YES !
Audio for me means listening AND building.
The satisfaction of listening to good music with your own made stuff is huge.
Try to top that with bought commercial audio-gear.
The PT8-triode preamp on the top of the rack.
The Silvercore proto riaa-stage one below.
The 35TG-poweramps left and right (giving a nice glow as well).
The 6N7 headphone amp bottom left.
The 6C45PP SPUD bottom right.
The Caeles air bearing turntable is obvious…..
Currently i'm only using the Eimac 35TG amps for driving the speakers (open baffle with Fertin 38EX fieldcoils and Feastrex D9NF's) but as the 6C45 SPUD is also very good sounding i'm going to use these in an active system. Project for the near future….hobby continious…..
Happy listening.
Reinout
Audio for me means listening AND building.
The satisfaction of listening to good music with your own made stuff is huge.
Try to top that with bought commercial audio-gear.
The PT8-triode preamp on the top of the rack.
The Silvercore proto riaa-stage one below.
The 35TG-poweramps left and right (giving a nice glow as well).
The 6N7 headphone amp bottom left.
The 6C45PP SPUD bottom right.
The Caeles air bearing turntable is obvious…..
Currently i'm only using the Eimac 35TG amps for driving the speakers (open baffle with Fertin 38EX fieldcoils and Feastrex D9NF's) but as the 6C45 SPUD is also very good sounding i'm going to use these in an active system. Project for the near future….hobby continious…..
Happy listening.
Reinout
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Yes, I have to say I stare at my amps. Part of it is that the image is in the center and thus the amp is a stand in for the musicians. One knows too that things are happening in those constructions even while we know full well that we cannot see such actions. It’s ones’ imagination at work to stare at you amps... and yes, a bit of pride!
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My projects involve months/years planning. Brief building phase. Years of listening, tweaking, staring and self satisfaction. I also have a commercial system that has not been turned on in past 5 yrs. DIY, a daily event.
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Joe,
you are absolutely right....
But
i had my audio-hobby ages before i met her (and married her).
Before i met her my living room was equipped with the audio-set and 1 (one...no kidding) chair. No table, other chairs, whatever…..i was the "ultimate" single.
All house-input (table ? Chairs ? Seats? etc etc ) was HER input and i was happy with that.
Everything changed when Alex entered our lives. He is 9 now but his influence on our lives (and my hobby) was HUGE. I could understand perfectly when my wife said that the 400 kg power amplifier was to be gone after the ETF in 2017 (European Triode Festival). Luckily i met a person who was generous enough to swap my 1500 V power amp (400 kg) to a ridicilious over-the-top turntable also of 400 kg.
We settled our swap during the ETF....my wife was not that amused with another 400 kg of audio-gear BUT understood my hobby and couldn't deny the absence of 1500 volts....(totally unaware of the need of a seperate compressor...hi hi).
Happy audio.
Regards,
Reinout
you are absolutely right....
But
i had my audio-hobby ages before i met her (and married her).
Before i met her my living room was equipped with the audio-set and 1 (one...no kidding) chair. No table, other chairs, whatever…..i was the "ultimate" single.
All house-input (table ? Chairs ? Seats? etc etc ) was HER input and i was happy with that.
Everything changed when Alex entered our lives. He is 9 now but his influence on our lives (and my hobby) was HUGE. I could understand perfectly when my wife said that the 400 kg power amplifier was to be gone after the ETF in 2017 (European Triode Festival). Luckily i met a person who was generous enough to swap my 1500 V power amp (400 kg) to a ridicilious over-the-top turntable also of 400 kg.
We settled our swap during the ETF....my wife was not that amused with another 400 kg of audio-gear BUT understood my hobby and couldn't deny the absence of 1500 volts....(totally unaware of the need of a seperate compressor...hi hi).
Happy audio.
Regards,
Reinout
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It was an evolution ..
We made a deal... I'd abandon dangerous motorcycle and she'd let me get 9' billiard table I always wanted. That demanded a large man cave and produced 20x25' room in current basement. Now it is the listening room which happens to have a pool table. She agrees it is my room and we're both happy!! We joke that an alarm will go off if she enters.
In her living room we have a very civilized stereo with Totem bookshelf speakers that only get used for background music if people come by.
It all started with my love of motorcycles...?..??If I make a setup like Reinout's or the wlowes setup my wife would divorce me
We made a deal... I'd abandon dangerous motorcycle and she'd let me get 9' billiard table I always wanted. That demanded a large man cave and produced 20x25' room in current basement. Now it is the listening room which happens to have a pool table. She agrees it is my room and we're both happy!! We joke that an alarm will go off if she enters.
In her living room we have a very civilized stereo with Totem bookshelf speakers that only get used for background music if people come by.
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Listening to music here, looking in awe and amazement at the pics of the amps you designed
Great builds - what OPTs this time?
Thanks!
These monoblocs are each using two Triad VPT18-13800 (250VA each) with the primaries interleaved for OPT, a Triad VPT18-8800 (160VA) for the heater supply (~11.6VDC), and a 572VA 120V:124V PT set up with a voltage doubler for main B+. The heater supply also runs two DC-DC boost converters, one for C- supply (-105V), the other for the VA/PI/Driver (530V). They put out 112W RMS @ 30Hz and they never cease to amaze me
These monoblocs are each using two Triad VPT18-13800 (250VA each) with the primaries interleaved for OPT, a Triad VPT18-8800 (160VA) for the heater supply (~11.6VDC), and a 572VA 120V:124V PT set up with a voltage doubler for main B+. The heater supply also runs two DC-DC boost converters, one for C- supply (-105V), the other for the VA/PI/Driver (530V). They put out 112W RMS @ 30Hz and they never cease to amaze me
Rebuilt my "Brute Force" headphone amp. It was originally a mu-follower with paralleled 6SN7s into paralleled 6BX7s and sounded very good with high impedance headphones, but I wanted something that could drive low impedances without transformers. I found a schematic for an Aikido front end driving a White cathode follower so I ripped out the old circuit, keeping the regulated 300V power supply, and just built it. So externally it's identical, with the same tubes, but with a completely different circuit underneath
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Finished my SIT push-pull project. It is playing now and I am not sure I will be able to make something better than that so I may stop trying The circuit is unusual and the idea came in a conversation with one of the friends as a wild option for his PP output transformer: the phase splitter transformer is driven from both 'ends' - from the input signal and in phase from the output.
It looks like it is a thing to safely store money but so far I am happy with everything about it.
The circuit is unusual and the idea came in a conversation with one of the friends as a wild option for his PP output transformer: the phase splitter transformer is driven from both 'ends' - from the input signal and in phase from the output. It looks like it is a thing to safely store money
but so far I am happy with everything about it.Attachments
Maybe a separate thread is a better idea if you guys are interested - it is a bit of a story (and I am eager to share
).