Well if the money is an issue, and if you cant solder, and if a little setback is going to cause crushing disappointment, and financial ruin then you have no business building "anything" to begin with...GRollins said:Well, let's see, there's simple and then there's simple...
1000 watts? That's a little ambitious. Not in the simple category. Even if the circuit is simple enough conceptually, it's going to involve a lot of money and the consequences of a bad solder joint could be spectacular in the fireworks sense of the word. Crushing disappointment and financial ruin are not good memories to take from your first project.
Grey
No reason to bother building a 10 or 20 watt amp... Thankfully there are lots of very simple amps out here that have a very small parts count and they will give you substantially greater and better output than the amps this guy is pushing...GRollins said:If it's a first project, then a more modest 10 or 20W amp would be a good bet.
Grey
Now that wasnt a very nice thing to say now was it? Especially since I am the person who posted those other "MUTTS" that you feel have questionable pedigree...GRollins said:There are numerous small amps here and there on the web, but the pedigree of some of the mutts is questionable.
Grey
Yes that is the industry standard what every amplifier manufacturer set their hearts on achiving in high performance state of art amplifiers... You did what they couldnt... Everyone has been trying to design their amps to run as hot as possible and they have failed miserable over the years but you ahve done it... gotta get em right to the edge of the soa and do 300watts idling or its simply no good...GRollins said:In the running for Simplest Amp Possible is the Son of Zen. Two transistors and a few resistors. Can't beat that for simplicity. But...it runs seriously hot (by design) and requires a power supply the size of a Volkswagon.
Grey
Yeh and I feel so bad and financially ruined because I made the mistake of buying a mutt... and I hate to even admit it but my mutt runs at slightly above room temperature while driving over 800 watts into a 4ohm load at an ear crippling .15% max distortion 20-32k... and you would not believe it man these guys screwed up so bad they even forgot to put heatsinks or fans on it, and the most heat I can get from it is slightly above room temperature... and to make matters even worse, it idles at a bankrupting 12 watts...
I am so depressed...
Yeh these amps are a great choice if you like a barnburning, (get it grolins?), that is a barn burning 10 watts!!! that is >2.5% distortion at 2volts and thanks goodness it increases to >10% distortion at 20k at 10 watts... If thats what you like then the zen amp is just the amp for you... and as a special blue lite bonus, if you are a ham radio antenna builder you will have special sentiments for the High impedance deluxe super high pedigee amps because you are sure to enjoy building the matching networks required just so you can get the thing to work with your speaker... and then dont forget as an added blowout special you will also need to design a different network for each different speaker you want to put it on too... so you can be proud that you invested in a high quality, high distortion, high heat, high pedigree designs I guess... What fun!! Um errr...GRollins said:One notch up the complexity scale is the Zen. A few more parts, but a lot more versatile in terms of matching with speakers. Not a bad choice.
Grey
Then again several orders down in complexity, in the lowest pedigree known to man is a really nasty little 50 and 60 watt amplifier right from the zero pedigree company who designs and manufacturers the transistors... Now that is no doubt the lowest mutt of all, and granted I realize this but I feel even the lowest mutts deserve to accounted for...
http://sound.westhost.com/project19.htm
http://home.mira.net/~gnb/audio/lm4780.html
Unlike the amps this guy is pedaling, these amps have and unsurmountable 2 more parts than the zen amp and they are really small cool running easy to build amps from the most worthless mutt company of all, national semiconductor, and they have a max distortion of .1% at rated output 20-20... but then like the saying goes you get what you pay for... Um... or do you?
There are many people on this site who are very much in the dark in these and other areas as well and have no clu that a well designed class ab amp is spectrally cleaner than a class a amp and they still spout the class a jibber... tests have been done to prove this... but that doesnt matter because they have feedback... LOL when ya want more sales create a mystery and solving a problem that does not exist... the idiots will argue about for years...
Then again most of them have absolutely no clu as to what happens to the motion of a speaker or the quality of that motion when connected to a hi impedance amp versus a low impedance...
How about grolins, you da man, I just got off da farm I dun know nottun...
So you get the honors, show everyone the math model and present to them how many db of garbage will be generated and combined with the original content of the source using one of your .25ohm output impedance amps driving a signal of 10 watts into a 4 ohm coil speaker load that with an eff of 108db/w/m... Oh and better yet lets also do one using one of your 15ohm output impedance amps on a 4ohm driver... Now lets do one for a .001ohm output impedance amp...
Can you even do it? Did you even think of it? Dont worry when you are finished I will cover for ya and correct your mistakes...
So whats my point? Welllll my point is, if you want lots of harmonics injected into your original source material as a result of the amplifier losing control of the driver then a High Z amp is just the thing for you...
If you want to precisely control a cone in a mannner that this cone will produce and move exactly according to what the program material is putting into it, (ie: put the preamp output on a scope and compare it to the cone movement to see if they match), If you want them to match then Hi Z is not going to achieve that for you... also if you are not using horns a hi z amp will not perform anywhere near as well as a low z amp... and you will enjoy lots of yelping at more robust volume levels...
Yeh yeh spare me the tube sounds better lingo... Just throw a resistor in series with a low z amp and presto you now have that wonderful tube sound...
I personally want to hear "EXACTLY" what is coming from the source, and I certainly do not want to have to build a matching network to tune my speakers like I would a freakin cb radio, and I certainly do not want a yelping speaker when I turn up a little bit to hear my favorite part...
Then there is also the lesson on why you want more than 10 watts on a speaker, 110db horns included, and then another lesson on the loudness of live instruments, but I will save that for another time...
Now you may feel that fresh off the farm is a really bad thing groalin, but on the bright side, at least we can discern the difference between a rose patch and a pile of sh*t...
I read the specs on most of the pass labs amps and I was nearly ready to say there is not one amp I would buy, but now I cannot say that as the aleph 0 I think it was would have been one I would have considered... but for the rest... better you than me...
By the way tell us how many of those amps you called mutts that you actually built or heard?