Aha!!! Didn't even consider that (or, rather, didn't know about that!) - as you say, I thought it would/should have been 'ready to run' as the description suggests!!! Not to worry ...
I'll adjust this now and report back in 5 minutes ..... by the way, I've never had any music playing so far - when I said "powered up and all seemed well" I meant there were no puffs of blue smoke or anything else untoward at that point in the proceedings!!! I like to do an initial power up with nothing connected, before moving on to hooking everything up finally .....
Right .... fingers crossed ........!
I'll adjust this now and report back in 5 minutes ..... by the way, I've never had any music playing so far - when I said "powered up and all seemed well" I meant there were no puffs of blue smoke or anything else untoward at that point in the proceedings!!! I like to do an initial power up with nothing connected, before moving on to hooking everything up finally .....
Right .... fingers crossed ........!
EUREKA!!
Thanks XRK, that was all it was indeed - it's now blasting out clean beautiful music, hooray!!!!!!
I'll look on the bright side - in searching for what might have gone wrong I discovered a potential issue with my heatsink-to-chassis insulation, and realised some of my connector plugs were not ideal. So in some ways it was a useful distraction!
By the way - in my previous amp endeavours I've consistently used RCA cables (good ones), not being wholly convinced with any real benefit of going the XLR route, given the short routes involved (for me). As you saw in my pics, I had left the RCA leads connected and BTSB DIP switches set to 14dB but experienced considerable background hum when powered up this time. Knocked the BTSB settings down to 6dB and that helped a little, but still very evident. So I changed over a new set of XLR balanced leads I'd obtained for this amp and - wow - what a difference - dead silent, black background, no hum whatsoever! OK, so I'm converted to using balanced from now on ...... !!
Thanks so much for your help XRK, got there in the end. Now to connect up fully into my system and enjoy some music ...
Regards,
Richard
Thanks XRK, that was all it was indeed - it's now blasting out clean beautiful music, hooray!!!!!!
I'll look on the bright side - in searching for what might have gone wrong I discovered a potential issue with my heatsink-to-chassis insulation, and realised some of my connector plugs were not ideal. So in some ways it was a useful distraction!
By the way - in my previous amp endeavours I've consistently used RCA cables (good ones), not being wholly convinced with any real benefit of going the XLR route, given the short routes involved (for me). As you saw in my pics, I had left the RCA leads connected and BTSB DIP switches set to 14dB but experienced considerable background hum when powered up this time. Knocked the BTSB settings down to 6dB and that helped a little, but still very evident. So I changed over a new set of XLR balanced leads I'd obtained for this amp and - wow - what a difference - dead silent, black background, no hum whatsoever! OK, so I'm converted to using balanced from now on ...... !!
Thanks so much for your help XRK, got there in the end. Now to connect up fully into my system and enjoy some music ...
Regards,
Richard
Yay!!! 
Balanced is great stuff. With shorted inouts, the Warp-1 (this exact combo of PSU, BTSB, and amp) is one of the quietest amps I have ever measured with about 1uV rms noise background. Essentially black black background with no music playing.
Even with RCA there should not be any hum unless your source is a ground loop. One way to check is a 3.5mm to RCA cable and phone based DAC (like the little white iPhone dongle). This has no ground loops and if your amp plays clean and quiet then you have isolated the issue to something in your source having a ground loop.
For this reason, I always keep a phone DAC and RCA cable handy for testing new amps.
Balanced is great stuff. With shorted inouts, the Warp-1 (this exact combo of PSU, BTSB, and amp) is one of the quietest amps I have ever measured with about 1uV rms noise background. Essentially black black background with no music playing.
Even with RCA there should not be any hum unless your source is a ground loop. One way to check is a 3.5mm to RCA cable and phone based DAC (like the little white iPhone dongle). This has no ground loops and if your amp plays clean and quiet then you have isolated the issue to something in your source having a ground loop.
For this reason, I always keep a phone DAC and RCA cable handy for testing new amps.
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To be fair, just for testing my RCA cables were just dangled haphazardly between DAC and amp, near mains cables as well, with no regards for being careful! Also (again, only for initial testing) the amp was plugged into a different mains socket on the other side of the room with a long cable. Potential ground loop city!! In the final resting place all devices will be plugged into the same conditioner block, fed from a single nearby wall socket - this has served me well up to now, with no hum evident on my existing (sorry - previous!!) set up.
Cool. One other thing. Don’t operate the amp with nothing connected to the BTSB inputs and speakers connected on output. You will get hum as the BTSB has 47k input impedance and that is high enough to pick up EMI out of the air and amplify it. We have had many complaints from customers saying something is wrong with the amp because they have bad hum with nothing connected to the inputs. That’s not a normal use case. 
Enjoy your amp. I am quite confident you will find that it keeps up with just almost any other commercial amp out there in the 100w class and probably up to $4k price point. In the bass authority department, you probably won’t find anything better.
Enjoy your amp. I am quite confident you will find that it keeps up with just almost any other commercial amp out there in the 100w class and probably up to $4k price point. In the bass authority department, you probably won’t find anything better.
Hi XRK,
Just a quick, and hopefully final, update and my initial thoughts .....
Replaced all of my 'not ideal' connectors with the correct ones, adjusted BTSB back to 14dB (seems to provide more appropriate volume control for my set up), now fully connected up and plugged into to my system.
I have to say I'm impressed! After several (progressively increasing in quality) DIY amplifier builds over the last 5 years or so I thought I'd found my 'forever amp' with my last class AB build ..... but I honestly feel this tops it!
As has been reported before by other members on this forum, the clarity of sound across all frequencies is quite astounding, especially the bass control, which goes deep but remains full and honest. Seemed ever so slightly 'shrill' at the top end, but a small DSP adjustment has resolved that (to be fair, my tweeters are particularly efficient, so they're no doubt partly to blame!). Soundstage is at least on par with my class AB, if not better - need more listening to clarify this. I also find I'm able to pick out and locate individual instruments and sounds with more accuracy than before.
And, of course, the whole enclosure is half the footprint, weighs at least a third as much, and emits no/very little heat compared to my class AB 'lump'!
I, like no doubt many others, have sort of shied away from class D for a long time due to their historical and well documented potential shortcomings and issues. The likes of Purify, Hypex, et al have helped to change that perspective over recent years and show that, when done right, class D can indeed now hold its own. Having read as many reviews as I could about your amp (incl. of course the Warp 1), the universal feeling was that it sounded even better than these, hence why I decided to take the plunge. And I'm glad I did!
So, I'm a happy bunny! Thanks for providing a great design amp!
Just a quick, and hopefully final, update and my initial thoughts .....
Replaced all of my 'not ideal' connectors with the correct ones, adjusted BTSB back to 14dB (seems to provide more appropriate volume control for my set up), now fully connected up and plugged into to my system.
I have to say I'm impressed! After several (progressively increasing in quality) DIY amplifier builds over the last 5 years or so I thought I'd found my 'forever amp' with my last class AB build ..... but I honestly feel this tops it!
As has been reported before by other members on this forum, the clarity of sound across all frequencies is quite astounding, especially the bass control, which goes deep but remains full and honest. Seemed ever so slightly 'shrill' at the top end, but a small DSP adjustment has resolved that (to be fair, my tweeters are particularly efficient, so they're no doubt partly to blame!). Soundstage is at least on par with my class AB, if not better - need more listening to clarify this. I also find I'm able to pick out and locate individual instruments and sounds with more accuracy than before.
And, of course, the whole enclosure is half the footprint, weighs at least a third as much, and emits no/very little heat compared to my class AB 'lump'!
I, like no doubt many others, have sort of shied away from class D for a long time due to their historical and well documented potential shortcomings and issues. The likes of Purify, Hypex, et al have helped to change that perspective over recent years and show that, when done right, class D can indeed now hold its own. Having read as many reviews as I could about your amp (incl. of course the Warp 1), the universal feeling was that it sounded even better than these, hence why I decided to take the plunge. And I'm glad I did!
So, I'm a happy bunny! Thanks for providing a great design amp!
Hi Richard,
I’m so glad this worked out for you and you love the sound. It’s a very nice amp that is able to keep up or outperform many others in its class or even above its class. You basically built your own Warp-1 but it’s even got post filter feedback (PFFB) enabled, which the commercial version does not. So you are enjoying lower distortion sound than the commercial Warp-1.
Have fun!
Viet
Please post photos of your amp when you have time. System shots and your chassis implementation.
I’m so glad this worked out for you and you love the sound. It’s a very nice amp that is able to keep up or outperform many others in its class or even above its class. You basically built your own Warp-1 but it’s even got post filter feedback (PFFB) enabled, which the commercial version does not. So you are enjoying lower distortion sound than the commercial Warp-1.
Have fun!
Viet
Please post photos of your amp when you have time. System shots and your chassis implementation.
Hi XRK,
Some photos attached ...
Details:
1. Setup is Macbook Air running Audirvana 6.5 -- RME ADI-2 FS dac -- TPA3255 -- IPL Acoustics M1tlm transmission line speakers (also DIY built by me). Van Damme STARQUAD Balanced Cable with Neutrik Gold XLR connectors. Audioquest Cinnamon USB cable. 2.5mm OFC speaker cables.
2.. My small 'music room' needs to double-up as a spare bedroom, hence the laptop/DAC/amp being confined to being on/in the corner cupboard as shown. This dual purpose use means I also need to live with the 'put-me-up' bed-chair placed in between the speakers. I guess many of us need to live in real homes and make hifi sacrifices ... none of this is ideal, but ce la vie!
3. Amp chassis pics already shown in my post #278.
4. My apologies and thanks to @soundwavesteve for his inspiration, because I've blatantly copied his superb design for the front panel text! Sincerely hope you're OK with that soundwave, as it's meant totally as a complement to you - your result looked so good, and so right, I couldn't resist doing the same! If you're offended by me doing so, please do slap me on the wrist and I'll happily redress this!
5. You'll notice a few astro pics on the walls as well - I'm into astrophotography, what you see are all my own work!
Cheers,
Richard
Some photos attached ...
Details:
1. Setup is Macbook Air running Audirvana 6.5 -- RME ADI-2 FS dac -- TPA3255 -- IPL Acoustics M1tlm transmission line speakers (also DIY built by me). Van Damme STARQUAD Balanced Cable with Neutrik Gold XLR connectors. Audioquest Cinnamon USB cable. 2.5mm OFC speaker cables.
2.. My small 'music room' needs to double-up as a spare bedroom, hence the laptop/DAC/amp being confined to being on/in the corner cupboard as shown. This dual purpose use means I also need to live with the 'put-me-up' bed-chair placed in between the speakers. I guess many of us need to live in real homes and make hifi sacrifices ... none of this is ideal, but ce la vie!
3. Amp chassis pics already shown in my post #278.
4. My apologies and thanks to @soundwavesteve for his inspiration, because I've blatantly copied his superb design for the front panel text! Sincerely hope you're OK with that soundwave, as it's meant totally as a complement to you - your result looked so good, and so right, I couldn't resist doing the same! If you're offended by me doing so, please do slap me on the wrist and I'll happily redress this!
5. You'll notice a few astro pics on the walls as well - I'm into astrophotography, what you see are all my own work!
Cheers,
Richard
Attachments
IPL Acoustics: https://www.iplacoustics.co.uk/
Small company based in Devon in UK, owned by Ivan Leslie, specialising in 'best bang for buck' speaker designs . A range of DIY speaker kits to suit all tastes and room sizes. After seeing a multitude of rave reviews I purchased the complete M1tlm Ribbon 'kit' which, at the time, included all pre-cut woodwork as well (I note he doesn't supply the woodwork for many of his kits, now). I then assembled the kit and, after one or two abysmal attempts at painting by me I got a local car paint spray shop to paint them in 'Ferrari Red'. I know my limitations!! Once drivers and crossovers then fitted, a few more days experimenting with different amounts of long haired wool at the top of the TL port (just behind drivers) until I was happy, and job done.
Bass drivers are Ivan's 'IPL matched' units, which are Hi Vi Research (part of Swan Speakers group now) shielded double magnet 5" magnesium cone that have been specifically selected and matched as a pair by Ivan (more details on web site that explains this). Tweeter is Fountek CD1.0 ribbon.
Ivan is quite clear on matching the size of speaker to size of room - so much so that he'll dissuade you from going bigger (i.e., more expensive) if he feels it won't work for you. Now that's what I call service! For just 5" drivers, they really 'rock' as well - nothing like a transmission line design for deep powerful bass!
Small company based in Devon in UK, owned by Ivan Leslie, specialising in 'best bang for buck' speaker designs . A range of DIY speaker kits to suit all tastes and room sizes. After seeing a multitude of rave reviews I purchased the complete M1tlm Ribbon 'kit' which, at the time, included all pre-cut woodwork as well (I note he doesn't supply the woodwork for many of his kits, now). I then assembled the kit and, after one or two abysmal attempts at painting by me I got a local car paint spray shop to paint them in 'Ferrari Red'. I know my limitations!! Once drivers and crossovers then fitted, a few more days experimenting with different amounts of long haired wool at the top of the TL port (just behind drivers) until I was happy, and job done.
Bass drivers are Ivan's 'IPL matched' units, which are Hi Vi Research (part of Swan Speakers group now) shielded double magnet 5" magnesium cone that have been specifically selected and matched as a pair by Ivan (more details on web site that explains this). Tweeter is Fountek CD1.0 ribbon.
Ivan is quite clear on matching the size of speaker to size of room - so much so that he'll dissuade you from going bigger (i.e., more expensive) if he feels it won't work for you. Now that's what I call service! For just 5" drivers, they really 'rock' as well - nothing like a transmission line design for deep powerful bass!
I also am a big TL fan. I have a DIY version people have built with good success. Also 5in woofer but with 28mm dome tweeter.
I have a TL now commercially licensed to Galion Audio in Canada. It’s called the TS Voyager TL.
My prototype is in bamboo but Galion production will be stained birch.
Here is the Galion TL getting measured in a chamber:
Custom crossover I designed:
I have a TL now commercially licensed to Galion Audio in Canada. It’s called the TS Voyager TL.
My prototype is in bamboo but Galion production will be stained birch.
Here is the Galion TL getting measured in a chamber:
Custom crossover I designed:
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Hi X,
I have an issue with my XV-1.
I wanted to listen through the RCA input for the first time yesterday (because I bought a new cable, until now I used XLR) and the amp produced a constant beep. The problem doesn't exist without an input cable or with an XLR. What could be the problem? The input stage is the RTR buffer board.
Many thanks in advance for any advice.
I have an issue with my XV-1.
I wanted to listen through the RCA input for the first time yesterday (because I bought a new cable, until now I used XLR) and the amp produced a constant beep. The problem doesn't exist without an input cable or with an XLR. What could be the problem? The input stage is the RTR buffer board.
Many thanks in advance for any advice.
Hi Plott,
What is an XV-1? A DIY Warp-1? Or is the XV-1 some other commercial amp?
When you say it makes a beep - the TPA3255 amp makes a beeping sound from speaker outputs?
Note that when two things connected to BTSB panel mount, the relay automatically connects whatever is plugged into XLR/TRS as priority. So if you leave an XLR connected, plugging in RCA should do nothing.
The beep concerns me as that sounds like you are saying it makes a sound like an oscillation. I have never heard a beep from the Warp-1 before.
My go to test to make sure things are working nominally is to use a smartphone with a small DAC and 3.5mm to RCA output cable. An iPhone 3.5mm lightning dongle works well. The smartphone is nice because their DAC’s are very quiet and ground loop free. Does that play music ok?
What is an XV-1? A DIY Warp-1? Or is the XV-1 some other commercial amp?
When you say it makes a beep - the TPA3255 amp makes a beeping sound from speaker outputs?
Note that when two things connected to BTSB panel mount, the relay automatically connects whatever is plugged into XLR/TRS as priority. So if you leave an XLR connected, plugging in RCA should do nothing.
The beep concerns me as that sounds like you are saying it makes a sound like an oscillation. I have never heard a beep from the Warp-1 before.
My go to test to make sure things are working nominally is to use a smartphone with a small DAC and 3.5mm to RCA output cable. An iPhone 3.5mm lightning dongle works well. The smartphone is nice because their DAC’s are very quiet and ground loop free. Does that play music ok?
It's my interpretation of the WARP, maybe you can remember https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...ign-class-d-amp-with-pffb.372379/post-7325423
Yes, there is a continous beep throug the speakers, when an RCA cable is connected (and no other cable on the XLR input).
No beep when nothing is connected.
I can test it with an AK high res mobile player, it is quiet and has a super DAC.
Thanks for the advice, will do it soon.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...ign-class-d-amp-with-pffb.372379/post-7325423Yes, there is a continous beep throug the speakers, when an RCA cable is connected (and no other cable on the XLR input).
No beep when nothing is connected.
I can test it with an AK high res mobile player, it is quiet and has a super DAC.
Thanks for the advice, will do it soon.