2. amps-preamps
  3. 1015360913

What's inside these aluminum/metal cases?

I have three links below to pictures of amps with their lids removed, one is an integrated, and I am curious to the thoughts of those that have the technical knowledge of amps to discuss the inner componants and order of design.

We tweak our systems with expensive cables, yet I look at pictures such these pictures and wonder what all the signal must go through.

Let me put the disclaimer out, I do not own any of these amps nor did I single them out, I just happen have pictures of them with their "hoods" off, if I had some others, I may of included them as well.

http://brian.grar.com/images/AudioPix/Bryston4bstInside.jpg
http://brian.grar.com/images/AudioPix/ML383-Inside.jpg
http://brian.grar.com/images/AudioPix/Bryston7bstInside.jpg
brianmgrarcom
brianmgrarcom OP
1,317 posts
 
Jeff - great post. What is a Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Array and where is it located?
cornfedboy
1,645 posts
 
brian's notation as to the boulder 2010's being a preamp is, of course, correct. here's a link showin' the innards of the amp i'll probably purchase to replace my modified jrdg 8ti:

http://www.boulderamp.com/bldramp.1060%20inside.html

-cfb
jeffloistarca
1,004 posts
 
Brian, the Xilinx device is a relatively large square integrated circuit towards the middle back of the ML amp. Xilinx makes chips that are essentially black boxes, you write your own code and add intelligence to your design. the code is held in a PROM and dumped into the FPGA on boot-up. Their largest chip is the equivalent of 5 million transistors! I don't wanna get too carried away with the technical stuff, but if you're interested in finding out more take a look at http://www.xilinx.com
famaraca
38 posts
 
Jeff

Congratulations!Great post
Today some highly regarded High End Amps,are based largely in Integrated Circuits.Very beauty inside,no wires,no resistors,no capacitors,no cooling fans.So what?...
bishopwill
369 posts
 
So what, indeed?

A friend and I opened his $10K+ tube amp a while back. I'm not fool enough to post the name of the amp lest angry owners burn my church down. Suffice it to say that this "cost no object, discrete components of the highest quality, entirely hand-built" device looked like it had been assembled by a Heathkit first-timer. Lots of excess wire, obvious cold solder joints, cheap internal interconnects, power leads tie-wrapped with audio signal leads. Expensive resistors and caps and xformer, yes, but terminal strips, tube sockets and the like appeared to be the cheapest the mfgr could buy.

Boy, was he pissed. Yet the sound was and continues to be SPLENDID.
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