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Posted by Tax on
03-01-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d Finally listening to my Melq which I have named Koshka!
Here is a photo of my two tiered wooden chassis which I tested before sending it back to the cabinet maker for sanding and oiling.
Thank you Romy for your blog and making the schematic available to the public!
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-01-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d Great, thank you very much
for naming your amp this way, it means a lot to me. The two tiers configuration
is of cause an option, my full range Milqs were in a way two floor amps with
all magnetics sit on the second floor. In my case the magnetic were bolted to
the chassis but I think in your configuration you have an option to make it
fancier. Your second floor I presume will hold light parts that you heavy much
can make flooding over the main wooden chassis. You can make ether suspended or
erected with some kind of bungees cords or rubber feet. You can even go do air
of magnetic decoupling. My only problem with this type of chassis topology is
that you need to make the connecting wires from first to second floor longer
then they need to be in order to have the upper floor open-able and maintainable.
Can you post a picture of the complete amp?
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Posted by Tax on
03-01-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d Thanks Romy!
I went with two tiers as I do not have much space between the speakers and the side walls as I have a 2.5M cabinet on the front wall.
I named my amp Koshka as I always felt Koshka made a contribution to the development of the Melquiades and the mood of the owner 😆
Is there a way I can upload multiple photos so I can share some photos from various stages of the build?
Yes, both boards (tiers) are suspended by small rubber loops and hooks so anti vibration is built in. The boards are 26mm thick. The transformers and other bits are screwed into the board. Very good vibration absorption.
The OPT and valves sit on the top board which is also suspended. I am also putting castors on the chassis so I can roll it out of the room to work on when I want to change something. I have had to do some tweaking to the circuit by adding some vcap and mundorf film caps I had on hand. Could be because of the length of ps cable causing inductance or electrolytic caps being new, I was getting a bit of sibilance and a hardness in a particular register. The bypass caps seem to have smoothened this out.I am finally beginning to appreciate "dynamic viscosity" and now understand what you have been describing.
Nothing is visible over the top of the chassis as the OPT and valves sit inside. The front cutout serves two purposes, 1 allows me to see the 6C33C glow. 2 allows ventilation for natural cooling.I hope to get the finished chassis back from the cabinet maker by next weekend.
There is a stainless steel plate fixed to the underside of the amplifier board as extra precaution to isolate it from power supply hysteresis.
I have enough space on both boards if I need to go DSET or 3 Channel so it is a bit future proof. With the Avantgarde speakers I do notneed DSET as the subwoofer has its own plate amp.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-01-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1120
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-04-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d Hm, Tax, are you sure that to play the irelevant sounds that
you presented at your YouTube videos you need any Milq, horns, TT or any other playback
more sophisticated then the iPhone? I think you (and not only you alone) need
to make a break from audio assembling and even from playback listening and to try
finding for yourself what music consuming might be all about. There is no true
definition of “better” and there are no priorities of Sound among the sounds
that you play within your playback. A definition of “better” playback shall gravitate
you from the sequential sounds that you are listening now to more meaningful
music. If it does not happen then you just are spinning your wheels while
performing irrelevant audio activities.
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Posted by c1ferrari on
03-06-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d
Thanks for sharing your vid :-)
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Posted by Tax on
03-09-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d  Romy the Cat wrote: | | Hm, Tax, are you sure that to play the irelevant sounds that
you presented at your YouTube videos you need any Milq, horns, TT or any other playback
more sophisticated then the iPhone? I think you (and not only you alone) need
to make a break from audio assembling and even from playback listening and to try
finding for yourself what music consuming might be all about. There is no true
definition of “better” and there are no priorities of Sound among the sounds
that you play within your playback. A definition of “better” playback shall gravitate
you from the sequential sounds that you are listening now to more meaningful
music. If it does not happen then you just are spinning your wheels while
performing irrelevant audio activities. |
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Romy, thank you for your input!
The video was taken over a year ago when I bought the R2R player and I borrowed some Yarlung tapes to hear what the R2R sounded like and posted the video for some friends to get an idea.
While agreeing that an iphone would do the job of recreating sequential sounds I am of the view that a playback system should be able to handle anything that it is fed.
When I get my playback right then I will embark on the third phase of my journey....listening and learning about more meaningful music.
In the mean time Koshka continues to Meow 😀
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Posted by Tax on
03-09-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d | c1ferrari wrote: |
Thanks for sharing your vid :-)
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Thanks c1ferrari!
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-09-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d | Tax wrote: | | When I get my
playback right then I will embark on the third phase of my journey....listening
and learning about more meaningful music. |
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Actually, I disagree with this approach. It is
like you are searching a needle in a haystack but you never ever saw how needle looks like and do not even know what needle is. What
chance you have to find anything? Moreover, what chance you have to learn where
to stop to seeking for needle and when to start your “third phase of your
journey”? It is like cooking, adding salt to your soup. How do you know when to
stop of you do not have appreciation for eating?
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Posted by anthony on
03-10-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d | Romy the Cat wrote: | | Tax wrote: | | When I get my
playback right then I will embark on the third phase of my journey....listening
and learning about more meaningful music. |
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Actually, I disagree with this approach. It is
like you are searching a needle in a haystack but you never ever saw how needle looks like and do not even know what needle is. What
chance you have to find anything? Moreover, what chance you have to learn where
to stop to seeking for needle and when to start your “third phase of your
journey”? It is like cooking, adding salt to your soup. How do you know when to
stop of you do not have appreciation for eating? |
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Do you mean that the way to good sound is unlikely to be found through trial and error (this piece of kit vs that piece of kit) but rather through appreciation of what you want to achieve in your sound reproduction and the reasoned adaption of available audio technologies and implementations to achieve that?
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Posted by rowuk on
03-10-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d I think the problem is like the chicken/egg dilemma - what needs to be there first? If we don't have the music appreciation first, how "good" can the playback be?. If we have achieved a technical solution, how can that lead to better appreciation of music?
I personally think that appreciation of music and audio are not connected. I enjoy music best when studying a score with no noise around me at all. Maybe a suitable glass of wine and cheese or something. I prepared Stravinsky Firebird for a recent concert mostly in my head. It was far more 3 dimensional than even the playing on stage. I don't think that I will even be able to translate that image in my head to playback. When I listen to the recording now, I am kind of torn between what went on in my head with the score, what I heard on stage, what I felt when playing and now the image in my living room. I wish that I could connect the dots........... I have no idea where to start. It sure isn't with a better tweeter!
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-10-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d | rowuk wrote: | | I personally think that appreciation of music and audio
are not connected. |
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I do not say that they do
ether. I however do not feel that building a playback and playing on it those sequences
of noises does not allow the owner of this playback to have any association of playback
results with people who have musical objective in audio.
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Posted by anthony on
03-10-2015
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fiogf49gjkf0d | rowuk wrote: | | I personally think that appreciation of music and audio are not connected. |
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Definitely agree here. I have always appreciated music and was always frustrated in my youth when my piano did not actually sound as "it should have" in my head. Frustrated musician I was...
But in the last few years I have begun to try to get a better musical connection through a better sound system and unfortunately this means playing with audio gear...something which I would never have foreseen myself even contemplating five years ago. Doing it like run of the mill audiophiles or diyers do it seems pointless from a lot of perspectives, but at the same time I want to be able to put together a musically satisfying system and then be done with it...just immerse myself in what gives me the real pleasure from there on in.
Even though I am aware that collecting drivers and horns and tubes and capacitors et cetera will not get me that musical connection that I really seek, I do need a place to start in lieu of spending another decade visiting people and rooms, trying to understand technologies and trying to figure out how to get what I want.
There are two primary reasons (among others of course) why I personally am attracted to Macondo/Melquiades:
- Your description of "soft bass". I go to a concert hall and listen to an orchestra and what I hear correlates to my interpretation of how you describe soft bass. This is what I want, almost more than anything else in audio. I have not really heard it yet in any audio installation.
- You outline some of your thought processes regarding why you have made many of your decisions with your acoustic system. To me, this is very important because I could (and probably would) make up all kinds of crazy assumptions about the "why" if all I knew was the "what".
I would like to think that I am undertaking to emulate your system for mostly the right reasons. From time to time I feel like a bit of a goose for buying ancient audio drivers, frequenting audio forums such as this, reading books on electronics and building valve amplifiers and clogging up my shed with MDF dust and rings or even for simply considering placing giant horn speakers in my listening room. But for me it is a case of "the end justifying the means", and if I can think and reason and learn from others enough to be able to implement a good sound within a couple of years then I will be the happiest bloke in town.
Tax put up a few videos for his friends when he followed your lead and added an upperbass horn to his AG's that roughly showed differences with placement of the new horn (at least I assume that is the purpose of those videos). As a further step he is now building a fullrange Melq in an effort to further understand what you are talking about in your description and his act of building it could probably be construed as an act of faith in the lead you have taken (already he has mentioned beginning to understand what you mean by 'dynamic viscosity'). Admittedly, I can see why you think this is "spinning his wheels" but I can not think of any other way forward unless you do spin the odd wheel from time to time. We have all done it I am sure. And that is precisely why I picked your system Romy as a starting point...because I don't want to "spin my wheels" if it can be avoided.
Regards,
Anthony
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