Ben Duncan Amp-01

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robaroni

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Joined 2010
#1
I received from a friend an unassembled Ben Duncan AMP-01. It appears to be quit robust with several circuit boards and thick (1/4") aluminum panels also top end parts (at least for the period (1984).
What I need are schematics so I can assemble the boards or better yet, the instructions for the 'kit'.

Thanks,
Rob
 
#2
The AMP-1 was featured in a 6 part series in the English magazine "Hi-Fi News and Record Review" (HFN-RR) from around 1984. Contacting them may be useful, photo copies etc.. From memory I think Ben DUNCAN'S operation was called Audio Synthesis, they may still be helpful but don't quote me on that!
If you get no joy from elsewhere over the next 10 days than get back to me by email,('members' contact details should work). I can probably generate some copies of the original articles....

Good luck, Jonathan
 
#3
Jonathan Bright said:
The AMP-1 was featured in a 6 part series in the English magazine "Hi-Fi News and Record Review" (HFN-RR) from around 1984. Contacting them may be useful, photo copies etc.. From memory I think Ben DUNCAN'S operation was called Audio Synthesis, they may still be helpful but don't quote me on that!
If you get no joy from elsewhere over the next 10 days than get back to me by email,('members' contact details should work). I can probably generate some copies of the original articles....

Good luck, Jonathan
Click to expand...

Thanks Jonathan!
From the quality of the parts it looks like a worthy project and I may be able to update some of the original chips.

Rob
 
#4
Ben Duncan chose the ICs very carefully to perform in each part of the circuit.
Often using very recently released and therefore expensive chips when other might have done almost as well.

If you do chip swap, be very careful with each selection to ensure the new specification actually suits the duty for which it must perform.
 
#7
I built this many years ago. I seem to recall it used an SSM2016 for the (balanced) phono stage input. I replaced this with the much simpler SSM2017 which also sounded a lot better. The pcb had an error on it (which I pointed out to BD) which caused dc offset on the o/p of the 2016 - although this was blocked by a coupling cap and did not seem to affect the sound.

Overall the complexity of the design was quite high and the sound was pretty average.

I have just had a search around and unfortunately I have binned all the orignal articles from HHN&RR.
 
#8
Dave S said:
I built this many years ago. I seem to recall it used an SSM2016 for the (balanced) phono stage input. I replaced this with the much simpler SSM2017 which also sounded a lot better. The pcb had an error on it (which I pointed out to BD) which caused dc offset on the o/p of the 2016 - although this was blocked by a coupling cap and did not seem to affect the sound.

Overall the complexity of the design was quite high and the sound was pretty average.

I have just had a search around and unfortunately I have binned all the orignal articles from HHN&RR.
Click to expand...

I hear you Dave.

"Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler."
Albert Einstein
 
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