[Leny]

I stand by the comments that I made earlier. It is in SinglePower's best interest to always produce cleanly executed wiring. I do not know if the amp shown in this thread is typical of their (standard or 'upgrade') work, but having seen inside other SP point-to-point wired amps then I have to assume that they are all potentially poor and amateurish. I would never consider a product wired like that.

Naturally it is a case of buyer beware and you have to make your own decisions. I would strongly recommend that any potential purchasers hang fire to see if the company addresses the issues with their business practices, and in any case never send more than a very basic deposit.

Your choice. Be lucky.

 

[skeptic]

Personally, I appreciate the fact that the mods have kept it alive...

SP amps are so often depicted as the platonic ideal of head-amps on this board - that it's good to be made aware of the bad and the ugly in addition to the good.

I imagine many of us are a little surprised to see that the internals aren't exactly orderly - but Uncle E has provided some valuable explanation as to why this may be the case.

Then again, if the length of the wire is really is the primary consideration at issue - one might expect that at this price point, some special effort would have been made to use the shortest straightest p2p wiring possible? The photos certainly don't reveal anything of the kind - which might support an inference that at least in certain respects, this wiring really is more sloppy than carefully thought out?

I lack the technical expertise to make a dispositive judgment on the topic, but it is certainly a variable I will include in my ongoing considerations of when, if ever, I can see myself investing several thousand dollars in a premium head-amp, and whether or not that amp will be a SP.

For the record, attempts to simply dismiss oleblue as a troll are not bolstering my confidence in SP (even if some of his posts are a bit abrasive). Ad hominem arguments (on either side of this controversy) are the oldest and most commonly embraced logical fallacy - which brings a certain irony to the comment regarding "worthless writers." That said, I would love to see some additional substantive responses as to why this is really a non-issue.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sherwood /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't own any of Mikhail's work, in part because the first thing he offered to sell me was his Squarewave prototype last year, which IMHO was not a very good amp (though very clean-looking) and I went months without giving much thought to his other amps.

You should hear the final production Square Wave XL that Mikhail sold to me, which is not customized except for blackgates cap upgrades, so there is NO point to point wiring (all the resistors and caps for the fully discrete 8-channel amp are soldered to the PCB).

I took it over to Blutarsky's house this week with my Macbook and Apogee mini-DAC, and compared it to his Stello DA100 feeding Melos SHA Gold from his mac with the same music. Both rigs (just the DAC/Amp) would cost about $2700 new. We plugged a pair of HP-1000 into his rig and another identical sounding HP-1000 into my rig, started the music on both Macs (Shelby Lynn - Just a Little Lovin'), and we could NOT tell which rig we were listening to because they both sounded the SAME! The sound was fantastic, and we were both impressed because the SP amp could keep up with the king of Grados (Melos) when driving the Grado HP-1000.

 

[rsbrsvp]

I was wondering if ayone out there knows FOR SURE if a Singlepower ES-1 can use Gold Lion KT-77 tubes in the output without damaging the amplifier.

Although the kT-77 is known as a drop in replacement for the EL34 we all know the ES-1 is delicate and very sensitive- so I want to be sure so I dont damage the amplifier.

 

[jude]

I'm closing this thread, as it has veered off topic, with fights breaking out as a result. If it looks like it can be pruned to stay on topic, I may do that later.

 

[tyrion]

I've deleted over 40 posts. This thread will stay on topic or be closed forever. Discussion will be about design and nothing more. Unfortunately, some excellent posts (Voltron) were removed that addressed the reason that many posts had to be deleted.

This thread is not to be a dumping ground for anti-SP posts. Saying that the wiring on the inside of an amp looks bad from someone who has no idea if it really is bad or whether this the wiring is like other custom amps out there, serves no purpose in this thread.

I may have missed some posts but did the best I could. I also may have deleted some posts that should have remained but quoted posts that were deleted. I apologize but it allowed me to get this done in the time I had available and get the thread opened faster.

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsbrsvp /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was wondering if ayone out there knows FOR SURE if a Singlepower ES-1 can use Gold Lion KT-77 tubes in the output without damaging the amplifier. Although the kT-77 is known as a drop in replacement for the EL34 we all know the ES-1 is delicate and very sensitive- so I want to be sure so I dont damage the amplifier.

The KT-77 is almost identical to the EL34 so the amp shouldn't have any problems with them but it's tough to know how the amp will react.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frihed89 /img/forum/go_quote.gif One more try and that's it:

Damn thing has more silicone than Dolly Parton's chest but I bet it's sounds out of this world. Nice amp is all that comes to mind...must take a month for the caps to bleed

AFAT SP wiring is concerned I've seen worse and I've seen better. As long as it works and is reliable (and easy to repair) I see no problems with the PTP work. Some really old Marantz and Fender amps looked far worse than the OP's does on the inside. At least the caps and resistors are good on this one

...firing up an old amp can be an adventure at times

Peete.

 

[oicdn]

The OP picture were crazy. You would EXPECT it to be neater than that, but in all reality, I don't think it matters. I think the majority of the people buying those amps will not be servicing it themselves or bringing it anywhere else to get it serviced for that matter.

So really...although it's a painful site to see, if it doesn't affect the sound, it doesn't really have an impact to anybody except the people that will be servicing it themselves...which manufacturers frown upon to begin with. So maybe it was done intentionally? That's crazy wiring though.

 

[Frihed89]

DIYers are familiar with the situation where they buy a case for an amp they are going to build - an amp they have all planned out. Then, as they work through it, something isn't quite right and they start adding modifications to solve the problem, a bigger choke here, more bypass caps there, a motor run cap here, a few more filtering caps there, etc. and often they are out of space before they know it. So, if they are happy with what they have done, they buy a new, used case and keep at it until.....?

So, could the job we saw have been done cleaner in a visual sense? And would it have improved the sonics - who knows, but it's unlikely. What we do know is that every second, every new part increases the builders' cost. DIYers don't have to worry about that.

I have also known DIYers who can keep everything straight on paper and/or in their heads who always make a beautiful looking job.

I know small mfrs who either refuse to mod their equipment or else won't give a firm quote until the work is done. SP has chosen not to go that route, for whatever reason.