn tested the Naim NAP250 and found he prefered it to the Quad 405. He added a 0R22 to the 405 and found he had no preference. I have a hunch he was not wrong. How very brave of him. Spencer Hueghes said to me " I should like the Quad, in fact I like the Naim better "." People imagine my speakers are easy to drive ". The Spendor amp was very good and to me the best of the three.
Dejan . MJL 4281 etc. 1 amp at 100 V. T03P. That is only for 1 second and is rather good for TO3P. We are so lucky music is nothing like the book specs we think our amps can give. Here is an irony. If a valve says it can give a power it will. It's just the engineering is a bit large. Seldom were the valves unreliable. It was often the circuits. LS50 looks the better bet if wanting it compact or EL34/84. The 84 is a nice device. An op-amp will drive it. GU/FU 50 vesion of the Germany pentode are exceptional value.
I said some time ago I would like to cut the top off of a T03 and pump oil in like the oil cooled motorcycles. Perhaps we could then get the current to be related to the book spec. I asked my brother why a 2N3055 was rated 115 watts and yet would not give 45 watts continuous and then would need to be two devices. His simple answer was 25 C. " When did a transitor ever run at 25 C "? When Douglas Self's book came out I was in Texas. I went down to a small river to read. As far as I know I was the only human outside in Texas that day. It was high summer. I had my hat and bottle of water. Here I read how this really works. Yes I knew it by experaince. To read Mr Self it almost could be said that transistor specs are lies. So when Quad current limit a 2N3055 to 3 amps they are being generous. I just looked up 3055. At 40 V it is 3 amps. This makes me wonder. Would bridging give slight advatages? 3A at 38 V is related to 13 R ( 303 = 19 V rms 8R ). With double devices we do have some nice maths. Not advertising mens facts. Real facts. Coupled with the gentle action of the single diode protection we have something real. Make no mistake. Ask the Quad to give more than 3 amps and you get nowhere. Ask most amps and you get a chainsaw. I suspect the transient current would be higher and would drive <4 R. Slewing will not be a problem. What will be is the unfortunate harmonic cancellation.
I was playing very fast harpsichord music last night ( Rameau, Silvia Kind ). If the amp has a slewing problem it is doing very well. I have never heard it so good. I am convinced the summing of the feedback at the input really works. Could this slewing nonesense be the insistance in using a long tail pair input? BTW. A single transitor input stage where feedback is to the emitter is worse. The way Quad do it is so weird. It looks to have no gain util one sees that the VAS is not a Darlington. This allows a very reasonable input resitance. The feedback is summed at a node which I suspect is a near perfect node. Thus the need to slew is not as great.
Naim Audio detested the use of output chokes. A 0.22R output resitor being prefered. To make some pennies thick Naim cable to keep it at that value. 0.6 mm of that resitance would be an idea and ditch the choke and reisistor. The ringing on square-waves often seen in tests is this choke. Valve amps do it from > 2 kHz. Hypex is not great.
Georfrey Horn tested the Naim NAP250 and found he prefered it to the Quad 405. He added a 0R22 to the 405 and found he had no preference. I have a hunch he was not wrong. How very brave of him. Spencer Hueghes said to me " I should like the Quad, in fact I like the Naim better "." People imagine my speakers are easy to drive ". The Spendor amp was very good and to me the best of the three.
Dejan . MJL 4281 etc. 1 amp at 100 V. T03P. That is only for 1 second and is rather good for TO3P. We are so lucky music is nothing like the book specs we think our amps can give. Here is an irony. If a valve says it can give a power it will. It's just the engineering is a bit large. Seldom were the valves unreliable. It was often the circuits. LS50 looks the better bet if wanting it compact or EL34/84. The 84 is a nice device. An op-amp will drive it. GU/FU 50 vesion of the Germany pentode are exceptional value.
I said some time ago I would like to cut the top off of a T03 and pump oil in like the oil cooled motorcycles. Perhaps we could then get the current to be related to the book spec. I asked my brother why a 2N3055 was rated 115 watts and yet would not give 45 watts continuous and then would need to be two devices. His simple answer was 25 C. " When did a transitor ever run at 25 C "? When Douglas Self's book came out I was in Texas. I went down to a small river to read. As far as I know I was the only human outside in Texas that day. It was high summer. I had my hat and bottle of water. Here I read how this really works. Yes I knew it by experaince. To read Mr Self it almost could be said that transistor specs are lies. So when Quad current limit a 2N3055 to 3 amps they are being generous. I just looked up 3055. At 40 V it is 3 amps. This makes me wonder. Would bridging give slight advatages? 3A at 38 V is related to 13 R ( 303 = 19 V rms 8R ). With double devices we do have some nice maths. Not advertising mens facts. Real facts. Coupled with the gentle action of the single diode protection we have something real. Make no mistake. Ask the Quad to give more than 3 amps and you get nowhere. Ask most amps and you get a chainsaw. I suspect the transient current would be higher and would drive <4 R. Slewing will not be a problem. What will be is the unfortunate harmonic cancellation.
I was playing very fast harpsichord music last night ( Rameau, Silvia Kind ). If the amp has a slewing problem it is doing very well. I have never heard it so good. I am convinced the summing of the feedback at the input really works. Could this slewing nonesense be the insistance in using a long tail pair input? BTW. A single transitor input stage where feedback is to the emitter is worse. The way Quad do it is so weird. It looks to have no gain util one sees that the VAS is not a Darlington. This allows a very reasonable input resitance. The feedback is summed at a node which I suspect is a near perfect node. Thus the need to slew is not as great.
At 50 V yes.
I am teaching one of the ladies from work basic electronics. She is very gifted. Today is the truth about transitors. I though you might like to see the patent. It not only is before 1947 but also shows more or less what is the right way to do it ( not point contact ). The actual working is not the focus. It is seeing how a chip might be made. Heil who is said to be the true inventor showed drawings like valves. Heil I think was in 1935. If my memory is right a Japanese guy did something in 1927? I told Katrina that the 1927 device the pentode is still the more advanced if practicality is ignored. We quickly did diodes circa 1885, Electron weight Crookes/ Tomson etc 1897, 1905 triodes. The one I left out was Seimens circa 1880 for selenium cells.
I am teaching one of the ladies from work basic electronics. She is very gifted. Today is the truth about transitors. I though you might like to see the patent. It not only is before 1947 but also shows more or less what is the right way to do it ( not point contact ). The actual working is not the focus. It is seeing how a chip might be made. Heil who is said to be the true inventor showed drawings like valves. Heil I think was in 1935. If my memory is right a Japanese guy did something in 1927? I told Katrina that the 1927 device the pentode is still the more advanced if practicality is ignored. We quickly did diodes circa 1885, Electron weight Crookes/ Tomson etc 1897, 1905 triodes. The one I left out was Seimens circa 1880 for selenium cells.
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Yeah, quite a few situations where I reckon solid sounds better than multistranded.
Some older amplifiers used shielded internal signal cable with solid centre core.
In situations where I have removed multistrand centre core shielded and replaced with solid centre core the sound has improved to my ear....clearer, calmer, more precise.
I am running a pair of Behringer active speakers, and ditching the multistrand speaker connections and replacing with magnet wire is a decided improvement all round...much smaller conductors, but plenty of copper seeing as the length is only 10'' or so.
The Naim cable I have dealt with looked to me like 300 ohm antenna feeder cable...heavy, stiff, and the insulation looked to me to be outdoor rated.
Could it be that Naim just rebranded such cable ?.
I do know that Naim amps do not like capacitive cable and will go into oscillation.
The inductance of 300 ohm cable is what they need for stable operation it seems.
On the JCBT thread there is much buzz about build out resistors on power amps...this might be a good way to tame many modern AV receivers and render them listenable.
Yeah, I have always been suspicious of LTP input stage.
I have repaired 3in1's in the past with the input summing you mention..there is something good about this NF method I reckon.
The LTP does not cancel 1/f noise (actually generates it ?) in the way the summing method does I think...perhaps this is a clue.
Dan.
I thought Rod Elliot makes some interesting observations here in the link. Same device as Dejan likes. He says +/- 35 V is the limit. This seems to be about right. The Quad is exactly that and is with the more modest 3055.
I have had these problems driving motors. Nothing is like it seems. From this I understand most people are thinking their amplifiers are 6 times more powerful than is when sine-wave true. A 28 watt motor I drive needs a 150 watt amp.
Semiconductor Safe Operating Area
BTW. I read recently that FET's will tollerate 300 C if transient. This is the greater truth and not the secordary brakedown stuff that the FET is imune to. It isn't it should be said. It is a combination of small get out of gaol ( jail ) free cards the FET holds. Problem is FET's will let go when for ages it was safe. My feeling is call the SOA of a TO3 FET identical to bipolar but credit it with the self limiting action. I have measured Ron when slightly over run. It is horrible. I wouldn't doubt 8 ohms ? Feedback will not remove the fact the PSU is nowhere to be seen by the speaker if so, In Bipolar we can almost say the PSU is clamped to the speakers impedance wise. Even without feedback it is not bad.
I have had these problems driving motors. Nothing is like it seems. From this I understand most people are thinking their amplifiers are 6 times more powerful than is when sine-wave true. A 28 watt motor I drive needs a 150 watt amp.
Semiconductor Safe Operating Area
BTW. I read recently that FET's will tollerate 300 C if transient. This is the greater truth and not the secordary brakedown stuff that the FET is imune to. It isn't it should be said. It is a combination of small get out of gaol ( jail ) free cards the FET holds. Problem is FET's will let go when for ages it was safe. My feeling is call the SOA of a TO3 FET identical to bipolar but credit it with the self limiting action. I have measured Ron when slightly over run. It is horrible. I wouldn't doubt 8 ohms ? Feedback will not remove the fact the PSU is nowhere to be seen by the speaker if so, In Bipolar we can almost say the PSU is clamped to the speakers impedance wise. Even without feedback it is not bad.
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Next lesson....integrated circuits, circa 1925 - Loewe 3NF Multi-valve - The first integrated circuit
Tubes Within Tubes
My father has one of these IC's on a book shelf, and this one in the garage - AEG DC Motor, approx 1887
Dan.
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I wonder if ECC83 etc and previous ECC33 etc were to make the 1935 Blumlein long tail pair easy ? The intersting use is valve power amp designs. They don't call them long tail pairs. The typical is with 100 K and 91K anode loads to allow for the tail being too short. The Quad is very odd. 2 x EF 86 driving 2 x KT66. On paper 2 mA is not going to drive the KT66. In my oppinion it doesn't. I am sure the Quad 303 took the good points of the valve design and did more. What a simple valve circuit has in walk in depth. The Quad valve uses the more interesting cathode negative feedback used also by Trilogy amps. I recently added cathode style feedback using the secondary output side into the EL 34 cathode. Not sure it did much. It worked which surprised me as I was messing arround without maths getting in the way. Fire is what you deserve when doing that. Quad valve PSU is curious and almost Audiophile. It uses the better caps of the day. These look far too small to work. The amp uses common mode rejection to kill the hum. The problem is it doesn't completely. Nice try and it is an op amp in valves. Being class A I would welcolm being told it works or doesn't work. I have to agree and by sceince alone I am wrong to infer the hum can be heard. The amp is delightful when clipped albeit is lacking bass control. That means when well above it's limit we hear problems. The problem that brings is why not use it that hard if we can, it shouldn't harm it. So I am both wrong and right.
Radford used a valve not unlike the 7199 of Dynaco. Dynaco use the pentode for gain then DC couple to the triode as a concertina splitter. The Radford is a long tail pair of pentode in and triode for - input. This gives an interesting pentode+triode curve. Radford said although to me seems daft the the pentode is easier to drive signal wise!
ECL 86 is my favourite multi valve. It is like a full paint box. It is almost a ECC83/2 and a EL84.
Thanks for the links Dan.
Radford used a valve not unlike the 7199 of Dynaco. Dynaco use the pentode for gain then DC couple to the triode as a concertina splitter. The Radford is a long tail pair of pentode in and triode for - input. This gives an interesting pentode+triode curve. Radford said although to me seems daft the the pentode is easier to drive signal wise!
ECL 86 is my favourite multi valve. It is like a full paint box. It is almost a ECC83/2 and a EL84.
Thanks for the links Dan.
A bit of history. My mum and dad are early 1930's kids ( Sept 30 , April 31 ) . That was very brave as the depression was on the country. As far as I can tell when electricity arrived in everyones houses the seeds were planted for the Wall Street Crash. If you like people getting electricity was the oxygen of financial collapse ( radio companies with no chance of profit ). It would be interesting to speculate if Broadband might have caused the 2008 crash? Not the exact cause but the world moving too fast cause. That is we have computers and computers tell us all we need to know. Well it didn't see jealousy would throw Lehmann Bros to the Wolves did it. Right or wrong they should have been bailed out. Look where Greece is today!
The motor in the YouTube video is interesting.
During the Nazi occupation of Denmark, anything/everything that contained copper was confiscated to be turned into who knows what...brass gun/cannon cartridges probably.
My grandfather managed to hide this motor and thus preserve what was back then already historical.
I believe this AEG DC motor example was built in 1887 under licence to the Edison company.
My father (that's him talking) has done much research and it seems that this may be the only such motor in existence, a true piece of electrical history.
Dan.
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Thanks Frank.
I never got to meet my grandfather, but I did visit six months after he died after falling off the garage roof whilst cleaning the gutters at age 87.
.I did get to spend time with my grandmother who died last year at age 101.
I have very fond memories of her as a truly beautiful lady.
In said garage was a wicker laundry basket full of original 2A3 and the like..if I knew then what I know now....
My cousin (same age as me) was educated in electrics/electronics by my grandfather in the basement from a very early age as has told me many heart warming stories of their time together in DK.
My father has been touted as a guru of the Aus radio broadcasting industry, having designed and implemented many innovative industry products that continue to this day, and many such items have been copied by competitors.
Elan Audio
Retirement
That makes me third generation in the to me interesting field of audio.... it's also fun to teach the old dog some new tricks !.
Dan.
Ahhh ... it's in the blood - I'm of Germanic descent, my father came over between the wars, my mother after the 2nd - we were all alone in Australia, and only my maternal grandmother was alive when I got over there. I learned the language well enough to go for a 2nd visit, and have decent conversations with her, when she was in her 80's - like yourself, immensely satisfying memories.
I got my fusspot, "perfectionist" characteristics from my father, a carpenter who enjoyed roaming the country, in his DIY,
, quite large caravan ...
I got my fusspot, "perfectionist" characteristics from my father, a carpenter who enjoyed roaming the country, in his DIY,
, quite large caravan ...Blimey! Dan is of Danish origins, Frank is of German exctraction, and my grandmother by my dad was pure Vienese for 8 centuries back. Going still further back, by my grandma I have Czech, German and of course Austrian blood, and the other half is as Serbian as it gets (grandpa, Eastern Serbia). My late mum was etnic Serb from Bosnia, who narrowly escaped what the other 700,000 ethnic Serbs, Jews and Roma did not escape, death in the Croatian death cam of Jasenovac In the early days of WWII, the Croatian nazis, called ustasha, weren't yet confident enough to start mass killings, so they deported Serbs by train to Serbia, and that's how mum and her familiy (2 sisters and their mother) turned up in Belgrade in April 1941.
Which makes us a kind of a Nordic tribe.
Potentially, we are even better. When you cross Russians with Germans, you get Prussians, and they are people you definitely don't want to mess with. Bad dudes.
So Frank, we seem to share fates a bit here. My dad was half Austrian (and remember, Austrians are simply southermost Germans) and a mechanical engineer, specializing in machine elements (things like gearboxes and such) - that's as precise as you can ever hope for. I am partly like him, not quite him, but I do have a passion for precision. For example, the only thing I hate more than having to wait for someone is for someone to have to wait for me. I always had a Swiss watch, not because I am a fancy kind of guy, but because it helps me be on time. Typically, I arrive about 15 minutes early, that's my reserve time in case of traffic jams.
Which makes us a kind of a Nordic tribe.
Potentially, we are even better. When you cross Russians with Germans, you get Prussians, and they are people you definitely don't want to mess with. Bad dudes.
So Frank, we seem to share fates a bit here. My dad was half Austrian (and remember, Austrians are simply southermost Germans) and a mechanical engineer, specializing in machine elements (things like gearboxes and such) - that's as precise as you can ever hope for. I am partly like him, not quite him, but I do have a passion for precision. For example, the only thing I hate more than having to wait for someone is for someone to have to wait for me. I always had a Swiss watch, not because I am a fancy kind of guy, but because it helps me be on time. Typically, I arrive about 15 minutes early, that's my reserve time in case of traffic jams.
For fun I have redrawn the Quad 303 with MOS FET's. I dare say it would work. The diagram is that of John Ellis as it is a clearer version. It is slightly changed from the original. What I wanted to show is how Quad managed to make the feedback and gain work. I also show how what seems unforgivable is in fact the worlds cheapest and best DC protection circuit. No one can say the sound is ruined because it just isn't true. As it is almost 100 % certain your tweeter is capacitor coupled the tweeter cap can do two jobs. This overcomes any short fall in the large cap. I use 4700 uF coupling. This should produce ideal bass. Go to 10 000 uF if 4 ohms ( PSU > 22 000 uF if so ). I suspect much of the compenstion could be removed. The MOS FET's should offer a small improvement and needs no foldback limiter. Anyone who thinks useful musicial output exists below 5 Hz .......? Input coupling caps etc can be larger. The amp inverts so if with non Quad preamp just reverse the output cables. I think absolute phase is more important than all of the Audiofool stuff. The usual thing people say is the recording engineer often got it wrong. No he/she didn't. What they heard and what they mixed is the product. If the drum kicked in then that's what they heard. I still check bass units with a 1.5 V battery. Not tweeters as even if it worked the complex phase shifts mean better by ear. Try that yourself. See if you prefer your tweeter out of phase to usual. Mostly it will be better as designed. Often I found I could rescue a speaker this way. Usually the cap needs adjustment. The JPW Sonata comes to mind. Remove the series resistor and invert the tweeter phase. I stuffed the box with odd bits of high grade speaker damping. The tweeter no longer seemed broken ( Cheap Audax looking like Benz motif ). The sound in some ways bettered a BBC design then. The tweeter did not burn out. Nor should it as the cap was doing it's job OK. I have no idea what JPW were thinking of. If disconnected it would have been similar. The model below Sonata is OK. This makes it very odd. These were a pair given to me. I painted them with left over black spray paint to make them look OK. When they went to Pippa I really missed them. Pippa worked at the BBC so I tried very hard to make them BBCish. Silk purse I think .
It gets better, Dejan,
- my mother grew up in Vienna, they had a holiday house in Mondsee, near Salzburg ... and my father came from those northern regions where those stiff, military types you mentioned hang out, .My father's side is not so well known to me, they didn't have long lives, not the best genes it seems - on my mother's it was all doctoring and engineering.
I knew it! El Pearson Furioso did it again! Starts out with a nice classic design with a diff pair and a current mirror and ends up with a kiddie schematic and EXICOM MOSFETs. Just when I thought we managed to move him into the seveties, he reverts to the 60ies. Kinda makes you wonder why bipolars were discussed at all.
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