I have this amplifier which, believe it or not, I won in the UK magazine HiFi Choice competition they run every month when I was living there back in ´97... I've modded it in several stages, the last one a couple of years ago and, as I was tidying up my LTSpice circuits folder, I realised I'd never shared anything about it. Since there's very little info to be found out there other than the user manual, which I uploaded myself to HiFi Engine here, I thought I'd post at least the stock schematic in case any owners (if any left!) google for it. Note that the sensitivity, S/N and FR figures shown are simulated, not measured.
I've also attached a picture post-the last mod, I have some more detailed ones if anyone is interested (sorry, I didn't keep any before pictures). The little transformer and PCB at the bottom are a remote volume control kit from Dantimax, the small PCB on top of the main one is a 4th-order Butterworth high pass filter I put at the output of the phono preamp to get rid of a nasty 10Hz resonance in my cartridge and underneath it is where the discrete preamp used to be, which I removed and replaced by re-purposing the opamp that was the input buffer for the Tape 1 input. I also modded the phono preamp and the output stage. I can go into more details about the circuit and my mods if anyone is interested.
Cheers,
Cabirio
I've also attached a picture post-the last mod, I have some more detailed ones if anyone is interested (sorry, I didn't keep any before pictures). The little transformer and PCB at the bottom are a remote volume control kit from Dantimax, the small PCB on top of the main one is a 4th-order Butterworth high pass filter I put at the output of the phono preamp to get rid of a nasty 10Hz resonance in my cartridge and underneath it is where the discrete preamp used to be, which I removed and replaced by re-purposing the opamp that was the input buffer for the Tape 1 input. I also modded the phono preamp and the output stage. I can go into more details about the circuit and my mods if anyone is interested.
Cheers,
Cabirio
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Is there any indication as to who built this amp for Talk? I could be wrong but I think the name was taken from the cable company Cable Talk but I was not aware that they actually made amplifiers.
Yes, as far as I remember it's the same company, that started as Cable Talk (at the time one of the most popular hifi cable manufacturers, at least in the UK) and later became (or spawned as a separate company, not sure) Talk Electronics. In the letter I got from HiFi Choice they say "the prize will be delivered directly from Cable Talk", but the letter that came with the amplifier says "Talk Electronics - Manufacturers of Hi-Fi Electronics" and at the bottom "Directors: A.L. Hopper K.S. Edwards", so I googled and found this, where it says "Edwards Audio was created in 2009 by Kevin Edwards, the founder of TALK Electronics". No idea if Kevin Edwards is a well known amplifier designer, I'd never heard of him.
Edit: further googling reveals he founded Talk after leaving Exposure, at the time a highly respected brand, iirc.
Edit: further googling reveals he founded Talk after leaving Exposure, at the time a highly respected brand, iirc.
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