[OctavianH]

What lifespan should we expect from such an amplifier, taking into consideration these capacitors and other components? I doubt anyone had problems but well, you know.

 

[UntilThen]

What lifespan should we expect from such an amplifier, taking into consideration these capacitors and other components? I doubt anyone had problems but well, you know.

If I have any problems, I will take it to http://www.thefactoryaudio.com/

That's where I send GOTL to have all 7 sockets replaced, including some caps and resistors.

The engineer or proprietor there famously told me, 'Don't ask me whether McIntosh or Audio Note sound better. I will not tell you that".

Furthermore after he finished the job, I ask him how did the GOTL sound. He said, 'I don't know, I don't listen to it'. I look at him incredulously and ask, 'How then do you know it is working'. That's when he led me to his work bench and hook up GOTL to his wonderful Digital Oscillioscopes and show me the curves. That's how I know it works, he declared.

And the GOTL did work like a charm and I sold it to @paramesh .

 

[baronbeehive]

I did consider it but there may be some re-jigging required to accommodate the large Duelund, so I will leave it to a local tech to carry out the work.
The Mundorfs are great but years ago I had some Mundorf SGO caps in a dac replaced with Jupiters, which are very similar to the Duelunds, and they sounded more natural. They eradicated a slight tizz on the top end too, not that I really have that problem on the Tele.

Yes we in the LD thread all went for Jupiters because of what you said and loved them. I have them in both my amps now.

 

[baronbeehive]

What lifespan should we expect from such an amplifier, taking into consideration these capacitors and other components? I doubt anyone had problems but well, you know.

My modded LD has given me no problems for many years, in fact neither of my modded amps have had problems, that's with all the add-ons, (and the shoddy build.. talking about my own modest skills). We have pushed those amps to the limits so from what I know of Sonics design expertise he will have built in safety margins anyway and it will have been built for purpose and so I would expect no problems for many decades at least. Sonic's amps will not overheat or go up in smoke, there is ample room inside the chassis for air to circulate and there should be no problems with caps or resistors burning out at all due to the P2P layout which should be virtually indestructable. So I wouldn't worry at all.

Edit: You only tend to get problems with underspecified components which could burn out under heavy loads, or poorly fitted parts causing caps to leak or whatever. Sonic will most likely over specify with things like wattage to eliminate future problems. We had this with our LD's which tended to have cheap parts from China, brittle wires, with the result that resistors would burn out after very little use, and wires would break causing massive headhaches. The advantage of P2P is that even if parts malfunction it is an easy matter to correct it.

Having said all that I would expect Sonic's amps to last a lifetime.

 

[Isaacc7]

Since we are showing the insides of amps here’s mine:

It isn’t the neatest I’ve ever seen but it is clean and easy to trace. I don’t know enough about circuits to really understand what I’m looking at. It does look like I have plenty of space of I ever wanted fancier complaints.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Nice pics, looks like Tomas was using the 21st century Maida regulator from Neurochrome in regulated B+ supplies. If someone wanted to experiment with changing components, the easiest that will have a significant impact on the sound would be to try different cathode bypass capacitors.

 

[baronbeehive]

Nice pics, looks like Tomas was using the 21st century Maida regulator from Neurochrome in regulated B+ supplies. If someone wanted to experiment with changing components, the easiest that will have a significant impact on the sound would be to try different cathode bypass capacitors.

Yes I must say the insides of Sonic's amps are so neat and uncluttered it doesn't look like there's enough going on to produce such great results.

Re: cathode bypasses we did this on the LD thread and I found a handy online tool you can use to set values use: https://www.ampbooks.com/mobile/amplifier-calculators/cathode-capacitor/calculator/

 

[UntilThen]

looks like Tomas was using the 21st century Maida regulator from Neurochrome in regulated B+ supplies

Tomas did mention about Maida. I did miss the interactions with him. I can ask him anything and he would reply. You can put forth any ideas and he will tell you whether he can do it. Use any parts if you can afford it. I did ask him about using silver wires and he said personally he didn't think that's any good and he prefers the graded copper wires that he use.

 

[OctavianH]

I do not think it matters anymore that I have promissed Tomas not to show any picture of Eternity's insides. Well, here you are. This is Eternity.

One major challenge for Tomas was to build it in that small chasis. He complaint several times that it is very small, but he was also very determined to finish the build because he had no amp in his portfolio with a smaller footprint. He always told me that he wants to offer a small amp for people who do not need the standard Oblivion size amp. And he had problems, my amp was not perfect, he had made a small scratch while assembling and wanted to replace all. I told him it is perfectly fine, but he was a complete gentleman until the end insisting to change it. I refused and my amp has that small scratch which I consider a part of its personality. Rarely you see such level of craftsmanship and politeness. We are still not realizing what value we have lost with his passing. We always find too late.

 

[triod750]

This is impressively crammed!

 

[OctavianH]

This is impressively crammed!

Indeed. I always wanted a big amount of add-ons on top of the standard low powered Infinity design and this complicated a lot the build. I have that fixed bias switch where I can put my amp of a fixed bias setting to KT66 / 6SN7 and many more. This is somehow redundant but also helpful. But there are things I would have changed and mostly all of them were covered by the next Eternity build. 12.6V heaters and bigger trimmer on input to accomodate the 6V6 or other pentodes triode strapped on input. But now these are details, I do not want to touch it because it is a matter of history, an original build of UltraSonic Studios. For me this matters a lot.

 

[UntilThen]

The Mundorfs are great but years ago I had some Mundorf SGO caps in a dac replaced with Jupiters, which are very similar to the Duelunds, and they sounded more natural. They eradicated a slight tizz on the top end too, not that I really have that problem on the Tele.

I love that slight tizz on the top end in Odyssey. So I probably shouldn’t change the caps.

 

[Isaacc7]

Tomas did mention about Maida. I did miss the interactions with him. I can ask him anything and he would reply. You can put forth any ideas and he will tell you whether he can do it. Use any parts if you can afford it. I did ask him about using silver wires and he said personally he didn't think that's any good and he prefers the graded copper wires that he use.

Tomas used a newer version of the Maida, as mentioned earlier the so-called 21st century Maida. I remember seeing it discussed on DIYAudio as an improvement but forget how it was improved. Was happy to hear he was using the improved version.

When making mine he asked if I wanted fancy caps like Mundorf and I declined. He said he used high quality Russian military ones. Wonder what improvement I would notice if I went with a fancier cap. I’m not sure where they are in my amp in any case lol.

 

[UntilThen]

When making mine he asked if I wanted fancy caps like Mundorf and I declined. He said he used high quality Russian military ones. Wonder what improvement I would notice if I went with a fancier cap. I’m not sure where they are in my amp in any case lol.

When discussing on what caps to use in Odyssey, Tomas told me he didn’t find the fancier caps like Mundorf better than the Russian ones. However I told him I would go with Mundorf.

On my previous Glenn OTL amp, Glenn use Russian pio.

 

[leftside]

When discussing on what caps to use in Odyssey, Tomas told me he didn’t find the fancier caps like Mundorf better than the Russian ones. However I told him I would go with Mundorf.

On my previous Glenn OTL amp, Glenn use Russian pio.

That’s right. Glenn also wanted to use Russian caps in my 300B, but the Duelands went in instead. Tomas and Glenn were probably both right of course.