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Life in the time of the Virus

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It seems now most of Europe, US, Australia and Asia is now in the grip of the most infectious virus the world has seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu.
All non-essential businesses, and even Schools and Universities, are about to shut down in Victoria, if not most of Australia. This will have a profound effect on small businesses, family life, and particularly on social life for all of us. :eek:

With a number of underlying health issues, my wife and I are in the zone and need to be very careful. No parties, no personal contact with friends and family, and minimised association with other people in any situation.

This is a moment in our lives where we need to remain calm and learn to spend our time in solitude, hopefully doing something useful like reading a terrific book, learning something of the world in a documentary, enjoy music, or - dare I say it - build something of beauty like an Aspen Amplifier!!

In the last eight years since my AAA nearly took me out, I have produced one after another of new designs. We have the latest version of the Maya, the SAKSA, the open source ALPHA and ALPHA Nirvana published by XRK971 in the SS forum. This last amp is a rare design from me; it is a Class A of quite unusual high efficiency (43%) and it does 39W into 8R. The sound quality of this amp is peerless, up there with my Maya.

I would like to offer my best wishes to all Aspen customers from past, present and future; and suggest that we will all get through it. It's serious, but with intense quarantine and isolation we will flatten the J curve and quickly contain the contagion.

And finally - buy an Aspen module, and put it in a box for your wonderful enjoyment through the next six months! :D

Ciao,

Hugh
 
Could the above qualify for what 'Private Eye' refers to as 'Desperate Marketing'! ;)

Here's part of a tweet highlighted in the current issue of the satirical magazine: "Help yourself today by self-isolating in comfort with a fresh new mattress from Mattress Man."
 
Dear Hugh,
Yesterday Indian Prime minister called for self curfew. social media helped a lot in knowing the seriousness of the virus issue. all Indians cooperated well by staying at home from 7 am to 9 pm. Indian government locked down 80 districts until march 31. it may get extended depending on the number of infected case . in my place pondicherry section 144 imposed.

Hugh and all aspen family members...Better stay at home and enjoy music .
 
Hello Hugh and all the guy's

Same in Canada, all non-essential businesses are shut down.

Here in mountain Laurentides in Quebec province, there is some roadblock, so we can't move very far. I'm in my house and I go nowhere. I don't have car and usually I do hitchhiking to go to the village, but peoples are frighten of the virus and nobody give me a lift to the village. Hopefully a friend did bring me foods.

So I listen to music and I'm doing few good but simples amps for friends, so they will have them wen the virus will go down.

Hope all will go ok for you Hugh and for the forum guy's.

Bye

Gaetan
 
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Thank you Gaetan! We are quietly climbing the walls, we are sociable people and love to waste time in cafes natting away..... I miss the cafes, I really do.
But as we enter the winter here, the days are seldom over 20C and life really is peachy. There is very little traffic either; I can drive the 14kms to the city of Melbourne in 20 minutes at 9am on Friday, which has not happened in Melbourne in perhaps forty years!
This reduction of activity has cut productivity heavily, and the Govt has just borrowed $130B to help with small business and staff so people do not starve. Our Govt has done a good job; we have some hope that we have flattened the peak, although we are expecting a few deaths in the next month. Victoria has 34 deaths as I understand, which is very low for a population of 6M, five of them in Melbourne.
We need to listen to our music, that is really the reason we are in DIY!

Hugh
 
Hugh,

Do not forget to wear your mask! We are in lockdown here in Hawaii. But there is still too many cars on the road. And don't visit your friends or anybody. Isolation is the key. That should not be hard for audiophiles. There must be light at the end of the tunnel.

At least you get to focus on your Omega. Be safe everybody.
 
Lock-down

Eventually the economy will override health concerns.
Indeed so, especially in countries where the economy is already messed up (SA.) Here in SA we have been in lock-down since 27 April and they want to extend this for an additional two weeks till the end of April (originally 3-weeks.) Can't get hold off basic diy home stuff to repair a blocked drain and broken pipe. Use the plumber is no doubt the answer, but they want to charge so much one almost requires a second bond on the house to pay them. Nothing to be done for the moment though, so will just continue till the lock-down ends.
Keep safe all,
Kevin
 
Hi Hugh,
I see that you use the Conrad heatsinks. Wonderful, excellent quality products. They are of course just a stone's throw away from you so makes sense to use them. Got a whole bunch of sinks from them back in 2014. Need to get some new ones to finish rebuilding my Bedini 25.25 amp. The original ones are way too small. Temperature on the box went as high as 80C in summer.
Kevin
 
Hi Kevin,

Conrad Heatsinks are now the only cast heatsinks manufactured in Australia. The principal, Julian Wales, is a close friend and lives at the factory, working six day weeks. He has the best work ethic I have ever seen, even though he suffers poor health. He loves Jaguars, and bought a 1973 V12 2+2 with 18k miles on the clock a couple of years ago. The car is mint, but the engine has a rear crank seal problem so he has removed the engine (!) and is rebuilding the rear main seal. He is also a very good violinist - aren't lots of electrical engineers music lovers?

He is delighted I'm designing Class A amplifiers these days!

His products are exceptional, beautifully cast and machined. They look much better than extruded heatsinks, and the casting process means that fins are always vertical, ideal for best cooling.

Thanks AS for the web link,

Hugh
 
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Indeed so, especially in countries where the economy is already messed up (SA.) Here in SA we have been in lock-down since 27 April and they want to extend this for an additional two weeks till the end of April (originally 3-weeks.) Can't get hold off basic diy home stuff to repair a blocked drain and broken pipe. Use the plumber is no doubt the answer, but they want to charge so much one almost requires a second bond on the house to pay them. Nothing to be done for the moment though, so will just continue till the lock-down ends.
Keep safe all,
Kevin
Here in Argentina hardware stores have been included in the "essential shops" list and large space ones (Think Home Depot and similar) are allowed to open partially.
I guess the idea is to keep itchy hands people like us spend time and energy doing home repairs.
Large retailers are 50/70% locked out of reach but they have a list of what you can buy: Paint - electrical hardware - hand and power tools and their accessories (drills, saw disks, etc.) - gas/plumbing stuff - construction stuff (bricks - sand - Portland cement) etc.
Even some wood if construction related.

I make Guitar amps and cabinets, almost running out of chipboard and MDF which is NOT allowed while phenolic multi ply is, same as OSB so absolute worst if this goes on too long I will need to use them.

Not that bad considering the circumstances.
 
I am tired of bolting amps to vertical heatsinks and am interested in the concept of the flanged heatsink from Conrad. I guess they would ship overseas so it’s a good option. I need to build a decent version of a JLH with modern power devices. Anybody with an appreciation for old Jags is a good chap in my books, pitty the latest Jags lack the style of the old ones. Heck, I may just get carried away and rebuild some of my Class AB amps to get away from those paperweight Chinese heatsinks.
 
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I am enjoying my MAYA during lock down . Hugh's journey from glass harmony to omega are fascinating. His hobby , spirit , interest , dedication and his contribution to this Diyaudio is immense. More over he is a good friend of his customers . he is a special person in my audio life . i am not good at technical level still i learned a lot from his contribution.
 
Amp rebuild

I think it can look elegant with the pcb horizontal and easy top down access to power device mounting screws.

This is a rebuild of a Bedini 25.25 that I intend to complete in the next week or two. I bought the flanged sinks from Conrad Engineering and the custom smaller ones (8FT with one half of fins removed) trimmed to fit, some time back. Mr Wales was extremely helpful. The only problem I had was drilling the holes into the flange. The drill press chuck is too large to get close to the sink, so the TO-3s were laid out length wise. The new sink is ~ 80% larger than original. Have a new 400 VA trafo & new PSU boards with 40 000 uF for each channel. The problem is getting the case finished off, but can & will be done later. Time to get these boards working. The lock down is helping. PCBs will be below flange with TO-3s top side.

Kevin
 

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