I am in the fortunate position of not only having hifi as my hobby, but I work in the industry also.
My DIY interests are growing somewhat also, and I have recently "acquired" four 360VA good quality toroidal transformers. 230VAC primaries with 17V, 29V and 32V secondaries (the 29s were meant to be 39, and so these were rejected. Being potted they're consequently of little use to anyone, so I got them for free).
Thus the obvious is to use these as the basis for a power amp. Using two transformers per channel (one for positive rails, one for neg, common ground) this will give an enormous amount of current capability. Of course, the output voltage of the transformers means that ultimate power is limited to around 100W or so (or 200W if bridged), but that's plenty enough.
The question is what to do? Obviously I can buy some Tripath or D2 or whatever digital evaluation modules, slap them in, mod them a bit and be done. Alternatively I can go completely old school, and build a class A of a fraction of the power (and keep the room toasty through the winter). Or go with a class AB (not quite sure why, other than I can base it on an existing design that sounds pretty good)...
Given your experiences, which path would people here favour, given the transformers?
My DIY interests are growing somewhat also, and I have recently "acquired" four 360VA good quality toroidal transformers. 230VAC primaries with 17V, 29V and 32V secondaries (the 29s were meant to be 39, and so these were rejected. Being potted they're consequently of little use to anyone, so I got them for free).
Thus the obvious is to use these as the basis for a power amp. Using two transformers per channel (one for positive rails, one for neg, common ground) this will give an enormous amount of current capability. Of course, the output voltage of the transformers means that ultimate power is limited to around 100W or so (or 200W if bridged), but that's plenty enough.
The question is what to do? Obviously I can buy some Tripath or D2 or whatever digital evaluation modules, slap them in, mod them a bit and be done. Alternatively I can go completely old school, and build a class A of a fraction of the power (and keep the room toasty through the winter). Or go with a class AB (not quite sure why, other than I can base it on an existing design that sounds pretty good)...
Given your experiences, which path would people here favour, given the transformers?
With the high current capability of your transformers, you can build a nice Class-A like the ZenV4 with a little less power. Or you can parallell two ZenV4s per channel.
First you have to specify what the rating of each secondary is as the TOTAL rating of the transformer is 360 VA. What if it is 17 V@20 A = 340 VA and then the others at 250 mA? That info sort of dictates what the most suitable amp is...
The current on all three is quite high, but highest (afaik) on the 17V and 32V. Certainly a significant number of amps (the transformer is specified for a class G amplifier, and thus the secondaries are all quite high output for the inner and outer rails. Even the 29V (was meant to be 39V) are pretty hefty. The amplifier they are specced for is a 3x70W class G design). I will see if I can find out the exact spec.
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