Babelfish ᄅſ....or FW J2 on Steroids .... or Not your Father's J2!

Smooth build, and great kit. WOW - this amp is amazing. Musical pinpoint machine of the highest order. Thank you ZM (and pa)!! I’ll have to redo my wiring, as this chassis has finally found a permanent resident. With that in mind - ZM, do you recommend taking speaker (-) from the board or PSU? I’m using single-ended, so I jumpered IN(-) to Gnd. Correct?
 

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Smooth build, and great kit. WOW - this amp is amazing. Musical pinpoint machine of the highest order. Thank you ZM (and pa)!! I’ll have to redo my wiring, as this chassis has finally found a permanent resident. With that in mind - ZM, do you recommend taking speaker (-) from the board or PSU? I’m using single-ended, so I jumpered IN(-) to Gnd. Correct?



if your wiring is neat and tidy - thin for signal in and fat for everything energy related - it's pretty much same thing - take speaker return from Cap Bank or from channel pcb

neg in grounded , that's ok

I'm happy for ya , that you're happy

that's one damn nice amp ; even if it maybe looks complicated , it really just few parts are singing , and most importantly - I didn't forgot to include Green LEDs in construction

that's the bloody secret

even Pico started using LEDs in everything he's making :rofl:
 
Of course I don’t have the patience to what for the testing jig. I’m sure it will come in handy again though. Revised my jfet sorting tray. I drilled a series of 5/8” dia. holes halfway into a piece of wood flooring with a forstner bit. Thanks for the idea ZM. Starting from the beginning testing until the reading settles. We’ll see how long it takes me to get through 50 jfets. 😀

keep up with good work

enjoy in process of matching itself, that's great Zen practice

:clown:
 
Nice!
This is really special amp. I tried all 3 variations and for me SS in lower position is best sounding.
Neutral, fast, detailed, lean and spacey sound with great grip on bass... Really, one of the best amps ever.
I will make one with dual mono construction - the one I am listening right now is with one transformer only 🙁
Try to set bias on 1.8A. To me, this is when it sounds best.
 
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You’ll love it jwjarch! The amp I swapped out was an Aleph J (one of my favs).

Chakija - that’s good feedback on different iterations. I may try and swap in the 150s at some point. I have a dual mono config in a single 4U/300 chassis, and am only able to get about 1.5A Iq before going above 55c. I may keep this chassis for another amp and swap ZMJ2 into something that’ll dissipate a bit more heat.

All in all, I’m a happy camper and have definitely found my new reference amp.
 
Good to know codyt. Seeing as the Aleph J is a lot of people’s favorite of the Alephs, including Papa’s, I’m even more excited about getting this one together. Almost through matching all 100 of the 2sk2145’s. What can I say... I was on a roll. :rofl:
 
I finished up the ZM-ification of my ZMJ2. I was dealing with a bit of hum and took the opportunity to rebuild my PSU with ZM’s cap banks and NTC boards. Great PCBs, and my hum is resolved. It’s a pseudo-dual mono setup - I’m using the dramatically oversized Antek 8420.

Long story short, I’m still loving this amp! I picked up a pair of 90db Triangle’s and the amp really sings with them. That said, it still does an awesome job with my 85db LS50’s. They’re both 8R nominal with dips around 4R, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising.
 

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Love the glow of those LEDs. 😉 Nice work codyt!

I gave up on my orginal jfet matching jig. It just didn't seem consistent enough. I could test the same jfet twice and get different results depending on the pressure or way I was pushing down on the fet.

I just got the SOT23 test jig in yesterday. On to rematching all my jfets! 😀