Late Again...
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/gallery/showfull.php?photo=14618"4/ Those of you who have built one of my designs OWE me - you owe me photos of your creation!" A.W.
As usual I am late for the party. Even worse the host has past on. Mr. Wright will be missed, but his designs will live on.
Cheers; Glenn
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/gallery/showfull.php?photo=14618
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/gallery/showfull.php?photo=14618"4/ Those of you who have built one of my designs OWE me - you owe me photos of your creation!" A.W.
As usual I am late for the party. Even worse the host has past on. Mr. Wright will be missed, but his designs will live on.
Cheers; Glenn
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/gallery/showfull.php?photo=14618
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@Glenn: Looks amazing! What volume control are you using?
And: You might face heat problems with the SuperRegs built in confined like this. Allen used the 25mm heatsinks in the RTP nearly in free floating air, and some even lost their colour from the excessive heat, but the FETs continued running. Now we use the bigger HS-profile in 50mm length for both, CCS and shunt, and things get still quite hot.
CD: Allen sold this for a short time until he realized that giving a painting by numbers instruction is not within the meaning of DIY, which should live from the creativity of the builders. The concepts and working basic schematics are still available on our website, everything needed around the audio circuit can be found elsewhere. And it will give you a preamp better than nearly all what's commercially available out there.
There is still (currently slow) progress in development, but the results will only go into the finished products. For the business we need to distinguish kits from the finished units, not only in appearance, but also in sonics. That's a lesson Atma-Sphere learned years ago, and we learned it as well.
Thomas
Vacuum State GmbH
And: You might face heat problems with the SuperRegs built in confined like this. Allen used the 25mm heatsinks in the RTP nearly in free floating air, and some even lost their colour from the excessive heat, but the FETs continued running. Now we use the bigger HS-profile in 50mm length for both, CCS and shunt, and things get still quite hot.
CD: Allen sold this for a short time until he realized that giving a painting by numbers instruction is not within the meaning of DIY, which should live from the creativity of the builders. The concepts and working basic schematics are still available on our website, everything needed around the audio circuit can be found elsewhere. And it will give you a preamp better than nearly all what's commercially available out there.
There is still (currently slow) progress in development, but the results will only go into the finished products. For the business we need to distinguish kits from the finished units, not only in appearance, but also in sonics. That's a lesson Atma-Sphere learned years ago, and we learned it as well.
Thomas
Vacuum State GmbH
Thank you for all your nice comments.
The case style is a rip off of the lyra connoisseur. The nice thing about arriving late is that I can borrow from all of the other members. I think you will find a lot their ideas in my case. I have added two new ones. I used a LSK389B-SOIC in place of the 2SK170 and replaced the BF245C with some BF545C surface mounts. All the components for a CCS can be mounted on a small perf board.
Thomas;
The volume control is from Khozmo.High Quality Audio & Industrial Attenuators and Passive Preamplifiers They are 48 steps. The housings are laser cut and anodized. They look as good as they sound and are priced competitively. He has a new relay design that is a 1/4 the size.
Thanks for the heads up on the heat sinks. In this box the tubes are mounted in holes that create a chimney effect drawing the cool air from the bottom. The shunt boards are mount up side down with the vents cut directly below them. There will be regular changes as parts are swapped and the condition of the heat sinks monitored. After six hours of operation the case reached about 110 F. The power supply is stone cold.
The CD. I will admit that the CD would have been handy. This way I have learned so much more. Like most mentors, they will be cursed as one word can be turned into a month long learning curve. For me it was wrapping my mind around the constant currant source and Mr. Wright's applications of them. " That trick, all by itself, kept me in Pizza - if not fast cars for years!" A.W.
It sounds like the reviewers say. When you turn it on its nothing special. It does not offend in anyway. It is fast, but with out etched transients. Its after it warms up that you realize you are listening to something special. Wide deep sound stage. Plenty of detail and base. For me it is still early days and there will be parts changes. "seasoning to taste". Mine will never sound like a true RTP3C... But I'm happy.
Cheers
The case style is a rip off of the lyra connoisseur. The nice thing about arriving late is that I can borrow from all of the other members. I think you will find a lot their ideas in my case. I have added two new ones. I used a LSK389B-SOIC in place of the 2SK170 and replaced the BF245C with some BF545C surface mounts. All the components for a CCS can be mounted on a small perf board.
Thomas;
The volume control is from Khozmo.High Quality Audio & Industrial Attenuators and Passive Preamplifiers They are 48 steps. The housings are laser cut and anodized. They look as good as they sound and are priced competitively. He has a new relay design that is a 1/4 the size.
Thanks for the heads up on the heat sinks. In this box the tubes are mounted in holes that create a chimney effect drawing the cool air from the bottom. The shunt boards are mount up side down with the vents cut directly below them. There will be regular changes as parts are swapped and the condition of the heat sinks monitored. After six hours of operation the case reached about 110 F. The power supply is stone cold.
The CD. I will admit that the CD would have been handy. This way I have learned so much more. Like most mentors, they will be cursed as one word can be turned into a month long learning curve. For me it was wrapping my mind around the constant currant source and Mr. Wright's applications of them. " That trick, all by itself, kept me in Pizza - if not fast cars for years!" A.W.
It sounds like the reviewers say. When you turn it on its nothing special. It does not offend in anyway. It is fast, but with out etched transients. Its after it warms up that you realize you are listening to something special. Wide deep sound stage. Plenty of detail and base. For me it is still early days and there will be parts changes. "seasoning to taste". Mine will never sound like a true RTP3C... But I'm happy.
Cheers
Glenn/dot,
Awesome work man. Allen sold me the CD a few years before his passing, and I still cherish it. It indeed has some awesome details to minimize errors in wiring. But to be honest, if you build this unit in stages, it will minimize errors anyway. I have yet to build mine, but someday
Your post is greatly inspiring! For the volume control, I'll probably go with a true ladder attenuator relay from AMB.
Enjoy and welcome to the world of DDR! (Downward Dynamic Range!).
Best,
Anand.
Awesome work man. Allen sold me the CD a few years before his passing, and I still cherish it. It indeed has some awesome details to minimize errors in wiring. But to be honest, if you build this unit in stages, it will minimize errors anyway. I have yet to build mine, but someday
Your post is greatly inspiring! For the volume control, I'll probably go with a true ladder attenuator relay from AMB.
Enjoy and welcome to the world of DDR! (Downward Dynamic Range!).
Best,
Anand.
Yes, lovely-looking preamp and PSU - I do appreciate the Connoisseur homage. I also really like the way you have put the valves on display. My constructions were intended to be as close in layout to Allen's as possible, though the overall fit and finish of mine are nowhere near the VSE units (or yours!).
I would agree with the recommendation to give the heatsinks in the SuperReg plenty of air - the regs in mine do indeed get quite warm.
I am still enjoying both my RTP3 and SVP, and am still tinkering with the shunt regulators. Having struggled with the reliability of my original shunt regulators (Emile Sprenger's HPHV) I replaced them with Salas' Shunt regs, but always had a suspicion that the technical performance of an op-amp circuit should be superior so I finally bought a couple of SuperReg kits from VSE for my RTP3. I am in the process of cloning a couple of these on matrix board for the SVP2.
Alex
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Everything needed to build the preamp leaving out the guesswork.
That said the CD had errors in the wiring for the line stage...
Buy the shuntregs and the rest is almost given in the preamp cookbook.
Ditto!
I was offered one of these second hand but the price was rather high. Armed with Allen's Cookbook I'm sure a person with some experience is capable of successfully building the RTP. I would still like to know what's on the disc (and why they are not available again from Vacuum State Audio)
For info, regarding the SuperReg, I did ask if the PCB's were available and received the following reply -
"yes, we can offer you the PCBs without the kit.
We charge EUR 75 per PCB, that makes EUR 150 for two plus 15 for p&p to UK."
After getting over this shock, I decided to learn how to layout my own PCB's using KiCad and my version is virtually ready to be sent for manufacture (I am making a SVP2).