kevin gilmore

http://www.thatcorp.com/300-series_Matched_Transistor_Array_ICs.shtml its the only thing that is not stupidly priced, and is ultra low noise, and in stock at mouser. Otherwise a pair of the analog devices parts is something like $40 per channel. if i'm clever enough i can make the new board take both fets and this chip.

I'm tired of waiting on linear systems, and have found a suitable part for the front end. Bipolar, 2 x pnp and 2 x npn all on one substrate. Reasonably priced and less than 2 nv/roothz noise. input impedance won't be as high, but should otherwise work great. sample parts on the way.

its all super low in carbs right??

That makes sense. Wrong, but makes sense.

A package arrived today with these items in it, sender unknown http://gilmore.chem....du/dsc_2310.jpg i'm afraid of the stuff in the plastic bags.

390VA should be 150VA 450v x .150 amp is 67 watts x 2 is about 140 watts plus 10 watts of low voltage.

I need a couple more transformers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenniv%C3%ADn and it is NASTY

And the stuff they get shitfaced on is NASTY. Birgir sent me a bottle of that crap, and the hangover that must generate is probably why you see those guys with horns on their heads and a large sword in their hands.

So here is how this actually went down. Remember all those T2 chassis i shipped outside the USA last year... At the time the size of the box (girth plus height) was less than the maximum size and was less than the maximum weight. So it shipped USPS priority mail, about $215 to europe. Well times have changed and the USPS is just about bankrupt. So the size and weight have shrunk so that if i had to ship the T2 chassis now, it would just barely meet the requirements, and for next year, NO WAY. So there were 2 choices to ship the beast to iceland. Package size is 24 x 24 x 7 inches. and it weighs 40 lbs. So i could not ship the thing priority. So option 1 was fedex direct, the shipping cost was $515. (slowest way possible) option 2 was USPS global express mail. Which it turns out is actually also fedex but USPS gets a great deal because they are moving everything over to fedex. So it was $316. Fine. Birgir told me how much to insure it for. But when i got to the post office, i ran into this fucking asshole who i hate and who is incompetent. But he was the only one at the counter at the time. Rash of shit later, and an inch of customs forms later, finally got to the computer, and there was an extremely limited dropdown list of available contents. He refused to actually type in something saying i would get it back. There was no "amplifier" or "digital audio converter" or anything like that. And the only thing in the list that was close was "audio tapes" So i wrote "audio tapes device" on the customs forms, and off it went. Part 2 of this is that fedex asseses the duty for the receiving country, saving their inspectors the time and trouble that they have to go thru for priority mail. So the duty charge was $80 which isn't even right on insurance of $220. With a shipping cost of $316. What the thing is actually worth is for the buyer to determine. And none of this is my fault Its all seriously fucked up.

You had better be careful. You are going to have a smile on your face for a very long time to come.

audio tapes device seriously!

And birgir had the wonderful opportunity to get said $10k source for only $80 in duties due to my creativity in shipping the beast due to its size. Its a little more than mehh, but not worth $10k in my opinion. Seems like the current versions of that thing have even more bling, but not any more performance.

electo-static. I can live with that. nothing a little stickon with a ^ and a tilted R won't fix.

That is better than 1% accuracy which is all you should expect unless you get silly and hand match the parts.

Lets take a pure resistor. The voltage across the resistor and the current thru the resistor are in phase. There is actually no such thing as a perfect resistor, all resistors have some inductive component and some capacitive component.. So at higher frequencies the voltage and current are not in perfect phase. Lets take a pure capacitor. The voltage across the capacitor and the current thru the capacitor are 90 degrees out of phase. There is no such thing as a perfect capacitor as all capacitors also have some inductive and resistive component. Air does have a resistive component which also depends on the humidity. So the electrostatic transducer looses energy into the air because of the resistance, and the electrostatic transducer also looses energy as it transfers the energy to the air in the sound wave. So while electrostatic transducers are more efficient than dynamic transducers at producing a sound field, they still are only at most 10% efficient whereas dynamic transducers are at most 2% efficient. It still takes real power to make an electrostatic transducer create a sound field.

As i remember the dynahi is something in the 40 to 50 v/us range. I completely disagree with the analysis that says only a 2 v/us is required because i can deliberately slow down an amplifier and the sound changes dramatically. Changes in the way the feedback works which decreases the delay time also makes a big difference. The new balanced supersymmetry dynahi definitely sounds slightly different from the original and gives me the same feeling as listening to the T2.

I have listened to the lcd2's on my original dynahi, very Very good. Remember that balanced doubles the slew rate. Also the lower impedance input due to the super symmetry widens the frequency response a fair amount.

DIY of course. A commercial version done to the craftsmanship level of headamp would be well into the $20k range. Parts cost with the step attenuator will still be close to $4k.

First of all, some people that say that since electrostatics are capacitors and therefore the impedance is imaginary, there is no real power. This is absolutely wrong. In fact the real power to O2's can be in excess of 1 watt. All you have to do is put an amplifier on a scope, and then connect and disconnect headphones with test signals applied to prove that the amplifier is delivering real power. On some amplifiers when you connect one pair of headphones, the slew rate gets cut in half. Add another set of headphones and the slew rate slows down even more. This is real power, not imaginary power. The T2 has the largest voltage swing of any amplifier out there and has the most amount of power behind that voltage swing. Something like 20 watts per channel. The BHSE is second in this regard, less voltage swing, and slightly less power, something like 16 watts per channel. The added current source in the kgsshv and the toshiba output transistors make a big difference in both the slew rate, and distortion. Even at moderate volume levels, the difference between the kgss and kgsshv is significant. There will be a new version of the T2 with a solid state input stage. With output current sources based on the same toshiba transistor, you can now up the voltage rails to +/-600 volts. And push up the power to about 30 watts per channel. This will also increase the slew rate. Its not about how loud it goes, Its all about how well it handles the loud. Although i don't have lcd3's yet, with lcd2's, the new balanced and supersymmetry dynahi is lots of fun, lively and exiting. And its much more than the 120 volts peak to peak that this amplifier can produce that makes it sounds so good.

I was told to use the xicon resistors. I was not told why. Or i was told why, but did not understand. The spec on the prp resistors says 500 volts across the resistor. It says nothing about leakage from the resistor to ground or other parts of the circuit. They do leak about 150 nanoamps to ground at 500 volts. And probably moisture in the air makes a change in that number. For most stuff even including the kgsshv, this is not an issue. Properly adjusted, this amp is good for a 95 to 100db signal to noise ratio. Input tubes make a huge difference. Compared to the original which has oodles of hum from the unregulated power supplies there is a night and day difference. Its a tube amp, it is supposed to make some noise. Thermal noise from the output tubes is just the way it is. Kerrys solid state front end version should make less noise.

you should be fine without having to glue them together. Its more important on the dynamic amps where a little DC can cause major trouble. The lsk389 does have a bit less noise.

kerry is correct on all issues. The 500 version runs only a fraction hotter than the 450 volt version. Not an issue. I need to do some writeups for all the various different configurations. When i'm going to find the time for this, i have no idea.

On the power supply board, do not populate Q9,Q10,Q24,Q14,Q15,Q26 While it works great on the bench with dummy loads, when you try to power it up with a real amplifier, the current limit comes up so fast that those transistors pop. Likely need 1k ohm series base resistors on these, or the next size up in transistors, something in a to92-mod case. edit: andy/steve have a working balanced dynahi now, a few teething issues... Hopefully he will post the pictures he sent to me. second edit: only board from the group buy not tested now is the balanced dynafet board. (obviously the most complicated of the dynamics)

Those voltages are correct with those led's.