Pictures of the A-10 have been released. Looks interesting to say the least...

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f38/10-thunderbolt-ll-fully-balanced-electrostatic-amp-pre-amp-417185/

and so it begins...

Moar toobs!

Why the big stupid rings around the knobs and jacks? And the gold screws look silly next to the knobs and nameplate...... silver would have looked much better.

I like the case minus the gold accents and thats a weird headphone stand

edit: beefy beat me to it

Justin releases a new amp, Ray quickly follows suite. Pico vs. Predator again this time with Blue Hawaii Second Edition vs. the A-10 Thunderbolt II Esquire.

The commenter that said that was the best looking amp he's ever seen must not have seen the BHSE.

All pre-conceived notions aside, I think it looks fairly well-built on the outside. I'll be interested in the internal pics. I don't get why he put the output of the power supply and the input to the amp on opposite sides, though.

now we just need a portable stax amp that gets 50 hours playback time.

kmathes?holy crap they just fixed it

I've always found RSA amps ugly, too much bling and gold for my tastes, but I'm sure it will please a lot of people. Good timing with the release of the BHSE to say the least.

now we just need a portable stax amp that gets 50 hours playback time.

and so it begins...

Someone had to do it.

That aside. I like the design of the Apache.

pic

and now we need one thats 2 mm smaller with a different name.

edit: and claims that it competes respectably with the A 10.

gotta love the hi-rez pics of the orpheus tho...

and now we need one thats 2 mm smaller with a different name.

edit: and claims that it competes respectably with the A 10.

Let's brainstorm names of small aircraft to submit to Ray.

Its looks shouldn't surprise anybody, who knows the RSA product line, too much. It takes most of its styling cues from the B-52. I much prefer the looks of the BHSE but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A lot of people will prefer this. Ray's amps tend to be well-built. That's not be an RSA issue. I'm more interested in how it sounds and whether it will have reliability issues due to Ray's lack of experience designing stat amps.

Edited March 30, 200917 yr by guzziguy

now we just need a portable stax amp that gets 50 hours playback time.

have you read krmathis's demands on this? It must also be the same size as the Pico, which can't even fit a Stax jack on the front panel, creating difficulties.

have you read krmathis's demands on this? It must also be the same size as the Pico, which can't even fit a Stax jack on the front panel, creating difficulties.

There you go brandishing dangerous logic again.

sorry for the off-topic, but to give an idea of the size required to make a decent stax portable, figure about 5W which allows +/-300V and 1mA for each output stage (compared to BH which is +/-400V and 20mA output bias). That would be a life of 27 minutes if you used a 9V nimh battery

I wonder how grossly overpriced this amp will be?

sorry for the off-topic, but to give an idea of the size required to make a decent stax portable, figure about 5W which allows +/-300V and 1mA for each output stage (compared to BH which is +/-400V and 20mA output bias). That would be a life of 27 minutes if you used a 9V nimh battery

People could wear a bandoleer filled with 6-10 rechargeable 9Vs. Or be really hardcore and buy a crapload of lithiums. Or be really really hardcore and carry around a lead-acid battery. Except that's not very portable.

I eagerly await more details.

What was the thunderbolt I?

I like the way the sides look with those parallel bars. That's something I don't think I've seen on an amp before.

Am I the only one that doesn't like when volume knobs are on the left hand side and headphone jacks are on the right? That always bothers me a little. It's not a deal breaker (I'd happily take the Wheatfield HA-2), but I much prefer it the other way.

Actually, I like the way it looks. Not as much as the BHSE -- it's a completely different look -- it kind of looks like a black-and-tan version of some of the Musical Fidelity gear.

So he did it. And without killing himself.

People could wear a bandoleer filled with 6-10 rechargeable 9Vs. Or be really hardcore and buy a crapload of lithiums. Or be really really hardcore and carry around a lead-acid battery. Except that's not very portable.

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Edited March 30, 200917 yr by Dusty Chalk