Babelfish XA252 / Babelfish XA252 SIT / Babelfish XA252 SET

I got the XA252 SET fired up on the bench. My crappy test speakers are singing!!!

25+25V donuts get me 31.8V rails.

One channel I max out the bias current pot at ~1.7A The bias pot is clicking at max.
The other channel I max out at about ~1.6A.

The heatsinks on the Bose chassis can take a lot more... I'm tempted to go up to 1.8A, close it all up and see how hot it gets.

ZM- should I drop in a ~1K2 in position R28 to get a little more bias?

Tomorrow I'll let it cook a few hours.

Once I get bias dialed in just right I'ts on to the faceplate. This will take some creativity to get right. 2 analog VU meters + backlighting, 2 LED VU Meters that I'll replace, and a logo light.
 

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I moved the amp from the bench to my Tannoys last night and listened for a while. I left it on all night, and now I've had about 90 minutes of music and some coffee.
Spooky. 3D. Detailed. Fast. BASS. Dead quiet. Simply beautiful.

I'll have to try this on my Hartsfields next. I'll wait until I have finished the bling VU meters on the front panel.
Superb job ZM!! And of course, blame Pa! :cheers:
 
The front panel is the next phase of this project. Parts are inbound now.

It will have a logo at the top left with backlight. I will add a LED meter at the open hole on the left. And I will backlight the big analog meters and make them dance, too.

For now, audio only.
 

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I used the original Bose plexi/lexan as the cutting & drilling template. Mine came out "good enough", I think. The cuts will be behind the metal plate, which is behind the smoked glass. So my sins will be twice hidden.

At first I looked online for someone who does custom cut/print on lexan. Honestly didn't look too hard after I found a price of $50+tax+ship to cut one small piece. Printing not included. So it looks like more DIY Time.

My solution - I bought 2 sheets 12" x 12" x 1/8" of white translucent plastic on Amazon and printer transparency sheets.

I used a jigsaw with "ultra clean" blade on the plastic, then tiny and successively bigger drill bits for the holes.

I played around with fonts printed up some "logo" text on the transparency sheets and cut it to fit over the lexan. The print isn't perfect, but I'm sure it will be fine hiding behind smoked glass. I tried the current Formula 1 font, which looked cool. But I think it will look dated quicky. The font you see is "Optician Sans", which looks like a classic eye chart.

I'll repeat this cutting and drilling process on the LED VU Meter plastic.

The transparency of my lexan is different from the original Bose. Let's what happens with 2023 LED's or LED bayonet bulbs vs. 1970's incandescent.
 
yeah

Bubba Bob is in possession of Holy Set of pcbs

zero specimen - all prototyping finished wit those

in fact, he initially got very next set, but he was successful in BigBadaBoom

:clown:

#452, I've told him then - in future, you'll get populated and tested and pre-set channel modules

he's my Bubba, so why not
 
I used the original Bose plexi/lexan as the cutting & drilling template. Mine came out "good enough", I think. The cuts will be behind the metal plate, which is behind the smoked glass. So my sins will be twice hidden.

At first I looked online for someone who does custom cut/print on lexan. Honestly didn't look too hard after I found a price of $50+tax+ship to cut one small piece. Printing not included. So it looks like more DIY Time.

My solution - I bought 2 sheets 12" x 12" x 1/8" of white translucent plastic on Amazon and printer transparency sheets.

I used a jigsaw with "ultra clean" blade on the plastic, then tiny and successively bigger drill bits for the holes.

I played around with fonts printed up some "logo" text on the transparency sheets and cut it to fit over the lexan. The print isn't perfect, but I'm sure it will be fine hiding behind smoked glass. I tried the current Formula 1 font, which looked cool. But I think it will look dated quicky. The font you see is "Optician Sans", which looks like a classic eye chart.

I'll repeat this cutting and drilling process on the LED VU Meter plastic.

The transparency of my lexan is different from the original Bose. Let's what happens with 2023 LED's or LED bayonet bulbs vs. 1970's incandescent.
I suppose if the new piece has its own bulb, you could probably change the resistor feeding the bulb to dim it a little bit. Looks pretty good. I'm really excited to see it wrapped off. I bet you are too.

As flocchini said, The sound will get better and better. 🙂
 
Progress Porn Post. A window of opportunity for a rare two days without life getting in the way of pleasant pastimes arose and I did the carpe diem bit. Built the XA252 and Scryer kits that had wended their way through Ancient Batsch (twice), Viking land and finally to this rock a few months back. Fun.

Sadly, completion is in the hands of customs as they have the chassis' and toroids. So we wait....
XA252.jpg