[springofdark]

Who builds the KGSS amp for the stax earspeakers? And, at about what price? Is it considerably more expensive than stax's own offerings?

ServinginEcuador, I was absolutely shocked to see that you gave up your HP1000's - so I'm curious about such a stax system (but certainly unable to afford one).

 

[ServinginEcuador]

YGPM

 

[Jupiter]

A KGSS will cost $500-750 + labor, but I don't think I've seen anybody offering to build it. You could always ask somebody who's built it.

You can get a cheaper Stax amp from Audiocubes or EIFL.

 

[grinch]

i believe zzz is the only head-fi member (other than kevin gilmore) who has built a kgss and had it work perfectly.

 

[kevin gilmore]

Lots of people have built the all tube ac coupled versions.
I lost count at over 30.


I know of at least 8 people who have built the solid state
electrostatic amp. Only one is having troubles. Boy is he
having troubles. (i really don't know why) It has turned
into a global amplifier as one person is in canada, one
person is in germany, one person is in australia, one person
in brittan, one person in south korea...have built them.

In the origional article at the end there is another person
who made mods like replacing the fets with bipolars. Some
evidently like this.

Still only 2 people have built the blue hawaii that i'm aware of.
(one is me)

 

[Squalish]

Quote:

Originally posted by kevin gilmore Still only 2 people have built the blue hawaii that i'm aware of. (one is me)

How do you feel about aol stealing your name for a codename of their next version?

edit: And Elvis...

 

[eric343]

*raises hand*
I'm the guy with the troublesome KGSS...

If you decide to build one, it's not a particularly difficult amp since Teucer has designed and published a layout (complete with Gerber files) that you can send to http://www.4pcb.com and for ~$100 they'll send you 3 boards (enough for 6 amps; I'm not sure whether they'll just do 1 board). After that it's just a matter of cutting up a board into its four sub-boards and soldering on parts, then casing the whole deal. The biggest danger is the high voltage involved (the bias supply capacitors are rated for 1000V for a reason, though they won't give you more than a nasty shock [I speak from experience

] as long as you don't touch both leads with both hands, and the power supply is +/- 350V with 660uF of capacitance, which WILL give you one heck of a zap), however that danger can be almost eliminated by being safe and sober, and ALWAYS keeping one hand behind your back while the power supply rails are showing greater than, say, +/-30V. (I keep a voltmeter on one rail at all times while the amp is powered up, but then again I have 3 DMMs so I can afford to spare one)

 

[eric343]

Ironically, shortly after posting that I replaced the 2sa970s at the top of the 2nd stage with some spare a1156s and the amp started working much much better, though it's not quite done yet (2sk389 looks like it's fried).

Posting to Head-Fi seems to work wonders for the troubleshooting process... this thread is an excellent example...: http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...ghlight=ad8610

 

[teucer]

Quote:

Originally posted by eric343 Teucer has designed and published a layout (complete with Gerber files) that you can send to http://www.4pcb.com and for ~$100 they'll send you 3 boards (enough for 6 amps; I'm not sure whether they'll just do 1 board).

3 boards makes 6 channels, but that's only 3 amps.

If you're a student and have a university address to send stuff to, you can buy "33 each" boards in single quantities.

I have a few boards left (one person sent me his extras) which I can send to anyone who wants one for cost of shipping. First come first serve.