I've built plenty of Aleph 3 and smaller, but always wanted to make a 5. The Aleph has been my favorite sounding amp, just a sucker for 2nd harmonics I guess.
I ordered the edcors for an M2 last night - maybe there will be a new fave in the year ahead
The 5 sports home etched PCBs on 1/8" black FR4. I found two 48" x 48" pieces at the surplus. The copper is so thick you can trip over it. A pain to etch but worth it.
Nothing fancy for parts. IRFP140 outputs. Muse 220uf. MPSA18. Wima boxes. Samsung IRF9160 (<that's different).
PSU is 4 X Vicor Flatpac 48v 200w SMPS. Two per channel in series, and they are trimmed to 34v each. Each amp board has a Panasonic 4700uf per rail mounted. I may take that to a 15000uf per rail in the future.
The case is my old KSA 50 clone chassis. The KSA was fun, and it's bass was noteworthy, but like PWK said... we live in the midrange. I am biased at ~0.7v x 3 @ 1 ohm and the heatsinks have no issue. I can put my hand on it indefinitely.
I love the way it sounds - superb. Aleph midrange and treble with more controlled bass than a smaller Aleph. The headroom doesn't hurt either
there is a little more hiss than I expected, especially single ended WITH the neg XLR grounded. Not sure if it's the PSUs or maybe zener noise... or maybe that's just life. I do believe i got a lousy zener batch though, as I had to cut out the protection zeners due to distortion.
Anyway - a little tweaking to do but I'm a happy camper!
Thanks NP
I ordered the edcors for an M2 last night - maybe there will be a new fave in the year ahead
The 5 sports home etched PCBs on 1/8" black FR4. I found two 48" x 48" pieces at the surplus. The copper is so thick you can trip over it. A pain to etch but worth it.
Nothing fancy for parts. IRFP140 outputs. Muse 220uf. MPSA18. Wima boxes. Samsung IRF9160 (<that's different).
PSU is 4 X Vicor Flatpac 48v 200w SMPS. Two per channel in series, and they are trimmed to 34v each. Each amp board has a Panasonic 4700uf per rail mounted. I may take that to a 15000uf per rail in the future.
The case is my old KSA 50 clone chassis. The KSA was fun, and it's bass was noteworthy, but like PWK said... we live in the midrange. I am biased at ~0.7v x 3 @ 1 ohm and the heatsinks have no issue. I can put my hand on it indefinitely.
I love the way it sounds - superb. Aleph midrange and treble with more controlled bass than a smaller Aleph. The headroom doesn't hurt either
there is a little more hiss than I expected, especially single ended WITH the neg XLR grounded. Not sure if it's the PSUs or maybe zener noise... or maybe that's just life. I do believe i got a lousy zener batch though, as I had to cut out the protection zeners due to distortion.
Anyway - a little tweaking to do but I'm a happy camper!
Thanks NP
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Good question - I don't recall any of the 'off topic mob' ever getting banned, so you must have to be a real jerk
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