FirstWatt J2

In bridged operation, each half of the bridge will see half of the load impedance. Seems like not a good fit for the J2. I think some have paralleled output devices, which seems like a better plan.

Correct.

Bridging helps if you want more voltage swing, and (much) less 2nd harmonics.
Parallelling gets you more output current and lower output impedance.

You can also play with the resistor values R11~14 at the upper half to change the current ratio between the modulated current source and the Semisouth.
But that will also change your distortion spectrum.

There is a schematics of a parallel version at the UDNeSS thread which will give you some ideas.


Patrick
 
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Do you think this sounds like a crazy idea? Building two J2's and wiring them for the option of balanced (bridged) operation. I have enough Fet's to build two. My speakers need a little more drive than a single J2 can provide I'm afraid. I know I'm probably giving up dominant second for third. Anything else I should consider?
NO need to trade sweeter 2nd harmonic for cruder 3rd harmonic just to get more wpc Instead, get more efficient speakers!! That's what Nelson Pass typically uses. You can choose the Lowther or similar drivers he often uses, or something very different; though its usually best to settle on some kind of horn design as many will easily pressurize most rooms with as little as 10 wpc or less. PLENTY of driver options for building horn or "quasi" horn speakers that do NOT sound like the honking metallic pro audio crap people point to when those like Lynn Olson, PierreQuiRoule or Troy Crowe discuss those that sound better than probably anything you've heard.

Example driver/horn combos: Pierre's perfectly passively EQed Radian745neoBE/Athos TH4001 ; Troy Crowe B&C DCM50/ES450 ; Gary Dahl's Azurahorn JMLC AH425/Yamaha JA6681B ; Lynn Olson's Azurahorn AH340/B&C DCM50.

Note: Pierre's combo are atop his sealed TAD woofers. See them here; posts 15,266, 15, 276.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/beyond-the-ariel.100392/page-764

Gary's are atop his 3 cu ft sealed GPA Altec 416-8B midwoofers. Lynn's will be atop his sealed ~ 4 cu ft Altec 416-8B woofers. My midwoofers are clones of Gary's, though I wish I would have gone with bigger boxes like Lynn's, whose go down to 40Hz. See Lynn's cabinet plans here.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/beyond-the-ariel.100392/page-767

Like Gary;s mine will do down to 70Hz, below which are my Rythmik F12 sealed subs. Though I know the midwoofers will deliver extremely low IM distortion this way, I'm hoping that the bass crossing from the Altecs to the subs from
~ 65Hz to 40Hz won't sound colored. Thus, I'd go with Lynn's bigger sealed boxes, especially if you're going for
$$$$ bass drivers like the GPA 416-8B 16ohm. Troy and I still have to decide on a driver/horn combo.

As you probably know, among other things, what's important is to select drivers for the speakers and design the crossover so that the speakers are at least 93db/w/m and that system impedance is well above 4 ohms. Do this an according to John Atkinson's measurements "the J2 will sing!" https://www.stereophile.com/content/first-watt-j2-power-amplifier-measurements

I have a stock J2 and F4 driven by my Don Sachs preamp. Exciting!

Check out these plans. https://josephcrowe.com/collections/speaker-plans :)
 
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As much as I’d like to hear the J2 I think I’m better off building a different amp in the queue first. I have one complete set of F4 boards that could use a companion, Aleph 60 kit (from Randy), Stasis front end and output, and others. Hi, my name is Kevin and I’m a hoarder.
 
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Hi Kevin, welcome to the 12 step program. First step was admitting you are a hoarder.

I'm a life long hoarder, just going through the garage and find a stash of unused 3 section 500V (and 450V) caps (40mf). I hadn't seen them for 20 years.
Tubes galore, sets of transistors, you name them I got them (almost).
Maybe it's a club, cause I don't see a lot of selling going on over here!
Rush