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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 24, 2006 19:26:10 GMT
Today I heared some of my CD's ... Quincy Jones "Back on the Block" Marianne Faithful "Blazing Away" Horowitz "in concert" and some other all a very trueness, realistic sound with AD843 when I have more time I will wrote a report about my hearing test too Same here Fritz, I'm very happy with the AD-843 and my Shpongle recordings have never sounded better. By chance I strapped an X-10D on today and the combination of CDP > X-10D > WNA MKlll is just pure bliss! Absolutely fantastic with the Senn HD-600 and PX-100, everything just "perfect" with lots going on in the mix. The tube buffer and WNA MKlll really do get on well together!
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 24, 2006 19:28:05 GMT
this question is going under I'd go with encapsulated toroid Fritz. That's what the good Dr. White used, he designed the cascode PSU, so I would go with his recommendation.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 24, 2006 20:15:44 GMT
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rickcr42
Fully Modded
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Post by rickcr42 on Jun 24, 2006 20:43:34 GMT
in what way mike ?
a buffer is meant as an impedance converter and is most useful in those situations where you have a high impedance output going to a way too low input impedance like a valve gain stage to a solid state amp or maybe a passive network.also having a high output Z,going to an input impedance far too low if you want to avoid losses.
if this is not the case why on earth would ypou want another active device in the signal path doing nothing more than (my read on this) covering up for areas lacking elswhere ? would it not be better to address the shortcomings than to cover them up ?
No offense man but throwing a blanket over a pile shit never hides the smell only hides it from view............not that i am calling any part of your system sh*t just using an extreme to illustrate my point
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 24, 2006 21:00:35 GMT
Come on man, they both have purple LED's and one sits on top of the other a perfect fit so.......... they're a perfect match You "do" realise I don't use half of this stuff Rick? At any one time there are probably an average of 10 amps and other devices here and they are in and out of circuit like a yoyo, no time to gather dust. The valve buffer does add a glow to the sound and it's good to fire it inline sometimes just for the "fun" of it. I don't need one but I have three of them kicking about so they get an airing from time to time, no other reason than fun man.
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rickcr42
Fully Modded
Rest in peace my good friend.
Posts: 4,514
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Post by rickcr42 on Jun 24, 2006 21:54:51 GMT
figured it was something like that Mike.For some reason we humans like changes just for the sake of change and we also for some reason consider different better until we live with the different and realise,no,not better,just new. Audio FX is like that.Something begins exciting,leads to so so then pure hatred for it when it is realised everything that goes through has a coating added by the device used. why a fixed bass boost sucks,why any "aural exciters" suck once the novelty wears off,why in the old days all expansion devices sucked though we damn near blew up all our speakers playing with them,why all attempts at music surround sound sucks unless accompanied with a visual componant (DVD Concert) to shift focus from the audio to the visual realm,why just about every single media player plug-in sucks and why any buffer intentionally meant to color the sonics sucks though on the grand scale is ther least sonic butcher of any of the intentional "music enhancement" devices. What makes me wince (not much ) ? someone asking for an amp with "tube sound" as if intentionally colored is a good thing and why you will and do see products aimed at that crowd. Either as a stand alone device or incorporated into the overall design there will be a tube stage doing no more than adding "color" to what they have.Not accuracy,not impedance matching,not cable driving (true strength of the X-10D) but sonic distortion to please the uninformed. does it work ? HELL YES IT DOES and many highly touted amps are intentionally voiced with "tube distortion" even though the designer could have made a dead accurate amp using the very same basic circuit.this is not dishonest but simply "give them what they want" because to be honest most have zero clue what they want and why they have a long history of personal amps that at best they keep fora couple of months. Oh yeah.Let us not forgewt you need to have "balanced" a "pure class A" on the panel somewhere and that last year it was "single ended" and "pure class-A" even if the circuits are not either pure class-A,or truly balanced,or even single ended.this matters little as long as it SAYS IT on the panel Back to this topic : I like the WNA MK ll but not the MK lll which in my personal opinion is flawed.Flawed in that it ries to do too many things,to please too many folks with certain "features" and is a bloated design that steps back not forward.No offense to David White because I understand the "why" of it and how you need to do certain thngs to stand out and sell product,just my personal opinion. The MK-ll on the other hand is sweet in its simplicity while using well established (and mostly well implemented) audio electronic principals though I have to say the original chip specced as the opamp is one at the very top of my personal shit list,one I do not like the sonic signature of one bit though it is my understanding Jan Meier has tamed this beastly chip (on paper to die for,in the ears ? Earbleed folks ! (At least my own ears say this). I'm thinking the AD825 on an adapter may just send this amp to the next level by getting the middle-to-high end right while the class-A output stage handles all bass "muscle".Something for another day perhaps but I think I'm on target here second choice ? The AD843 obviously.A way under rated chip for headphone duty and third choice-no choice.Gets to the point where you spend more time futzing around instead of closing the bitch up and listening to some music so once you have established good sonics get the freakin screwdriver out and lock that bitch down !!!! That or mount it on a damn pine board for easy circuit access forever rant over,you may now continue back on topic with my permission .
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rickcr42
Fully Modded
Rest in peace my good friend.
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Post by rickcr42 on Jun 25, 2006 16:39:14 GMT
Prime example of the point I attempted to make www.audiodigit.com/index.php?section=81why not just call it a distortion amp ? it is this very type of device that is at the root of the misconception of tube gear having a "sound" and why so many budget amps in fact do-it is WANTED by the uninformed so why not satisfy the want even though not valid as a high end audio device ?
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 25, 2006 19:34:38 GMT
One for you here Rick as you're the resident PSU expert. I tidied my calex PSU up a bit today (the one I use with WNA MKlll) and that included fitting some panasonic FC caps and an ELNA Cerafine. I also went with an X2 caps between live and neutral on the transformer primary, coiled the solid core mains in wire through a ferrite hoop and fed the DC out cable through a large ferrite clamp. My question is this: Would you be inclined to do as I have done and fit the X2 cap across the transformer or would it be better served at the wall inlet? Also, would you fit one between neutral and ground and if so type Y or type X2? The live to neutral cap is only 275V rated maybe I should have fitted on with a higher voltage rating? BTW the regulator is the LM723 Comments appreciated. (I already propose to house the PSU in a shielded enclosure so that's already covered)
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Stormy
100+
Advocates putting smokers in a "Sin Bin"
Needs to learn to keep his big mouth shut.
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Post by Stormy on Jun 25, 2006 19:43:22 GMT
I'm not sure about what you've done with the mains cable and the ferrite hoop - is there any risk of that acting as a mini toroidal because all three wires are on the same core? I know it should be 1-1 because they all have the same number of windings, but it might generate some undesirable noise. I think we just do the live wire on its own at work if memory serves me correctly. Sorry if I'm being stupid - it's just one of those gut feelings you get when you see something that doesn't look familiar!
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 25, 2006 21:22:36 GMT
Neither am I so I removed it For some reason I was thinking "braid breaker" but that's more TV and coax.... anyways, it didn't sound as good so I removed it and have just stuck with X2 cap between live / Neutral and Neutral / Earth.... sounds just like it did before so another waste of 2 caps and a cerafine ;D
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rickcr42
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Rest in peace my good friend.
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Post by rickcr42 on Jun 25, 2006 22:12:23 GMT
first Mike you need to be exttremely careful about adding capacitors around the mains.It is not just about the working voltage but leakage current as well so you really want to go with either AC rated caps such as the WIMA Snubber Series (not the typical WVDC rating-working voltage DC ) or DC rated caps that are in the 1KV range ! Next,the ferrites.These will prevent stray RF travelling in on the cord but do zero for RF riders already on the AC mains.For this you need a Pi filter made up of an inductor and a capacitor tuned to the MHz range with the cheapest route being those enclosed EMI/FRI cans.Easily added to any power supply with room either on the floor of the chassis or in a pinch bolted to the rear inside panel near the power inlet. Representation of the filter : representation of the filter box : A damn good read in general : www.equitech.com/articles/rep1.htmlFor this to work correctly you MUST have a very short heavy guage ground to the chassis if using a three phase plug and watch your peak current rating bub ! Ferrite on the power supply output : Does nothing since the power supply output is a low impedance and will not recognise RFI as a singal.Only high impedances are effected because they provide a path for the signal in the same way a 10K ohm amplifier input impedance is easy to drive from a 600 ohm CD player output but NOT by a valve output CD player with a 3-5K ohm output impedance because of the natural filtration of the upper octaves that takes place This last is off base if you pre-load the output of the power supply by adding bleeders across the output caps or a resistor.led across each polarity as I do then a simple single or dual 0.1 uf cap per polarity is fine so bottom line : 1-common mode EMI/RFI filter right at the cord inlet 2-nail the ground to the chassis using a very short heavy guage ground wire 3-use AC rated caps across the primary,across the contacts of any mains switches (remeber what i said about low leakage types !) 4-follow the rectifiers with a snubber to get rid of rectifier induced harmonics (just like RFI in sound) www.hagtech.com/pdf/snubber.pdf5-watch your impedances and think outside the box by looking at each stage as if it were an audio circuit (which it is ) and not a power supply.Only a battery is a pure DC source yet we all fall into the trap of designing "idealised" supplies as if they too were purely DC stright line power sources.......NOT !!!!! 6-have fun.you get more back when you get it right doing power supply mods than you do any opamp swaps
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 25, 2006 22:43:08 GMT
Cheers Rick I'll have a read of those documents tomorrow. The caps I stitched across the primaries are 275 AC rated Class X2 Metallised Polypropylene so will be fine. You can see it here: The more I listen to it with the caps across the primaries I do believe there's a slight degree more clarity but "very" slight, if any, improvement. The Calex is a pretty good PSU as it stands (measured lower noise than Cascode MKll) pretty much bullet proof too! Here she is www.calex.co.uk/OpenFrameRegLinearPSUs.pdf
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rickcr42
Fully Modded
Rest in peace my good friend.
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Post by rickcr42 on Jun 25, 2006 23:47:39 GMT
Cool.AC is not something to play with with most mistakes consting big time $$$$$
Always design for worst case and the rest will take care of itself as long as that design is not one that mucks up other areas.In this particular area that "slight if any" is an accumulative thing.One that once you eliminate all RF "grundge" from every single part of the signal path (including power supply) then have a properly layed out ground system so digital ground noise and'or any ground loops are eliminated as a possible can actually startle a person when music leaps out of dead black,even moreso with cans which eliminate the last source of noise-ambient room noise
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FritzS
Been here a while!
Sound of Blue Danube
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Post by FritzS on Jun 26, 2006 8:38:29 GMT
Mike, I see the Calex use EI cores and no torroid And use a single LM723 an no cascade regulators ...
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FritzS
Been here a while!
Sound of Blue Danube
Sound of Blue Danube
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Post by FritzS on Jun 26, 2006 8:41:10 GMT
Off Topic "Re: I miss the WNA discussions! Suggestion ....." is one of the longest threads here
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rickcr42
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Rest in peace my good friend.
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Post by rickcr42 on Jun 26, 2006 14:21:21 GMT
seems to have become a catch-all thread for everything even remotely related to the WNA amps
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FritzS
Been here a while!
Sound of Blue Danube
Sound of Blue Danube
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Post by FritzS on Jun 27, 2006 7:52:12 GMT
Off topic ...... what CD have you? de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja_RamShpongle: * Are you Shpongled? (Twisted Records-TWSCD4 1998) * Tales of The Inexpressible (Twisted Records-TWSCD13 2001) * Remixed (Twisted Records-TWSCD/LP23 2003) * Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost (Twisted Records-TWSCD/LP28 2005) de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShpongleI always curious for new music out of the mainstream Where I can hear/download samples?
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 27, 2006 10:46:22 GMT
Howdy Fritzola,
I have all the Shpongle stuff and the three albums I would recommend are:
Are you Shpongled? Tales of the inexpressible Nothing lasts... but nothing is lost
I can burn you a CD of your choice as a "sampler" so let me know what one you would like and it'll be winging its way over to Holland for your listening pleasure. In fact, I could do you all three and send without jewel cases which would keep the shipping weight down, you can case them and label them at your end.
Pinkerooni.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 29, 2006 9:40:41 GMT
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rickcr42
Fully Modded
Rest in peace my good friend.
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Post by rickcr42 on Jun 29, 2006 15:01:19 GMT
"mystery caps" our version is those little green no name polyesters you see so often populating the boards of consumer grade gear . in this case there is a marking and it is prominant so likely just an unknown (outside the orient that is) cap,likely a polypropylene (not poly film) along the lines of the Xicons and SBE Orange Drops.Way better than bottom feeder caps,not quite as good (or expensive !!! ) as top quality caps. bascially a decision to keep the cost in the pain free zone while having an open enough construction to allow those who it is important to upgrade later (with a pinky kit ).Makes way more sense than charging $1,500 up front for the same device knowing some will STILL want to upgrade just to do it Gimme good prices and a design worthy of an upgrade over a flawed high ticket amp any day BTW-If I were not in my "play nice rick" era of life I could point to two amps that have just about the same exact topology with one running in the $350-$450 price range and the other in the $1,500-$2,500 area with most of the REAL differences being the chassis and the hype yet the low cost amp slips through the cracks,ignored mostly even though first available, while the bloated in price amp not only sells but is reviewed as if a bargain at the inflated price Never ever be surprised by the apparent stupid acts of an audiophile.I no longer am oh yeah,that big L is far too cleanly printed and way too ""in yo' face jerky" to be from some backwater no-name capacitor company. At a guess it is likely the manufacturers "generic" branding of a very well known capacitor (maybe Panasonic Polyprops ?) without the added cost the name would bring
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