Tanka ........... SE and Balanced preamps, presentation

[Zen Mod]

As title sez - one name, two preamps.

Tanka SE, logically, being for single ended signal arrangement, so 5 RCA inputs, and one RCA output; I'm usually mounting doubled RCA outputs, wired simply in parallel.

Tanka (no suffix), balanced signal configuration, any number of 5 inputs can be arranged as (permanently) SE/RCA, balanced output can be wired to one or two (parallel) XLRs, or one XLR and (parallel) RCA

Tanka is is nothing else than tubed** Irreverent, which is nothing else than unnecessary complicated Fancy Iron Pre, having all the bells and whistles on board (big one), with integral 128 steps resistive attenuator, governed with little Arduino Gizmo and there is shiny TFT and heavy remote.

Dazzling, Shiny and Overwhelming characteristics speech: Fully dual mono, ultragigamega shunt regs, OhYeah! Gloving Toobz serving in buffers, precious Fujitsu relays for everything what's switched, volume attenuation constant Rin 24K, 128 steps of 0.56db each, ranging from -71.7 to 0db, and then (whadasurprize) autoformer (Cinemag or Jensen or Edcor repeaters) gain, settable to either +6 or +12db, yadayada.......

Button on front, fiddle left-right to set volume, push for incremental cycle through inputs 1 to 5.

**Tube-mosfet compound buffer, instead of same-sex-JFet buffer, as in Iron Pumpkin, Irreverent

 

[Zen Mod]

First what's common (for function) of both SE and balanced - little aux pcb, necessary for governing 3 separate custom made Donuts:

1. 30VA Donut, secondary 24Vct, relays and logic and 9Vac secondary - toobz heating; when mains switch is flipped, this Donut is energized pronto/directly...... then after some time (30secs) Arduino Gizmo is firing up solid state relay and energizing :

2. 30VA Donut, having two independent 56Vct secoondaries, each for one channel Low Voltage regs

and

3. 20VA Donut, having two independent 100V secondaries, each for one channel High Voltage regs

 

[Zen Mod]

Now, Tanka SE funny black and white technicals:

 

[Zen Mod]

And, Tanka SE funny sorta color technicals:

 

[Zen Mod]

....... Now, Tanka funny black and white technicals:

 

[Zen Mod]

And, Tanka funny sorta color technicals:

 

[Zen Mod]

Prototyping phase pics

Tubes used PC900, E180F (connected as triode) and ECC88

End choice is E180F for SE (needing one triode system/channel, and in this arrangement not possible paralleling 2 triode systems of ECC), and ECC88 for Bal (1 triode system per phase)

All named toobz are hefty xconductance and enough cojones for Iq; 90V at anode and Iq aroundish 10mA perfect

 

[Zen Mod]

Tanka SE Zero specimen; in fact, this project was commissioned and this one is serving as proof of ZM's Cojones ....... and demo gadget.

To/for whom, my lips are sealed, IP is still al mine and will stay as such

 

[stajo]

Joozy. Tried 6J9p here?

 

[Zen Mod]

Continuo

 

[Zen Mod]

Joozy. Tried 6J9p here?

6Ж9П is E180F

Russkie is pictured, I believe

 

[Zen Mod]

And then, my own workshop demo - Tanka, "industrial case", as way to preventing anyone to take it from my hands

 

[Zen Mod]

Continuo

 

[Zen Mod]

I believe I don't have vid for Tanka

Though, completely unplanned, here it is in clickety action, video posted few days ago:

 

[stajo]

Looks like it drives anything. Calculated z-out?

 

[Zen Mod]

under 10R buffer cell itself, then multiplied with autoformer ratio

as impedance ratio is (V/V)^2 ........

SE @6db ends under 40R, @12db under 160R

Bal, solely 6db, under 40R per phase

 

[Sorenm]

Oooh. Pretty vintage glow 😊

Congrats on officially launching these beautifully designed projects. Looking forward to seeing them in the wild.

 

[Tony Salsich]

The script on the display is very cool!

 

[stretchneck]

Lovely lovey work. If you believe in voicing, what amp did you voice/develop it with? I'm imagining Tanka gives extra tube goodness to F6/F5/F4 type, but some might be better off with Irreverent for Aleph J or M2 - is there such as thing as too much tube & Iron & H2 that things become gooey?

 

[Zen Mod]

The script on the display is very cool!

I had a dream of using Tesla-handwriting font for Greeting screen and Gradl for functional screen

After some wrestling with conversion of these to Arduino, and then with all limits I had regarding size/definition, due to TFT library I'm using......... well, I'm mostly satisfied

btw. in my head - Gradl is Led Zeppelin font

Pa did use, as my fragile memory sez, some variations of both Gradl and Plaza, on FW products

heh, howza there not something as Zappa font????

never did even think of it!

ggle is my friend:

https://www.fontspace.com/category/frank-zappa

edit: Pa did have Adresack too