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In Reply to: What is a spud amp? - NT posted by aol908 on September 06, 2001 at 12:14:46:
tomcat
Follow Ups:
Mine uses a single Red Devil (6S45P) each channel, choke input PS with tube rectification. It employs unusual amp topology that was scribbled out on the back of an envelope for me by old Thunderstone (Thorsten)Loesch himself.[Nice one Thor ;) ] I am hoping to get the schematic up on my website shortly but I've got to master CAD for Idiots first. My present paper draft is of a superceded version.
I'll try and get something out soon, I promise. Brian.
Thanks, looking forward to it. So whats your site address so I can check back for it and check out what else you've been up to?
tomcat
:)
From memory it's the single stage SE amp made using a WE 417A.
"single tuber" hence "lone potato" or "spud"Dontcha just love in jokes and acronyms that tell you nothing?
I'm pretty sure that a hotbot or yahoo search under lone potato would yield results as would searching on 417A. get lots of false hits under spud i expect.
Off to work on my Fostex FE168 horns
type you all soon
Drew
Ever heard of a Hawk Shahinian ?I heard of a guy who taught drum and used a single for non recreational demos.The man I bought my 77 vintage Shahinian Obelisks claimed he unsuccessfully tried to buy said Hawk from said percusion head master.I have never even heard of anybody else that owns these speakers.I went out listening today....well it wasn't all that much.No service,got some talk,looked at the new Ear 8/EL34 amp(shiny!)and talked about a few things.I did listen to a pair of ProAcs that had 2 8"ers and a dome,two ports,hooked up to an AR system that had cables(not AR) that cost more than my rig,and they were clean,forward,not bright,good bass definition down to 40 or so,cost only around 12K so,but with the 5k cables and the 20K AR Pre and Amp could have well gone over 35K.....I am guessing at the prices,but my house was only 50K!This HiFi ,that granted I didn't sit down and listen to it go through its paces(but after a few years you need less unless you want to be carefull of libel)was better but not profoundly so than my old Obelisks and Fisher 400.It was not, NOT ,as good as the mediocre Mullard 3.3 SE amps and the Shahinians.The mid magjic was not there and though I can say the highs were clear they were ordinary.What is this thing coming to when a system that doesn't give you goose bumps cost as much as a Lexus?Sorry but I don't get it.The stuff looked high end,but the cables were like 10' long 2 " cocks.I think it was mostly looks.The only way one could need that much shielding was if the big one went off.Ground Zero for me and the cables!You know I am offered the keys to a car and even thought the sales guy goes along I am free to red line,manouver freely and really get the feel of the machine.Apple with worms today to the old named but new company on Preston North of 635.Not a salesman asked me a question and I really did want to hear the big Martin Logans.No stars for you guys!
David Thatcher
David Thatcher
I know it all too well. Ok, so I'm in Australia where half the nice kit never reaches or has crap distribution but two systems of note stick out for their complete lack of involvement.(Puts head on block and prepares for libel suit)
B&W 801 + Electrocompaniet Ampliwire 100 with matching pre amp + Meridian 800 series transport and dac + XLO cabling from front to back including the power leads. Sounded nice but not *THAT* nice.
At the price I expected to be knocked to the floor or a jaw drop or goosebumps or something. No such luck.Ditto with a system of Krell and Duntech I heard once.
Single drivers and output better than 93dB/w seems to be what works for me. Not so everyone else.
Oh Well.....
Yes indeed, Speaking of Aus and lawsuits, I've been to the appointment only 'High End Audio' type places run by self-promoting experts (particularly on one occasion,in Melbourne, where all the sales w..nkers were actually drunk), auditioned classy looking stuff with unobtainium cables and boutique speakers that cost more than the car I drove there (they only let me sit down because I admitted to having Quad IIs at the time, and they were having a hard time convincing some neophyte to part with his money) , (" Now, Mate, jus' Lishten to THESE cables...") then gone home (at a saving of many many many $1000's) and smugly listened to full-range Goodmans and other gear made in a time before said drunken salesman were even thought of, an interconnect was just a piece of cable straight off the spool, and RCA plugs were Ni plated.
No contest for the money whatsoever.Much better to be into the Far Side than the High End.
Yeah, I agree with both of you. I'm in Oz too and this is all too common. Ah well what do you expect?, we haven't even a decent Hi-Fi rag or one lone reviewer that knows what he's on about that we can rely on. The ones we have, well, you can take anything they have to say with a pinch of salt and a long swig on the Tequila to make it palatable, or is that the other way round?...
tomcat
Damn straight! When I first got into hifi I used to buy Oz HF and the various "speakers and amps" yearlies till I discovered 2 things
1 they were sharing articles between each other
2 they had no real review type content.The fact that an article will use up 2 columns to tell you that the way the mag measures driver diameter is different to other mags and how many elemements are in the Xover (without being able to tell if it's first or second order, or if the parts are being used for impedance compensation) and then devote only 3 lines to how something sounds got to me a little.
Nothing has changed, Bor***man and D**son are still writing content free dribble and being paid for it. (of course with never a negative review cos they might upset some advertisers)
Drew
*grin* - seems there´s some grief we share!Reading a two pages long review of a 5000 US$ speaker cable (all of 2X10ft. of it)made me grin so much I nearly dribbled my beer all over that rag.
As to the saleszombies over here - forget them as well! The only one of my acquaintance who does any good for REAL HiFi is the bloke who works the saw at the local Baumarkt (something like Home Depot). With the ply he cuts for me I can build speakers I can a) afford and b)live with.
Pit
Hey, I am sorry for my outburst(outward writing,forward vocabulary) but I have had guys pity me for being an owner of Altec 604s(I really don't like them,too bright)and making my own cables out of WE 24 gage celonese covered wire.For those of you that don't know Western Electric made a solid copper pre-tinned wire covered with wound paper that looks like woven cloth.It makes great cables and interconnects and is very good in construction and overhaul of amps.The background of my AC after sifting causes more degredation of the sound than my cables.Things just seem a bit out of line when a man is willing to spend the GNP of a small nation for "Hi Fi" that aint Fi but sure as hell is high if you are talking about price.I think I am going to go hang out in the tweeker's nut house untill I feel better.Meanwhile....best bang for the buck for crossover caps?
In the past I've used both Solens and a form of wound polyprop sold at a store called Jaycar here in Oz. In theory it should be significantly crapper than the solen due to its smaller size and therefore surface area for a given uF value. I xo my tweeters pretty high (6 or 7k) (or did when I was using them)so the cap had less effect on the final sound than it would have in a low frequency xo.One corker (a good one) is the 10uF 50 volt multilayer Ceramic (Ouch!, did he just say the "C" word?) sold through the Farnell catalogue part number 578-411. worth a listen folks
Of course, now that I'm using the Fostex FE168 sigma units in a back horn, the best cap is no cap!
happy listening
Drew
Mate, I LIKED that outburst!
As to caps - no idea what is available Down Under, and under which brand name...in mid-and highrange Xovers I like Solen caps a lot, and they are affordable. In case of doubt, half a dozen caps of smaller µF are "faster" and cleaner than one big lump - this usually tides me over until I can afford Solens or Wondercaps (or until the shops open, when I´m tinkering at 3am) Pit
Hello all,
You mentioned the lamentable state of audio journalism "down under", the excesses in the name of high end, the ridiculous sales staff---what, is stuff communicable, or what? How did they contract that same malady that has infected high end here? Must spread on money, eh?The best thing for the reproduction of sound, and a big boost for the hobby is what we're doing right here---an intercontinental and open exchange of ideas. The potential for real advancement and fun are huge. Some days I'm truly amazed at the vast array a material right here at AA, with all forums motoring along. Ya gotta love it.
Tim
Yeah, well, it all comes back to what I said to you earlier 'bout goin' round in ever diminishing circles chasin' our tails... The more so now that I look back over the past 30 years and I realize that apart from one or two very rare instances we have all been conned by the marketing hype of the rags that the latest is gotta be better than what went before. If that were so how come we are back to tubes and fullrange speaker systems? Somehow it does not take an Einstein to figure that Paul Voight/Lowther (for instance) had it right the first time, if they didn't how come they are still in business making the same stuff almost 70 years later when in that time hundreds, nay, more had come and gone trying to flog the 'you beut latest' over the same timespan?. I think somewhere along the way a lot of us (including me) threw the baby out with the bathwater reading that drivel hoping for nirvana when in fact to a certain extent (tweeks apart)we had it all along, but then it was too late. It's hard to get off a ferris wheel until it comes full circle and there seems a heck of a lot more people thanks to the net queing en masse falling over each other to get off...
tomcat
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