Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Headphone Amps (full-size) › Emmeline II The Stealth - Pictures 56K Warning
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Emmeline II The Stealth - Pictures 56K Warning - Page 4

post #46 of 99
12/24/03 at 4:39am
Please Oh, Please tell me that this is not capable of powering K1000's effectively. I don't want to consider this amp. It's ......just......so ...........sweeet........ I'd even consider going tube..........

If only it was clear anodized aluminum. I personally like the industrial look. But black is so boring.

-Ed
Reply
post #47 of 99
12/24/03 at 4:48am
Don't worry. From the chicago meet, they said it wasn't able to power K1000s as well as can be. I figure for the $ you might as well get yourself something that would for sure.

I was considering this for preamp only and going solid state for power amp. Hybrid baby!
Reply
post #48 of 99
12/24/03 at 5:04am
Thanks for making me feel better, Lan.

Man, the internals are soooooo beautiful. It's a geek strip show.

Leaving it aluminum colored with polished Tube "port holes ring thingies" would make it alot sexier on the outside. I, for one, really really, hate the looks of the RKV. As great as it must sound, it's just so gawdy! Yuck.

Yeah, I'm into the industrial look. I'm a minimalist too.

-Ed
Reply
post #49 of 99
12/24/03 at 5:13am
Quote:
Originally posted by 00940
I didn't expect anything.

I just like tube amps like this :
yeah, right. with a couple of 300B tubes. those 4 tubes alone cost about the price of the stealth. that is not a cheap tube amp.

but i have to admit, it looks great. hope it sounds like it looks. sometimes looks are very deceptive.

i think Mr. Samuals did a very fine job. think this will be a top seller.
wish they would make things like that over here!

i think it is good not to spend all the money on the looks but keep it simple and put the money where it is needed. that way you get amps that sound fantastic and are reasonably priced.
i for one am not looking at the amp when i listen to music.


that headphone-jack is looking a bit small: is it a 6.3 jack or a small 3.6 jack?

Reply
post #50 of 99
12/24/03 at 6:30am
standard 1/4, but it's just not as beefy looking as others.

It's just a hole. I prefer jacks that are secured to the bezel or frame, so that the forces are not exerted on the solder points on the PCB.

-Ed
Reply
post #51 of 99
12/24/03 at 6:22pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamslacker
Is that a switching power supply on the daughter board?

Anyway, the amp looks good. Though I don't know what the difference between "Play" & "On" is. LOL..

Nice parts too... DACT, Hovlands & Holco's (Or RC55Y's)..

Could almost imagine DACT selector switches being used instead of the CK's.

i think it is mute = no sound, play= sound.
Reply
post #52 of 99
12/25/03 at 12:14am
I have not been on Headfi for a few days. Gosh, it seems like if you don't lurk for a few days, you miss out on a lot of whats happening, which can be good, because thats is just less to drool over and saves us/me money. But its to late on this thread, I see it now and I think I am doomed. Glad to see the Stealth on the market. The good news is it sounds like we have a review coming from Tuberoller soon.
Reply
post #53 of 99
12/25/03 at 12:27am
Well, that is one sexy amp, and BTW, great photos. Who's the pro that shot them?
Reply
post #54 of 99
12/25/03 at 12:03pm
Here's some more info on the Stealth from Ray for us to ponder and drool over:
Quote:
The Stealth is designed with the highest quality audiophile grade components and the shortest possible paths for the audio signal to pass through. The capacitors utilized are the purest polypropylene by Hovland (Musicap) as they are well known to be very musical and warm. The film resistors are Halco H2 1watt which are highly respected in the audiophile community for the quality of sound they produce. As a volume control, the Stealth design accommodates the DACT stereo attenuator for its transparency and accurate tracking. All components are hand selected and matched between left and right channels and soldered with their values facing up and toward the same side. The tube sockets are ceramic with gold contacts for the highest conductivity they can offer in relationship to the tubes pins.

The Stealth is built on a solid PC board with the highest quality of a military grade FR4 material with a dual sided 2 Oz pure oxygen free copper. The components are soldered with military specification solders, and cleaned from all residue and contamination to a perfect shine. The stealth design has no wires as they tend to color the signals with their impedances and resistance. The signal lanes are separated from the power lanes by patches of solid copper grounds. The Stealth has 4 inputs and 2 outputs, all designed around a rotary switch on a special I-O PC board thereby completely eliminating the use of wires and making the signal paths short and pure. A large advantage of this design is that you will find no wires routed all over the amp to the rotary switch, eliminating any chance of cross-talk between the channels.

The Stealth is capable of driving 2 or 4 monoblocks for bi-amping a speaker system. The function rotary switch takes you through the sequence of turning the filament (heater) on first then sending a signal to the power supply to turn the DC Voltage on, during these operations, the audio signal is completely muted, then last, the audio signal is passed through the tubes.

The Stealth, when used as a pre-amp, runs in a pure class A single ended with only the one Hovland Cap in the signal path. When designing the amp, many ideas came to mind as to what choice of tubes to be used. Knowing that the NOS tubes were getting scarce, and their prices where hitting the roof, the decision was made to design the circuit around the new stock tubes, which are available and for a low price. For drive tubes, the choice was made to use a 6SN7 from Electro Harmonix, while the input tube would be a choice of a smaller 9 pin tube which is readily available opening up many more tubes to select from. This design decision permits the circuit to operate many low, medium, and high gain tubes that are available today from current manufacturers. The new old stock tubes (NOS) tubes are also available and will provide the user with even more choices. You can use 12-AU7, 12-AT7, or 12-AX7, and many more.

The Stealth will enable you to adjust your gain (volume) to your liking depending on the strength of your input signal. This will eliminate the need for a gain switch especially when an attenuator is being used. Thus the flexibility and strength of this amp will make you appreciate the variety and number of tubes that it can accommodate to tailor the sound to your liking.

The Stealth's chassis is a custom built black anodized aluminum, silk screened with silver lettering. It shields all electronics components from RF signals noise through DC ground of the power supply.

In other very high end audio components, you will find that many manufacturers house their power supply in a dedicated external chassis away from amplifier’s chassis to stop eliminate hum caused by the noise of AC current and the noisy transformers. The Stealth is no exception as the power supply is housed in a very elegant black anodized aluminum chassis, and connected to the amp through a 5.5 foot shielded detachable umbilical cord. The transformer is a torodial type known to be very efficient and run cool while operating without any noise or magnetic field that can cause all kinds of interferences. The AC is rectified through a full wave bridge rectifier, then stored in two separate filters while smoothened by a polypropylene capacitors. The raw rectified DC Voltage is passed to a high voltage regulator capable of providing 700 ma of current. This is a state of art regulator chip is designed to work with very high voltages to provide the precise regulation needed. The regulated voltage is then stored and smoothed by another stage of filtering.

The filament voltage is provided by a high quality switching power supply that delivers 2.5 amps of current to drive any hungry tube filament with no problem.

There are no upgrades offered or required with this preamp/headphone amplifier, as all parts used are of the highest audiophile quality.
Reply
post #55 of 99
12/25/03 at 1:55pm
Darn, looks like this baby will sing.
Reply
post #56 of 99
12/25/03 at 1:57pm
Very cool looking amp! Hope someone does a head to head review of this amp vs the Supra.
Reply
post #57 of 99
12/25/03 at 2:16pm
Is the Stealth single-ended or push-pull (or somewhere in the middle)?

Does the Stealth use negative feedback?
Reply
post #58 of 99
12/25/03 at 2:23pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Hirsch
Is the Stealth single-ended or push-pull (or somewhere in the middle)?

Does the Stealth use negative feedback?


The Stealth, when used as a pre-amp, runs in a pure class A single ended with only the one Hovland Cap in the signal path.

does this answer your question?
Reply
post #59 of 99
12/25/03 at 2:25pm
What's the high voltage regulator IC ? They have such a bad reputation, he perhaps found a good new one
Reply
post #60 of 99
12/25/03 at 3:31pm
I have a question about the tubes for anyone who can answer. Ray states you can use 12AU7, 12AT7, or 12AX7 for the input tube. This is good in that it opens up lots of possibilities for tube rolling. This is bad because it opens up lots of possibilities for tube-rolling. Can anyone tell me which of these tube types has more power, more gain, and is likely to last longer in this circuit? My guess is the tube that would work best is the one operating most easily within its abilities that can take it in stride, rather than one that has to struggle to pump out the juice you need. Or, is that faulty thinking, if so why?

Same question regarding the 6SN7s. From my ZOTL experience, I know there are 6SN7, 6SN7GT, 6SN7WGT, 6SN7GTA, 6SN7GTB, each a little different than the last (and even some other weirdos that aren't called "6SN7-anything" but have totally different name scheme that are sometimes substitutable for 6SN7s). Berning recos against using regular 6SN7s in his circuit, he preferes 6SN7GTBs for their slightly better power handling capabilities, IIRC.

Erm, yeah, so any tube experts have any thoughts on which 6SN7 variants one should look for?

*sigh* I really do have a love/hate relationship with these little glowing bottles! So much to learn, so many to try, so impermanent... SO EXPENSIVE!!!!!
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Headphone Amps (full-size)
Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Headphone Amps (full-size) › Emmeline II The Stealth - Pictures 56K Warning