Thanks for the interest!
No, website not up to date, still working on it.......
85W SAKSA and 200W Maya are in stock, my best amps in fact, and a third about to be offered, the Titan, of 125W - a middle power amp to round off my products.
I'm waiting on manufacturing a batch of the Titan amps. Should be here before Xmas.
Welcome to Aspen!!
Hugh
No, website not up to date, still working on it.......
85W SAKSA and 200W Maya are in stock, my best amps in fact, and a third about to be offered, the Titan, of 125W - a middle power amp to round off my products.
I'm waiting on manufacturing a batch of the Titan amps. Should be here before Xmas.
Welcome to Aspen!!
Hugh
Hi Raj,
Yes, I will give you the 'lowdown' on the Titan.......
Beginnings
I walked into my workshop a year ago and surveyed the inventory. Hmmm. Too many bipolar transistors; small drivers (C4793 and A1837), and large outputs (C5200 and A1943). I resolved that I would design an amp using bipolars again - like the AKSA, Lifeforce, and Soraya - so that I would use these excellent semis before I fell off the twig.
Evolutions
I examined my hit rate with amp designs. The early bipolars were very successful, particularly the AKSA, the Lifeforce, and the Soraya - and since that I have been able to refine my front end and VAS stages quite a bit more. So, I thought that I would use a singleton input, a buffered VAS, and a hybrid CCS/bootstrap. Yes, that would do it.......
Choosing the power
I have the SAKSA at 85W, and the Maya at 200W. I needed something around 125W, and at this middle power I could use only two matched paired outputs, like the AKSA Nirvana. A more powerful amp would need three or even four matched pairs; that is an expensive and difficult exercise, but matched pairs is practical and a large number of raw devices yield a lot of pairs.
Layout
I have a lot of excellent new cases, built for the SAKSA. I thought a monoblock Titan would be very appealing; you could fit one channel with a 300VA toroid in one box and the thermal dissipation could avoid the expensive heatsink since the box material is single piece 3mm Aluminium.
I created the first pcb, had a few manufactured in Shenzhen, and then slowly stuffed two for my prototype.
Here is the prototype pcb attached, the production version is a little more refined.......
I will tell you more about the listening tests next post!!
Thanks for the interest, this Titan is a very good amplifier, I'm quite proud of it.
Cheers,
Hugh
Yes, I will give you the 'lowdown' on the Titan.......
Beginnings
I walked into my workshop a year ago and surveyed the inventory. Hmmm. Too many bipolar transistors; small drivers (C4793 and A1837), and large outputs (C5200 and A1943). I resolved that I would design an amp using bipolars again - like the AKSA, Lifeforce, and Soraya - so that I would use these excellent semis before I fell off the twig.
Evolutions
I examined my hit rate with amp designs. The early bipolars were very successful, particularly the AKSA, the Lifeforce, and the Soraya - and since that I have been able to refine my front end and VAS stages quite a bit more. So, I thought that I would use a singleton input, a buffered VAS, and a hybrid CCS/bootstrap. Yes, that would do it.......
Choosing the power
I have the SAKSA at 85W, and the Maya at 200W. I needed something around 125W, and at this middle power I could use only two matched paired outputs, like the AKSA Nirvana. A more powerful amp would need three or even four matched pairs; that is an expensive and difficult exercise, but matched pairs is practical and a large number of raw devices yield a lot of pairs.
Layout
I have a lot of excellent new cases, built for the SAKSA. I thought a monoblock Titan would be very appealing; you could fit one channel with a 300VA toroid in one box and the thermal dissipation could avoid the expensive heatsink since the box material is single piece 3mm Aluminium.
I created the first pcb, had a few manufactured in Shenzhen, and then slowly stuffed two for my prototype.
Here is the prototype pcb attached, the production version is a little more refined.......
I will tell you more about the listening tests next post!!
Thanks for the interest, this Titan is a very good amplifier, I'm quite proud of it.
Cheers,
Hugh
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Hi Hugh,
The board looks great, very much up to and even beyond your usual standard. Like many other people, I'm sure, I look forward to reading about impressions of the Titan's performance. Titanic, surely?! BTW, is the input cap a MKT, or one of the vintage MKP's you acquired a couple of years ago?
Best Regards, Peter
The board looks great, very much up to and even beyond your usual standard. Like many other people, I'm sure, I look forward to reading about impressions of the Titan's performance. Titanic, surely?! BTW, is the input cap a MKT, or one of the vintage MKP's you acquired a couple of years ago?
Best Regards, Peter