The Sakuma Amps explained....

Hi.

Yes, I got to make a trip there one day, not far away from Tokyo by train. But then I have to change my flight route to squeeze it into my tight schedule.

Sakuma-san's tube amps gallery (inside his restaurant) reminded me bigtime my visit to Hammond Museum of Radio, in Guelf, Canada quite a few years back. Indeed a memorable 2-hour tour back 100 years in the tube radio history, personally conducted by Fred Hammond, the late owner of the museum & founder of Hammond Manufacturing Inc, the famous Canadian transformers builder/supplier to DIYers !

What an eye-widening experience to witness the tube history - from Marconi's spark gap transmitter to bassy monaural radiogramme floor consol.

c-J

RE: The Sakuma Amps explained...., posted on August 22, 2007 at 12:32:33
Doc B. Manufacturer Posts: 5916 Location: Pacific Northwest Joined: October 6, 1999	Hmm, maybe those are the 304TLs I gave him at VSAC 97. After all these years I still haven't done anything with the pair I kept for myself.

I thought there was a ban on porn links (nt), posted on August 22, 2007 at 12:56:29

Chris O

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Long Live Dr.Gizmo

RE: The Sakuma Amps explained...., posted on August 22, 2007 at 14:13:32

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Explain what , I couldn't understand a word of it :) Amp placement under those cupboards is a bit dumb and he's got a soldering iron the size of a donkey's knob , but I like the rest of it . REAL valves , not a crappy ECC83 or EL34 in sight ! Concord looks a bit of a dull place , if that was a cafe that sold decent beer and was frequented by hot women , I'd be on the first plane out in the morning ;)

to bad there aren't programs to translate videos (nt), posted on August 22, 2007 at 14:38:27
Vinnie Audiophile Posts: 2074 Location: North Carolina Joined: July 17, 2001	nt

After you get past the filament supply..., posted on August 23, 2007 at 06:28:12

Ivan303
Audiophile

Posts: 48887
Location: Cadiere d'azur FRANCE - Santa Fe, NM
Joined: February 26, 2001
Contributor
Since: September 3, 2024

they're a piece of cake to work with! ;-)

I have about 10 NOS NIB I got for $30 each. Waiting for someone to try running 1/2 of one for a "Poor Mans 152TL".

Nobody here but us chickens.
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Make sure yrou master the language first !, posted on August 23, 2007 at 07:35:07

cheap-Jack
Manufacturer

Posts: 5799
Location: Toronto, Canada
Joined: February 13, 2003

Hi.

Or you would appear like a deaf. dumb & blind mouse so helpless in any small Japanese towns, FYI.

Don't hold your breath, too. You think you would like the sound of those iron loaded boat anchors? I won't. As background music come free with a low cost meal is OK. Talk to our Japanese expert: Lynn Olson to learn more.

To meet in person the most talked-about tube grandmaster in Japan & take a glance over his glasswares in his gallery would worth a trip stop over.

c-J

PS: you see the way he uses his "donkey knob"? You may be impressed. I am not.

RE: Make sure yrou master the language first !, posted on August 24, 2007 at 10:46:06
JLH Audiophile Posts: 742 Joined: June 25, 2000	"Talk to our Japanese expert: Lynn Olson to learn more" Ha! Ha! Ha! That was a good one. Thanks for the laugh.

RE: The Sakuma Amps explained...., posted on August 24, 2007 at 18:42:31
JeffreyJ Manufacturer Posts: 596 Location: Hudson Valley of New York Joined: January 10, 2001	you should play with them, Dan... I think they would totally be up your alley.. very clean and clear.... and musical... and lots of fun... looking forward to VSAC! Peace, Me

RE: Make sure yrou master the language first !, posted on August 26, 2007 at 04:58:59

.

I hope for yrou sake that yrou Japanese is much better than yrou Minglish . How do you know you won't like the sound of Sakuma's amps ? It's like saying you don't like the taste of something when you have never tried it or saying a piece of art is crap when you've never seen it

What so funny about it?, posted on August 27, 2007 at 08:06:57
cheap-Jack Manufacturer Posts: 5799 Location: Toronto, Canada Joined: February 13, 2003	Hi. FYI since you don't know, Lynn spent years in Japan. c-J

Your Fl'nglish is not much better, pal., posted on August 27, 2007 at 08:20:12
cheap-Jack Manufacturer Posts: 5799 Location: Toronto, Canada Joined: February 13, 2003	Hi. I told you to ask Lynn who will tell you how much he like (or should I say, dislike) the iron loaded sound of Sakuma's amps. He told me I would not like the vintage sound of his amps. He is perfectly right. I hate vintage sound. So you "think" you like the sound by the look of the old "fatbottles" on Sakuma's amps, but why you change your old moniker? ???? Isn't it silly? c-J

Vintage Sound, posted on August 28, 2007 at 02:10:22

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Taken from the Nutshellhifi website

'The only way to accomplish this is some kind of dynamic load ... and the extra B+ headroom that requires ... or choke or transformer loading. Since I also wanted highly symmetric phase splitting that was invariant with signal level, I chose the interstage-transformer, and sought out the classic UTC and Sakuma amps for inspiration. My personal esthetic favors wide bandwidth, so the Lundahl transformers presented themselves as high-quality choices. In the PP world, high-frequency balance is more rare than you would expect; many expensive transformers have asymmetries in the capacitive balance, and this has a disastrous effect on HF distortion. It doesn't do any good to have precision-balanced tubes if the transformer itself is out of balance.

Another difference between this amplifier and the "classics" is of course much wider bandwidth than the "old days" in the Thirties when these circuits were last used. Back then, no wideband sources were available (with the exception of Major Armstrong's Yankee FM network). Everything else was both narrowband and noisy: intercity AM network radio (carried by Bell System land-lines), shellac 78rpm records, and optical sound-tracks for movies. Modern expectations for 65 to 100dB S/N ratios and 20Hz to 20kHz bandwidth simply didn't exist. Recycling antique parts and antique circuits will, of course, deliver vintage sound. That wasn't my goal. I wanted the unmatched linearity of triodes and transformer coupling, combined with modern bandwidths of 15Hz to 50kHz.'

I think you must be thinking of another Lynn Olson !

It's the same guy, bud., posted on August 28, 2007 at 08:51:05

cheap-Jack
Manufacturer

Posts: 5799
Location: Toronto, Canada
Joined: February 13, 2003

Hi.

Same Lynn Olson who spent years in Japan.

What's matter with your Fl'inglish? Read again what you just posted.

He said he get the I/P transformer idea that many "classics" designers employed, including Sakuma.

But he prefers "WIDE bandwidth" as he doesn't like vintage sound. So he has chosen only Lundahl irons for their wide bandwidth & "high frequency BALANCE". In fact, Sakuma always specifies irons of the same Japanese make for its vintage sonics he personally likes. Surely not Lundahl.

If you still like vintage sound of 30s, be my guest. But don't count me in.

c-J

Tube DIY Asylum

The Sakuma Amps explained....

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