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Post by iolar on Apr 4, 2024 9:43:54 GMT 1
Being an audio modder for my sins. I also have an antex which I have used to make holes in yoghourt pots for seedlings. I soon found that I needed much higher temps to solder connections with speaker cables, large gauge power cords etc. So bought a Japanese solder station way cheaper in the USA (as usual) which escaped import duties when I lived in Spain and a cheap voltage converter in the UK - postage was cheap then.
I've thought getting into SMD soldering but decided it's time to go digital.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Apr 4, 2024 10:20:47 GMT 1
Digital? Another soul gone to the Dark Side.
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Post by iolar on Apr 5, 2024 15:04:23 GMT 1
Digital? Another soul gone to the Dark Side. That's a very out of date view. I used to be into valve gear. Bought kits that had really crap PCBs ergo track lifting. Which often came with cheap crappy carbon resistors, caps that were right on the edge etc. etc. I was lucky to buy some really good valves pre and power that nowadays go for silly prices - Tung Sol round plate 6F8G pre amp valves/ Russian 1578 mil.spec and others. Lots of testing, lots of work. Class D has improved incredibly, very efficient compared to valve gear which consumes an awful lot of energy, class A valve gear wastes so much energy. A lot of Japanese CDs have superb sound. Streaming is a rip-off far worse than the way record labels ripped off artists in the past. I was reading the other day two Brit musicians - their were work had been listened to over 1 million times and they got £4.50 to share between them. Streaming services use the cloud - one of the most inaccurate terms I have ever heard. In reality the cloud is massive warehouse type buildings built in out of the way places (for cheapness). If ever someone decides to make a revolution or simply make a point about energy use they can destroy them quite easily and bang goes streaming and cloud storage. Who ever controls your electricity supply and water controls you and the modern way of life. Of the two, water is the most important by far - no water for 3 days it's goodnight and goodbye - the chumps don't realise that.
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Post by robertarthur on Apr 5, 2024 20:55:00 GMT 1
Back to the valve side, a must have for (ex) lovers of valve amplifiers. Back to the discrete transistor side and something made with the help from my Weller Magnastat friend: preamp a look inside, line output and inputs, power amp, pc boards and keeping those four 2N3055s cool (and one 40411). Made in 1969 and still in good shape (premium quality components). The question that arises next is whether those highly complex digital designs will live to the respectable age of 55 years.
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Post by iolar on Apr 6, 2024 9:07:59 GMT 1
Back to the valve side, a must have for (ex) lovers of valve amplifiers. Back to the discrete transistor side and something made with the help from my Weller Magnastat friend: preamp a look inside, line output and inputs, power amp, pc boards and keeping those four 2N3055s cool (and one 40411). Made in 1969 and still in good shape (premium quality components). The question that arises next is whether those highly complex digital designs will live to the respectable age of 55 years. Back around 2009 My Dutch friend Harry ( an IT man) suggested we use computer fans to cool mosfets in the hybrid Bada h/amps, I also bought the power amp version as well. I was living in Spain at the time and found a company using slate products up the road from Guadix. They mad e a slate box to sit the bada on with an open back. I lined the box with bitumen damping material and sat the fan on rubber pieces to lift it about 25mm of the shelf. The computer fans we use had adjustable speeds as well. This meant that no sound left the box and the mosfets and power resistors were kept cool. We also unscrewed the power tx off the top plate on spacers. Why the Chinese didn't use this method is beyond me because there were ready made slots in the top plate right beside the mosfets. Using the fans meant that the whole piece had air flow. Particle physics shows - that all systems tend toward self perpetuation. None more so than in audio. Volume control - whatever form of amplification you use it all has to go through some form v/c. It used to make me laugh when manufacturers 'boasted' about using Alps Blue volume pots, basically a piece of crap. The Panasonic pots were OK but they were discontinued. The thing is that you can use an Alps by shunting using good resistors, you get a 6dB drop but that should'nt be a problem. There are two components that I found that made a huge difference in quality because they can only be described as transparent, tht contribute absolutely nothing good or bad to the sound - the Vishay bulk foil resistors and the Russian K73-16 PEPT caps. Again totally transparent, dirt cheap to buy and completely trounces the 'received wisdom' that to be good caps must be big. There's a whole thread from long ago about these caps on diyaudio. A doctor in London who first spent a lot of money on expensive 'audiofool' caps and by chance gave these a try. I used these in the Bada and along with the shunt mod on the Alps Blue totally transformed the h/amp. They are also excellent in speaker x/overs. There was an American speaker manufacturer who used them in his speakers but didn't dare mention them to buyers because so many Americans are brainwashed from the cradle that anything 'COMMUNIST' is bad. The problem was that he couldn't get any more of the values he needed, so he was getting a manufacturer at home to make copies of them. Of course he couldn't possibly discuss this on an open forum so he used PMs. As you can see I own a Chris Daly LCR pre-amp. He's an amazing man, an Aussie who lives in New Zealand. I bought a kit and put it together, since then he has further enhanced the design - a classic example of the open mind at work. I was living in Hove and via my work in 89 I came into contact with a sparks who was chummy with Mike Poynter of Station Sounds in Worthing. He was the man who taught the Dane, Peter Quordrop/Audio Note everything he knew about valve technology. He ran his business from a concrete shed he hired from British rail on the westbound platform of Worthing Central station. It was something to see a London train pull in in the evening and a City gent get out running and shouting "make sure the bugger doesn't blow his whistle before I get back" he would then run to Mike's shed where Mike would be waiting with a Leak or Quad or Radford amp he had fettled. Germans would drive over from southern Germany to pick up 5-6 amps at a time to make the cost of the trip viable and rave over the racks of gear on display. There were racks full of all the best known valve amps and I would listen to Mick and Mike talking in a language that could have been the language on Alpha Centauri. So, at that time I got to hear the best valve amps and I have to say I wasn't impressed with the sound, it didn't come across as anything like 'natural'. In 91 at a car boot I bought a first generation Philips CD63 with a busted top plate disc door, Mike exchanged it for a Marantz version of the same model, he thought the sound of CD was crap. I still have it in the loft of one of Angela's friends. It has the famous TDA 1541 chip. I need to get it over here and try it using far better equipment than I have now.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Apr 6, 2024 10:03:52 GMT 1
That 1541 is legendary. Given your experiance with valves, what is your opinion of the Lampizator hybrid that uses the 1541?
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Post by Polarengineer on Apr 6, 2024 11:55:46 GMT 1
my soldering iron doesn’t have any valves at all!
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Post by Polarengineer on Apr 6, 2024 11:57:07 GMT 1
deleted… double post.
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Post by iolar on Apr 7, 2024 11:36:17 GMT 1
That 1541 is legendary. Given your experiance with valves, what is your opinion of the Lampizator hybrid that uses the 1541? I havn't an opinion because I havn't had the chance to hear it. With my Dutch friend Harry, an IT man we created a forum to address all the negative points about audio forums. It was meant to be far more than just about audio. If you like it was ahead of Facebook. Initially it was to be free but if successful there would be a small annual fee. A popular forum with lots of members takes a lot of work. Anyway it was set up with some basic rules that if broken meant an immediate ban - If you lived 'somewhere left of the sun' - stay there. No one was allowed to give an opinion that was based on theory or something they had read about, only on actual experience - Headfi is a classic example of fanboy syndrome. Absolutely no commercial advertising. We were both determined to create a separate thread where all the fruitcakes, weirdos, political and religious freaks could express themselves and give all rational members a good laugh. Of course outright racists and black/red shirt fascists would be reported to their respective countries authorities. People would be able to tear them to pieces, ridicule them. Indeed ridicule is the best bromide to neutralise them. There is so much 'received wisdom' which in fact is total b/s / rigid - we cannot change mentalities in audio and this we wanted to challenge ruthlessy, something that is impossible on existing audio forums because of biased moderators who refuse to slap down the bigots. It's impossible to compare the mentality of the computer mind with that of the audio mind - one is totally open and always thinking out of the box and the other refuses to return to basics and question the most basic building blocks of audio. Anyone who raises these questions is ruthlessy attacked or dismissed. In order to hear what is on an LP/reel-to-reel tape/CD/DVD etc. has to pass through various pieces of equipment via cables,connectors/v/c and using electricity that most often is not a steady voltage (for which equipment has been designed) polluted with all kinds of noise. At which most audiophiles throw up their hands and resign themselves. Would you put any kind of fuel into a car that contained particles, sediment or any material that would affect or destroy the engine over time, answer not knowingly. It is not difficult to take the polluted supply, remove noise and provide a stable and correct voltage but how many bother. It's like building a house on crap foundations only a fool or a cowboy would do that or idiots that actually bought property built like this and right now are dealing with just this problem. Unlike power cords that carry a very strong electrical current, signal conductors carry a very weak voltage that is easily corrupted with dielectric that absorbs current aka signal. Connectors that were designed before WW11 which are a mass of metal affecting the delicate signal information. The best dielectric is air, now take a look at the standard inter/connect. How is a signal 'transported' through a conductor - the higher frequencies 'travel' on the exterior of the conductor, the bass internally and the idiots are concerned with what type of amp they are using. Why are x/overs found inside a speaker because that is the easiest, best 'looking way to do it and makes transporting the speaker 'easy'. It certainly isn't best way,subjecting the x/over to huge sound pressure and to cap it all are usually found in the bass part of the speaker. Active speakers are built exactly the same - this method was used over 70 years ago. Open baffle speakers don't have this problem or a 'boxy' sound but don't look as 'pretty' and the WAF factor is terrible. I don't know of any audio forum that has created a what-to-do to achieve an optimum sound system thread. Look at all the threads on room treatment - why did you buy/build a house using crap materials. A problem that should never have been created in the first place. All the info needed to build a house/room optimised for audio is there on the net but how many bother to do the research to achieve this optimum 0.000001%. The crazy thing is that those 1541 chips are probably worth more than the entire CDP.
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Post by Olave H on Apr 7, 2024 16:40:13 GMT 1
An awfull lot of technical stuff interspersed with derogatory comments which totally ignores the final journey these extra special sound waves make through the ears to the brain. By ignoring this are you suggesting that every human has the same auditory perception?
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