USSPA Build thread

[AnthonyA]

Hi everyone,

I had been participating passively. And following the diy progress of Dominic aka Pinnochio. Excellent diy work and built and learn alot from the posts.

I came across this interesting preamplifier. Ultra simple symetrical preamplifier by fabaudio. I couldn't find any open group buy for it and contacted Fab direct and he graciously let me have the pcb. Thank you Fab.

This is an extremely exciting project for me because my buddy have all the transistors in stock. And he kept raving about them. But hey.. Where is the fishished goods?? Fab have a great design.. Let's do it!
Happy to find a great heat sink locally. Start populating the board
Some of the parts is non existance locally
Like the cap and feedback R. Waiting for them. I like to use carbon film for gate resistors especially with mosfets and with my experience the sound is much more heavy and musical . The rest will be a mix of quality parts.

Talema toroid is ready and I'm also waiting for the supply module. I prefer lt 1963 lt 3015. As it have a good mix of quietness, dynamism and pssr. Yet will not dry out the music, ringing etc. I use them successfully in a few projects. I had tried alot.

Depending on the shipment. I will update accordingly

Chiao
Anthony

 

[fab]

I will follow your thread closely
Fab

 

[AnthonyA]

Just waiting on some capacitor from ebay. Uk and we are good to go.

Hard to find high quality 4.7r. So used holco 5.1 ohm
0.33r dale for ground break, which should be fine.

 

[fab]

Your selected resistors values are fine.

Just a note that C2/C4 and C3/C5 values and cap type are selected to get the lowest resulting impedance at all relevant frequencies so it is recommended to stick to the BOM for these power supply caps.
Fab

 

[AnthonyA]

I hear ya fab found the x7r smd samsung

Caps all here. Just waiting for my buddy to dig out the jfet

Already matching the finals as we speaks

 

[AnthonyA]

Transformer ready. Rs. Which is high quality. And i got this favourite ic. Well if its suitable. Will get 2 for dual mono.

I may run it 15v or 17v depending how it sounds

Already have both super through or mundorf main cap. Will try both to see which one better. I would probably use schottky diodes. Also depends how it sounds

5mm base plate aluminium.

 

[AnthonyA]

Finally tr matched after much hunting around the net for the unobtaniums jfets
Jfet within 3% idss
And the fets at 1% vgs
Slapping on thermal paste on them was so satisfying

Got a few mishaps with fakes and luckily a good Samaritan pointed me to the right direction.
Now I got enough of the fairy dusts for fssa amplifier

 

[AnthonyA]

Preview

I had completed the preamplifier for almost a week.
View attachment 771733

I had installed it inside a diy goldmund mimesis clone to make it a integrated amplifier.
I'm going to do a first below 100 hours review. Break in was quite straight forward. Bias at 80ma. With a 1963/3015 power supply at 15v. Very easy to get it to run.. The documentations from Mr Fab is class A+. Smooth operations


Preamplifier that i often listen to.
Tron seven
Conrad Johnsons.
Mark Levinson
Sonic frontier
Pro stuffs
Hafler
Sansui Marantz luxman. And so on and so forth
Parasound

Some I own and some I borrowed or at my friends house.


Associated equipment DAC. Mirand 4490 with discrete output with usbridge allo.

Speakers nht 2.3a / Yamaha ns 10. The two I tried.

Cables. Acro link rca2200ii Speaker cables1010. Power cable pc7300.

Usspa is extremely transparent without being thin and irritating. But., since it's very transparent. Careful matching is necessary. It like neutral sounding cable. For me it's acro link black rca.


The stage is like a class a sound. Huge, room filling. Wide. Each sound is placed well separated., more to the front and more to the back. It sounded more like MBL kind of sound stage, all rounded, front seat, very different from like Mark Levinson/tron which is more raw and linear middle of row seat. Very quiet background. No noise whatsoever. Good design.

Vocal is class A like. Light airy, thick focused, bloom, without glare. The bass is not the punch it dynamic type. But articulate heavy enough and satisfying enough. The low releases well and it gets better with time.. Since transformer is also new it takes time to get better. What it does better than the rest of preamplifiers is the atmosphere and reverb. Enough slam and excitement. Linearity is good. Thick and focus but too bloated. Not too colored to make everything sound the same. Great dynamic bandwidth where it should be soft it's very soft
. Where it should be dynamic its dynamic. Musicality is good, slightly. more than ml or tron but not too mushy. It's a little more "colored" in that sense.. More informations compared to ml or tron however. Which I like!

I threw all sorts of music. Pop. Jazz. Classics. Vocal. Acoustics. It does very very well on difficult tracks. Like LA bamba by ozone percussions. Santana black magic woman. Adele. If you can listen to the whole track without losing interest.. They have such flat recordings.

So it's a top tier preamplifier that does a lot of things well and beyond and you don't have to spend a bomb. Which I did .. And man.. Well it's a journey right?

Don't think I should say too much yet since it's a 100 hour below review. Not completely cohesive yet. I shall post a long term review after more burn ins.

Going to bring this to more friends with more experience and see how it fares. MY Buddy is making his usspa as well. And I will post if I have something interesting to say. Or not

But for now., very impressed with this preamplifier. Thank you. Fab for your pcb, designs, and wisdom.


Thanks everyone for reading.

 

[fab]

Thank you AnthonyA for your comments and for this detailed preliminary review . I believe you have assembled the USSPA1 (mosfet output) version.

I would be interested to get also feedback for the USSPA2 (Sanken bjt output) version. Maybe your friend?

Note that your attachment does not show in your last post.

Fab

 

[AnthonyA]

Completed integrated amplifier


My buddy on test. Bias slightly smaller. Waiting for heatsink.

Carbon resistor mostly

He said it's crazy good.. He is a much more experieced diyer than me. He repair hifi audio for living

 

[fab]

I am glad your friend likes it

Fab

 

[AnthonyA]

Yes he changed it.

He commented its the most successful diy preamp he made.and he made plenty.

He is going to make a 18v supply using Sony schematic.

So far I still prefer 1963 3015 version. It gets better as It breaks in. The sound is much more heavy and focused. And the dynamic and bandwidth is better..



Another buddy was so angry I did not get a set pcb that he made it himself . He decided to make balanced for his x150 phasslab. Feeding to his kharma speakers

 

[fab]

Excellent...the USSPA spreads out
Keep on reporting
I can have another small batch of pcb done if required.

Fab

 

[AnthonyA]

OK Fab, I'm interested and need 7 sets more usspa boards. Please reprint them.

I reckon others might take the opportunity join in here to get the pcb board

 

[AnthonyA]

YouTube

Well recorded off Samsung hp
Hope you like Chinese songs

 

[fab]

No problem for other USSPA pcbs.
I will wait until August 13th to take other members possible pcb orders and then I will send my order to the pcb manufacture for the required quantity. Ordering quantity is either 5, 10,15, 20, 25....
Price will be in the range of about 10$ plus shipping (CAD) depending on quantity. One pcb is a stereo set that can be separated.
I have an assembly manual for the pcb buyers that includes USSPA1 (mosfet output) ans USSPA2 (bjt output).
So please hurry.

List:
AnthonyA : 7 pcbs


Fab

 

[Vunce]

List:
AnthonyA : 7 pcbs
Vunce : 2 pcbs

 

[fab]

Small group buy for pcb

Just a reminder.
H2 can be adjusted to suit your taste but nominally it is already good enough
I find USSPA2 with excellent audio Sanken bjt transistors as output is as good as USSPA1.

Find below extract of manual. The bom includes the detailed part numbers from Digi-Key (most parts).

Fab

 

[Vunce]

Thanks for putting together this small preamp GB, Fab.
Your time and effort you put into your manuals is much appreciated.
The attachments you included are just page 1 and 2. Where can I download the rest of the manual? Thanks!

 

[fab]

USSPA small group buy

Hi Vunce
You are welcome. I think detailed manual is important to ease assembly.
Every pcb buyer will get the full manual by email.
In the mean time, here is another extract of manual showing schematics of USSPA2.

Fab