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Audio Discussions
Topic: DSETs with single-ended Solid State

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Posted by decoud on 04-28-2008
I know there is enough history to put one off trying, but what about something like this recent effort of Nelson Pass's....

http://www.firstwatt.com/downloads/f3_om.pdf

It is minimalist, class A, has a fuckoff flat frequency response, and what little distortion it has, even at high output, is mostly 2nd order harmonics.

What a priori reason can one give for not hearing it?



Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-29-2008

Well, this is huge mystery in the reproduction of the few first milliwatt and I very much applaud to what Nelson Pass is trying to do. Being muse a proponent of high sensitively and low power I very much experienced with the fact the high power amps do not work well in ultra high sensitively load. I am very welcome to any SS low power class A1 single-ended amps, perhaps even with output transformers SS amps.  Unfortunately very few explore this area. Nelson Pass is trying to talk about it, Eduardo de Lima made a large 15W SS single-ended amp that was very nice and he spoke a lot about making SS with SET-like signature… The direction is very cool.

However, I do need to express some less enthusiastic attitude about it as well. Though the strategic route is very motivating from my point of view but I am not so enthusiastic about what Nelson Pass does. Once again – I appreciate that he look in this direction abut I do not like WHAT he does. Nelson Pass is very experienced and skilled electrician:  he might design a well-performing machinery for automated cow milking or a space telescope navigation system but he should not touch anything related to Sound. He is pretty much clawless about the sonic result of his implementation and this is very much visible in sound of any of his amplifiers ( I do not know his phonocorrectors and line-stage – I never had them).

The very same Nelson Pass does with his First Watt project. The idea is there and I very convinced that his low power SS amps do a wonderful job to drive Nelson’s oscilloscopes and distortion analyzers, so what?  In the past I read a lot Nelson’s comment about his First Watt project and I always was put off by the comment like this:

“At this point you should be able to listen to music. This amplifier has less gain than most, but at 15 watts rating, it should not need it. If you need to turn the gain up on your preamp, then do so. If you can't get enough gain, then you are probably using either the wrong speaker or the wrong amplifier. Talk to your dealer if this is the case.”

Do I need to comment on it or it is too obvious?

A few years back Mr. Pass initiated a project to make high sensitively loudspeaker to propel his First Watt project. Whatever they did they always came up with full range, back-loaded Lowther of Fostex – the incredible crap in my books – and then they spent a lot of time discussing the idiosyncrasies hot to make the First Watt amps to get better sound of the Lowthers mount in empty TV packing boxes. As Chris Rock (US stand-up comedian) would be saying “I hate this shit!” and I do not anticipate anything interesting from THAT approach. It is all that I call the DIYAudio.com-level of audio: the boys and girl participate in recreational soldering. It is not wrong, better then sniff cocaine, but it also have no reason to deliver more than an entertaining results.

http://www.firstwatt.com/downloads/cs-amps-speakers.pdf

So, I do very welcome the milliwatt-capable SS amps but I personally doubt that any interesting result would come from Nelson Pass Company. I have to admit thigh that I have had in my room the First Watt amp….

Rgs, Romy the Cat

Posted by mats on 04-30-2008
Another noteworthy effort might be the  battery operated, solid state amplifiers with input and output transformers from Serge at www.audio-consulting.ch , available with copper windings.  I keep thinking this might be good for Paul in his electrically challenged neighborhood :-)  I heard the MIPA amp at RMAF 2006, and under those conditions it did not seem to me to have any obvious faults.
Mats

Posted by Paul S on 04-30-2008
Mats, believe me, I'd love to get off the frickin' grid altogether.  But if I'm looking at >20 car batteries just for the K&K phono stage, then how many angels will fit on the head of a pin?  Ironically, the K&K also uses JFETs...

I remember vaguely looking into the Pass design when it first came out, and now I am having fuzzy "memories" that the thing effectively reminded me of an OTL, in terms of its power delivery, and/or it dropped off fast in terms of useable power after its "1st Watt".

In any case, remember that this Pass design is not very efficient - at all - needing >300 watts at idle!  And I wonder how effective the stated 15 watts is, since I need them all, and then some.

If I ever heard an amp with "no obvious problems", I would certainly, soon enough, have an equal-and-opposite, knee-jerk sense of suspicion.

Naturally, I will check the battery amp out ASAP.

If it's Swiss, it has to be good (and expensive), right?

Since we're on the topic of SS, how about op-amp power amps...

Best regards,
Paul S



Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-30-2008
I do not know how the battery operation – I never was too warn with this idea but to have a small Solid State single-ended amp with put transformer sounds to me very nice. I wonder if anyone looks in this direction. I do not know what MIPA amp from audio-consulting is. I personally would discard whatever audio-consulting does by default juts because it is the audio-consulting. I dealt with them in the past and very much hate the way how they see the things… Once again, the direction is very cool. I wish more people explore DSETs with single-ended SS in A1 class.

The caT

Posted by decoud on 04-30-2008
 Romy the Cat wrote:

I have to admit thigh that I have had in my room the First Watt amp….



Do you mean the F3? How did it sound with the Macondo?

Incidentally, I gather a higher power version of the F3 is in the works, and the existing design would seem to be cheap and easy enough to DSET-ize. I suppose the power hit is not something that can be avoided - by ss or valves - if we insist on class A.


Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-30-2008
 decoud wrote:
 Romy the Cat wrote:

I have to admit thigh that I have had in my room the First Watt amp….

Do you mean the F3? How did it sound with the Macondo?

My writing dyslexia plays bad games with me. I meant to say absolutely opposite to what I’ve said. It should be read: “I have to admit that I have NOT had in my room the First Watt amp….” It is what I meant to “admit”

Posted by horny on 05-01-2008
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I do not know how the battery operation – I never was too warn with this idea but to have a small Solid State single-ended amp with put transformer sounds to me very nice. I wonder if anyone looks in this direction. I do not know what MIPA amp from audio-consulting is. I personally would discard whatever audio-consulting does by default juts because it is the audio-consulting. I dealt with them in the past and very much hate the way how they see the things… Once again, the direction is very cool. I wish more people explore DSETs with single-ended SS in A1 class.

The caT


If anything interesting ever happend in the "DSETs with single-ended Solid State" department, then it must be this:

http://www.audiophonics.com/audiophonics-projects.html

single ended solid state with output transformers:

http://www.susan-parker.co.uk/zeus-se-amp.htm

Zeus 6C33C Triode SE Preamp

http://www.audiophonics.com/audiophonics-projects.html

regards,
horny

Posted by el`Ol on 05-01-2008
 coops wrote:
Mike Hi, prices and value well the new Gamut speaker was next door to us in Munich, Euros 95K it was unbelievably poor,...


The GamuT speaker hat severe tuning problems in my ears, but the electronis had some sound I would describe as "crystal clear", and I can understand that some people love it. Not some kind of electronic-sounding coldness, more like like icicles cracking in an ice cave. And quite remarkable that a company is commercially successful with single-ended amps today.

Posted by Paul S on 05-01-2008

My recent "success" with SS is limited to sources, where I am +/- satisfied with the results in terms of harmonic development; I feel like I am close enough, if I attend to amps and speakers, etc.

But SS amps have been another matter for me, and I have not yet heard a SS amp that did not exhibit a strange harmonic signature and stranger "texture" - rather, the lack of it, along with what sounds to me like a "too-abrupt" on/off cycle, like a pot that "jumps".  Is this a matter of the voltages involved, or what?

I wonder about the sources of these anomalies, if they inhere in the devices or are artifacts of the circuit configurations, and I have been curious to experiment to see if JFETs and/or high grade op amps could be used to get SS benefits in a +/- powerful amp without the weird harmonics and "texture" and "jumping" I have come to associate with SS amps.

Do others still hear these things with SS, or is all this part of the past?

Paul S


Posted by decoud on 05-11-2008


Further to this question, can anyone explain the near-total absence of serious commentary on Lavardin's SS efforts (http://www.lavardin.com/)?  Whatever might be said about them, they are at least trying something different, and it does not look like it is entirely for its own sake, even if their gallic hauteur does make it difficult to be sure.

Posted by decoud on 02-20-2012
fiogf49gjkf0d
Still partially wrapt in mystery, but here is potentially the first SS DSET:

http://www.firstwatt.com/sit1.html

I say potentially for that is not naturally Pass's direction, but each monobloc is designed to be tunable to its specific speaker.

Posted by Teflon on 02-22-2012
fiogf49gjkf0d
 decoud wrote:
Still partially wrapt in mystery, but here is potentially the first SS DSET:

http://www.firstwatt.com/sit1.html

I say potentially for that is not naturally Pass's direction, but each monobloc is designed to be tunable to its specific speaker.

The curves for this SIT look familiar to a triode user but I don't think this is the secret of DSET sound. It may sound very good though. I think the DSET sound has much to do with the whole system and not simply the output device, even if it is 'tuned' to a speaker by ear - meaning how the power supply + amplifier + speaker and all the cables, work together.

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