alexberger

Responses from alexberger

COINCIDENT FRANKENSTEIN 300B STEREO
Hi @mclinnguy  Which speakers do you use with this amplifier?  
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
Hi @invalid , Yes most of vintage amplifiers use chokes in power supply. But they use very small capacitors in B+. The issue with small capacitors is not the 120Hz noise from AC , but voltage stability during playing of load and complex music.  
Revisiting Chinese Knockoff Cables
Here are a number of updates. I have mixed impressions with Chinese cables so far. I compared again my 25 years old Acrotec 8N 2080 mk1 to Odin Gold RCA cable.  Yes, Odin Gold is nice, musical and well balanced. But it is clearly inferior to the ... 
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
Hi @atmasphere ,  Power supplies of all vintage tube amplifiers from 50-60x look so miserable with such small capacitors.  It is especially true for stereo amplifiers when PS is used for both channels in parallel without any separation. I can say... 
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
Hi @atmasphere , In parallel to the McIntosh MC30 I had Marantz 8b. I used these amplifiers with Spendor 2/3 and Altec 604E with original n1500 crossovers. This Marantz was burned by one of the previous owners. So output transformers were fixe... 
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
I had Spendor 2/3 speakers for around 5 year. A number of years I used the Plinius 8200 integrated to drive these speakers. But I felt something was wrong and I started looking for a good matched amplifier. I stopped on the McIntosh MC30 vintage m... 
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
Hi @atmasphere  Thank you for your advice. I can try it if I build a new amplifier. So. Do you think the issue is not voltage swing of driver but the current and power it should drive on capacitive load. And the power is function of the voltage ... 
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
Hi @hilde45  The problem of 300B they need a driver with 150 volt peak to peak voltage swing. For 845 you need much more voltage swing.   It is possible to drive 845 with RC coupling, but you get much more distortions vs IT drivers with the same... 
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
 Sun Valley 845 doesn't use an inter-stage transformer between driver and 845 tube. 845 is impossible to drive without IT! You get more driver tube distortions than 845 output stage distortions. You also can't get a good deep and fast bass. The ... 
Revisiting Chinese Knockoff Cables
Does anybody compare Nordost Valhalla 2 knock off speakers cable speakers cables that cost around $1K and more for 2m pair?   
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
Hi @mclinnguy , I never had Tamura output transformers. But I had James Audio. Hashimoto gives more low level details then James Audio. It terms of tonal balance they sound similar. But other tweaks that I did (cathodes, power supply capacitors... 
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
I built and now use my DIY amplifier not to save money but because I wanted to make an amplifier better than the market offers.  I use output and interstage Hashimoto transformers plus James Audio and Hashimoto power transformers and Hashimoto ch... 
Revisiting Chinese Knockoff Cables
I bought Odin ii power (1.5m)  and Odin ii Gold RCA interconnect (1m) knock off cables. I got both cables a week ago. I put an intercont cable to FryBaby2 cable burner for 4 days. After that it sounds wonderful, comparable to my 25 years old Acr... 
Your journey with lower-watt tube amps -- Can a kit be good enough?
I had DIY 300B amp that I tweaked and in the end rebuild it from scratch. For 300B is very important the driver tube (more powerful is better) and driver inter-stage transformer works much better compared to RC coupling.  How many maximal dB do w... 
What contributes most to a change in how an amplifier sounds?
IMHO amplifier is more important than speakers and sources.