sacd lover
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2002
- Posts
- 8,299
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- 244
Thanks for the assist guys .... that is teamwork.
Here you go jamato .... this amp was a one off as the team commented. I sent the amp off to be transformer coupled as an experiment but it ended up becoming the Extreme's dad.
The "Beast" began life as a special prototype old chassis Supra using a high voltage power supply and was dubbed the Supra-X. The X was code for extra bass I am told. I bought this amp used from head-fier Hirsch .... thank you, thank you. For probably a couple years now I had been trying to get Mikhail to build a 6as7/6080 amp. Since he ended up with a large quantity of these tubes when he bought out a tube dealer .... he decided now was the time. I entrusted my Supra to him and let him come up with a circuit to use the 6as7/ 6080 series of tubes.
He tried a transformer coupled model but it had to much power plate coupled .... for headphones. He then tried cathode coupling the transformer but the amp sounded .... well bad according to Mikhail. He thought about going back to 6bl7gta's and transformer coupling them. But he wanted to keep working with the big power tubes. He kept working on the circuit and went back to an OTL design. But dropping the voltage from 600 volts to 150 for the 6as7 type tubes was generating a massive amount of heat.
The amp has a coolng fan but he still thought the amp was running to hot. He drilled holes in the chassis, added a second internal transformer and deregulated the output stage. This handled the heat and extra heater current draw. He then made a somewhat radical change I cant comment on .... and finally the whole circuit came together. Using what he learned with this Supra he produced a scaled down power supply with the same basic circuit and the Extreme was born. Since this amp was designed from the ground up he used a lower voltage power transformer and the heat issue inherent with the "Beast" is not an issue with the Extreme.
For those of you still waiting on your amp .... which is everyone but me.
I have good news. He figured out a way to make the amp circuit run even cooler with a simple parts change to a more rugged, higher voltage part .... so expect an even cooler running amp. Since heat is every amps enemy the change may even result in a more reliable amp too.
The guy just never quits making them better.
Here you go jamato .... this amp was a one off as the team commented. I sent the amp off to be transformer coupled as an experiment but it ended up becoming the Extreme's dad.
The "Beast" began life as a special prototype old chassis Supra using a high voltage power supply and was dubbed the Supra-X. The X was code for extra bass I am told. I bought this amp used from head-fier Hirsch .... thank you, thank you. For probably a couple years now I had been trying to get Mikhail to build a 6as7/6080 amp. Since he ended up with a large quantity of these tubes when he bought out a tube dealer .... he decided now was the time. I entrusted my Supra to him and let him come up with a circuit to use the 6as7/ 6080 series of tubes.
He tried a transformer coupled model but it had to much power plate coupled .... for headphones. He then tried cathode coupling the transformer but the amp sounded .... well bad according to Mikhail. He thought about going back to 6bl7gta's and transformer coupling them. But he wanted to keep working with the big power tubes. He kept working on the circuit and went back to an OTL design. But dropping the voltage from 600 volts to 150 for the 6as7 type tubes was generating a massive amount of heat.
The amp has a coolng fan but he still thought the amp was running to hot. He drilled holes in the chassis, added a second internal transformer and deregulated the output stage. This handled the heat and extra heater current draw. He then made a somewhat radical change I cant comment on .... and finally the whole circuit came together. Using what he learned with this Supra he produced a scaled down power supply with the same basic circuit and the Extreme was born. Since this amp was designed from the ground up he used a lower voltage power transformer and the heat issue inherent with the "Beast" is not an issue with the Extreme.
For those of you still waiting on your amp .... which is everyone but me.
The guy just never quits making them better.
