I do my best to educate and to be helpful but I cannot afford to give my circuits away. Also note that I'm working 12-14 hour days (seven days a week) right now to keep up with the demands of my business as well as my education. If I come across as crass, I'm sorry. I would also point out that this is the LM3886 Done Right vendor thread, and I would prefer to keep the conversation on that topic.
I do appreciate your feedback on my website. The Taming the LM3886 section is a live document. I will keep updating it as time allows. Your questions are always welcome.
Tom
I do appreciate your feedback on my website. The Taming the LM3886 section is a live document. I will keep updating it as time allows. Your questions are always welcome.
Tom
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LM 3886 DR listening experience
So last week, I managed to complete Neurochrome Lm 3886 DR, designed by Tom Christiansen. For those, who are interested in building this wonderful amp, I want to share my experience with my building process and Litening tests.
Building:
I am not very experienced builder, so I was a bit worried, if I could Complete it without messing it up, but in the end it did work really nice for me.
If you order from neurochrome, you get PCB´s and very detailed manual, that is plenty enough to complete the amp without any issues.
You need to order parts yourself, but Tom Provides a link with all the parts needed, so ordering those should be no problem at all. The only issue was, that some parts were not on stock, so I had to order some substitutes, but Tom Helped me with this.
Building itself Is very easy, even SMD parts are very easy to solder, so anyone with some experience with soldering PCB should be able to Finish it. Some experience with installing PCBs into case are really welcome. I prefer not learning this kind of stuff with more expensive stuff, and maybe reading some articles before building it.
Listening:
I gave it some (actually pretty short) burn in time, and since then, I had two whole day listening sessions.
The First one I did at home, and it was more about testing and comparing with other amps (Other lm3886 designs, two IcePower(PS Stellar, One diy), one hypex amp and NAD D 3045). Speakers used were DIY Speedsters and elac debut. Didn´t have anything else around. The result was very surprising for me. It´s obvious, that LM 3886DR is Much better, than other 3886 designs, but what really surprised me, I liked it more, than all Icepower designs. All Ice power were kind of more expressive, but I´d say the tonality and precission were not so good. The only one, that matched the sound was Hypex. It did everything as good as 3886 DR, but thanks to more power, it just had more authority, especially in base region. So the result was, the amp is really, really good, very nice to listen to, but if you need more power, you should probably look at some different models.
The second session, I was able to sneak to a local High end shop, since they more speakers to choose from. It was more about matching the amp with different speakers. We tried with Klipsch rp-600m, B&W 607, b&W 706, and KEF ls50.
So the klipsch are really expressive, loud (96db/m)speakers, with lots of base, but pretty obvious sound coloration, and so even though I did not like them much, I think lm3886DR Was actually the best match for them(but not the other way around).
Both B&W I liked a lot. Very neutral sounding, and very very nice match. The only thing is, that the maximum room size for each of this combinations would be in my opinion around 30m2. Then, you´d be probably cranking the amp too much
With the LS50, i think, there was just not enough power.
So the result was very, very positive. It was really funny to see how the suspicion of the dealers , when I showed up with this strange little device, turned into their curiosity, when I started to play music. Overall, I think it´s a very, very good project, even for not experienced builder. And the sound for the price is extremely good.
Adam
So last week, I managed to complete Neurochrome Lm 3886 DR, designed by Tom Christiansen. For those, who are interested in building this wonderful amp, I want to share my experience with my building process and Litening tests.
Building:
I am not very experienced builder, so I was a bit worried, if I could Complete it without messing it up, but in the end it did work really nice for me.
If you order from neurochrome, you get PCB´s and very detailed manual, that is plenty enough to complete the amp without any issues.
You need to order parts yourself, but Tom Provides a link with all the parts needed, so ordering those should be no problem at all. The only issue was, that some parts were not on stock, so I had to order some substitutes, but Tom Helped me with this.
Building itself Is very easy, even SMD parts are very easy to solder, so anyone with some experience with soldering PCB should be able to Finish it. Some experience with installing PCBs into case are really welcome. I prefer not learning this kind of stuff with more expensive stuff, and maybe reading some articles before building it.
Listening:
I gave it some (actually pretty short) burn in time, and since then, I had two whole day listening sessions.
The First one I did at home, and it was more about testing and comparing with other amps (Other lm3886 designs, two IcePower(PS Stellar, One diy), one hypex amp and NAD D 3045). Speakers used were DIY Speedsters and elac debut. Didn´t have anything else around. The result was very surprising for me. It´s obvious, that LM 3886DR is Much better, than other 3886 designs, but what really surprised me, I liked it more, than all Icepower designs. All Ice power were kind of more expressive, but I´d say the tonality and precission were not so good. The only one, that matched the sound was Hypex. It did everything as good as 3886 DR, but thanks to more power, it just had more authority, especially in base region. So the result was, the amp is really, really good, very nice to listen to, but if you need more power, you should probably look at some different models.
The second session, I was able to sneak to a local High end shop, since they more speakers to choose from. It was more about matching the amp with different speakers. We tried with Klipsch rp-600m, B&W 607, b&W 706, and KEF ls50.
So the klipsch are really expressive, loud (96db/m)speakers, with lots of base, but pretty obvious sound coloration, and so even though I did not like them much, I think lm3886DR Was actually the best match for them(but not the other way around).
Both B&W I liked a lot. Very neutral sounding, and very very nice match. The only thing is, that the maximum room size for each of this combinations would be in my opinion around 30m2. Then, you´d be probably cranking the amp too much
With the LS50, i think, there was just not enough power.
So the result was very, very positive. It was really funny to see how the suspicion of the dealers , when I showed up with this strange little device, turned into their curiosity, when I started to play music. Overall, I think it´s a very, very good project, even for not experienced builder. And the sound for the price is extremely good.
Adam
No SMD parts on the version (R1.01) I bought in July 2019.
I think Tom mentioned somewhere that the power output is less with the SMPS-86 vs linear supply.
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That's awesome. Thank you for sharing your build experience, pictures, and review. I'm glad you like it. Your experience with the audio dealers brought a smile to my face.
Just for the record: There are no SMD parts on the LM3886DR (and never will be!). Only the SMPS-86 has two SMD inductors. They're huge, so they should be fairly straight-forward to solder.
Tom
Just for the record: There are no SMD parts on the LM3886DR (and never will be!). Only the SMPS-86 has two SMD inductors. They're huge, so they should be fairly straight-forward to solder.
Tom
LM3886DR build
I've just completed a build utilising the Neurochrome LM3886DR and Power 86 boards. Thanks Tom for the excellent build guides, and for the (extraordinarily) rapid and helpful replies to my newbie questions. Being my first mains power build I was a little apprehensive, but the clear and detailed design documentation made it straightforward.
I'm using it to drive the top end of a pair of LX Mini clones built using Markaudio Alpair 7 drivers. Extraordinary soundstage - almost holographic. Beautiful clarity, balanced sound... very enjoyable.
I've just completed a build utilising the Neurochrome LM3886DR and Power 86 boards. Thanks Tom for the excellent build guides, and for the (extraordinarily) rapid and helpful replies to my newbie questions. Being my first mains power build I was a little apprehensive, but the clear and detailed design documentation made it straightforward.
I'm using it to drive the top end of a pair of LX Mini clones built using Markaudio Alpair 7 drivers. Extraordinary soundstage - almost holographic. Beautiful clarity, balanced sound... very enjoyable.
That should work. You may find that the higher PSRR of the Modulus-86 would work even better. I'll have more MOD86 boards within a week/10 days.
Tom
Tom