FWIW ... I've been in electronics since the late 1960s, first as a hobby then as a profession. I've worked on home entertainment, pro-audio, office equipment, two way radio, industrial electronics and, of course, on computers. I've also trained a couple of hundred technicians in my day and used to teach beginning electronics for my employer. There are even a couple of patents out there with my name on them, but owned by my employer (of course).
Throughout all of that my most frustrating experiences have always been with the guy with just enough knowledge to be bloody dangerous. Brave enough to mess around but with absolutely no real knowledge of what he's doing.
Given that we appear to share that experience I find it rather surprising that you would so off-handedly eschew the learning process in favour of a quick result. I did mention that a large number of people's first projects fail miserably... and this is why... they want to assemble a project they simply do not understand, then things go wrong.
Oh yes, what I have not seen of electricity installation, made by "my nephew, he is so good to these things" and computers "My neighbors son is a real genius to computers" It do also always wonder me! 🙂
Why I chose to jump over learning about making an amplifier? Simple, I have no illusion on being able to build anything that have the slightest chance for making a sound, look I barely know the name of the components🙂 So if I do think that I can read "electronic for idiots" and then build something barely usable, I think I have to seek a doctor. I want to learn to build amplifiers and a lot more, but for a start would I try to learn to assemble and see how things work, that do work, start to measure and so on. So why not ask if any off you know a build that sounds like I like it to. In other word, have an amplifier that works, and just play with a copy of it, to learn what is happening. Lets take the LightSpeed attenuator, a fantastic project, killing most other solutions and simple to assemble, when you do follow the instructions. But totally impossible for me to invent. I am just trying to start with something that do work, and have a great amp in my "lab"🙂
Why I chose to jump over learning about making an amplifier? Simple, I have no illusion on being able to build anything that have the slightest chance for making a sound, look I barely know the name of the components🙂 So if I do think that I can read "electronic for idiots" and then build something barely usable, I think I have to seek a doctor. I want to learn to build amplifiers and a lot more, but for a start would I try to learn to assemble and see how things work, that do work, start to measure and so on. So why not ask if any off you know a build that sounds like I like it to. In other word, have an amplifier that works, and just play with a copy of it, to learn what is happening. Lets take the LightSpeed attenuator, a fantastic project, killing most other solutions and simple to assemble, when you do follow the instructions. But totally impossible for me to invent. I am just trying to start with something that do work, and have a great amp in my "lab"🙂
Sure and there have been a number of suggestions for your first build.
However; I think it is folly to expect to go directly from "Is this a piece of wire" to an audiophile level project. There's just too much than can go wrong...
Yes there are some great suggestions, I am just trying to explain my reason for saying "i want the best" and "I wont learn it first"🙂
A lot can go wrong and I do not expect to buy the best components but simply assemble the board, and correct the 55 errors, reassemble, correct again, and so on, until I have mangled the board to trash, and then start all over again🙂 My idea is simply to know that what I am working with, do in fact work, so if it don't, it's my fault and not some stupid design error. 🙂
Have you looked at my design... many of things of the things you mention such as:
are mirrored by many of my comments scattered in the thread. You'll have to read it all and I'm not sure if any of those who had boards commercially made have any remaining. You would have to ask.
My MOSFET amplifier designed for music.
are mirrored by many of my comments scattered in the thread. You'll have to read it all and I'm not sure if any of those who had boards commercially made have any remaining. You would have to ask.
My MOSFET amplifier designed for music.
If you build the honey badger from diyaudio store, the build guide has the name to all the parts. "CCS, LTP, VAS, driver, VBE multiplier, emitter follower". It has more power than one needs for 72 db response @ 1/8 w base, but you might buy/build 82 db 1W1m speakers so you need 1 W base level. Educational without even building it.
The downside to it, if one of your solder joints pops loose, it can fry your speaker voice coil with DC. Split supply amp. Needs an add on protection circuit immediately. I didn't consider one because the pcb is too big to fit in my burnt up amp, and that was single supply, no center tap transformer. Had to be a speaker capacitor PCB 3.5" x 5.5" or less.
I don't know anybody selling boards for speaker capacitor amps like AX6, Basic 50, TGM8. Not even LM1875, all the boards on ebay I've found are speaker burner split supply.
I built AX6 point to point after the djoffe ST120 bias control board point to point that really helped HD. And a pwgtang ST120 improvment board point to point that didn't work. When something is wrong, the speaker capacitor takes all the DC voltage, no problem. IMHO < 0.5% hd that AX6 has is inaudible with most speakers. If you're building a headphone amp, 10 W is viable and >.05% HD might be audible. I hate headphones, personally, and the FM radio I use as a source most of the time has a headphone amp internally. So does the PC that streams WCPE-FM. I drive the mixer with that jack, mix in LP MM (moving magnet cartridge), CD line level jack. The mixer is as quiet as a PAS2 preamp (after diy mods), and I don't have to turn the source selector switch and adjust the volume every time I change from one source to the other.
The downside to it, if one of your solder joints pops loose, it can fry your speaker voice coil with DC. Split supply amp. Needs an add on protection circuit immediately. I didn't consider one because the pcb is too big to fit in my burnt up amp, and that was single supply, no center tap transformer. Had to be a speaker capacitor PCB 3.5" x 5.5" or less.
I don't know anybody selling boards for speaker capacitor amps like AX6, Basic 50, TGM8. Not even LM1875, all the boards on ebay I've found are speaker burner split supply.
I built AX6 point to point after the djoffe ST120 bias control board point to point that really helped HD. And a pwgtang ST120 improvment board point to point that didn't work. When something is wrong, the speaker capacitor takes all the DC voltage, no problem. IMHO < 0.5% hd that AX6 has is inaudible with most speakers. If you're building a headphone amp, 10 W is viable and >.05% HD might be audible. I hate headphones, personally, and the FM radio I use as a source most of the time has a headphone amp internally. So does the PC that streams WCPE-FM. I drive the mixer with that jack, mix in LP MM (moving magnet cartridge), CD line level jack. The mixer is as quiet as a PAS2 preamp (after diy mods), and I don't have to turn the source selector switch and adjust the volume every time I change from one source to the other.
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OH sorry!!! Yes I have looked at it and it looks great, I have not answered back because I am still reading🙂 But yes it's what I am looking fore. Thank you so much for sending the links!!
WOW you are talking my language🙂 You think like I do, it's not a great system if you end up, only hearing 10% or your collection, because the rest sound aweful! I'd rather have a "bad" sound and a smile, while listening to Jazz, recorded in a celler with an microphone from the local fleamarked. Okay maybe a bit exaturated, but you get the meaning🙂
I did once listen to the Densen beat B-100 (have tried to build one, not a great result!! 🙂
The schematic is hard to read: file:///E:/Documents/Forst%C3%A6rker/PWR/Densen%20B-100%20(Schematic).pdf
EDIT: Except from that about B&O sounding great, I hated that sound, you give high end prises for Shopping mall quality. I had a plastic, all in one, with plastic gramophone player and flimsy tape decks. It sounded terrible, but still a joy to listen to after visiting a friend who owned a 10,000$ B&O "HI-FI" system.
I have never heard a B&O sounding as good as a $400 system, all included.
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Lots of people like a mid-range boost on vocal, it is pretty common in the recording industry. The plastic record player sound. Nothing wrong with that. IMHO it is better to do that with a graphics equalizer than the amp. My Peavey Q215 equalizer cost nothing, but finding & resoldering a bad joint that made the left channel dead. Allison Kraus sounds walking to the stage talking to the band nothing like she does on stage. Charlie Pride reportedly had a nice voice in his bar band days, but the sound in the recordings has reverb. BTW vocal recording mikes often have 200-8000 hz response, nothing more.
Mooly said in post #107 of amp for music "The single ended input stage always sounded better to me than a long tailed pair, maybe because it helps avoid the ever present problem of common mode rejection of the differential pair. Even with OpAmps I use the shunt or inverting configuration for this reason."
My AX6 and ST120 pcbs have single ended input. My PV-4c has an inverted input NJM4560 op amp for the VAS. Maybe I'm listening to that by default, but I listen to about 3000 LP's & 200 CD's and like almost all if they aren't all scratched up, dusted up, or have the highs ripped off by a cheap cartridge. I don't own any LTP "blameless" amps. Too many wires for PTP, and the commercial ones are too expensive on the used market. But on rock & organ music I like full power full frequency bass & on bells percussion & piano I like highs all the way to 14 khz where my ears roll off. I've played in symphonic band and play piano & organ, real music sounds like that to the musician.
MOSFET amp for music has 2SA162 2SC1058 in post 1 and 2SJ162 2SK1056 on page 99 post 981. Mythical lateral fets. Good luck buying any. I checked farnell danmark & RS UK and one has some toshiba 2SK1056 in SOT package that looks good for about 600 mw. Yeah, there is exelon in Europe for laterals, why don't the schematics posted here all list that, not the Toshiba parts from 1990? RS redirects the search to vertical fets you could salvage out of any flat screen TV. Nothing else. Apex AX6, Bigun TGM8, & honeybadger are built out of parts you can actually buy at a distributor, no counterfeiters necessary.
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Should you be interested in going the LM3886 chipamp route (which is relatively straightforward) one suggestion could be something like this:
An open source layout for LM3886?
There are many other good LM3886 implementations, and some that are absolutely top-of-the line like the Neurochrome. The reason i mention this particular implementation is that i have a pair of spare boards that will go towards a stereo amp that i would be happy to send you if you decide to build it. I also have a simple PSU board that i can throw in as a bonus (its just a bank of 4 caps essentially, nothing fancy).
You will then need: A chassis (i used a mini dissipante from modushop, €100 approx), 160-300 VA toroidal transformer with dual secondaries 18-22 V (a bit higher is also OK i think, i used 2x18V), and parts from mouser (€50-75).
There are a couple of build examples, i recently posted mine if you're interested to have a look. I've used it happily the past month and a half, and the build i've shown in the thread is absolutely noise and hum free.
An open source layout for LM3886?
There are many other good LM3886 implementations, and some that are absolutely top-of-the line like the Neurochrome. The reason i mention this particular implementation is that i have a pair of spare boards that will go towards a stereo amp that i would be happy to send you if you decide to build it. I also have a simple PSU board that i can throw in as a bonus (its just a bank of 4 caps essentially, nothing fancy).
You will then need: A chassis (i used a mini dissipante from modushop, €100 approx), 160-300 VA toroidal transformer with dual secondaries 18-22 V (a bit higher is also OK i think, i used 2x18V), and parts from mouser (€50-75).
There are a couple of build examples, i recently posted mine if you're interested to have a look. I've used it happily the past month and a half, and the build i've shown in the thread is absolutely noise and hum free.
We are going back a long long time here 🙂 It was this one:
Beocenter 3500
And the amp I built was this one, which if you look at the price... and that it was sonically up there with the B&O, and I was still at school 😉 you get the idea.
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