| tropicalcb |
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Reply with quote | #1 |
I've had a good look on the net for reviews & detailed user comments/impressions of this OTL but there's not a lot, apart from a few scattered impressions & comments here. Can anyone who has built the kit give me an idea of their impressions relative to some known high end amps, particularly valve/tube power amps of similar output power.
I'm seriously considering buying the kit mainly because I just don't have the time any more to source everything .... and as someone commented on the forum, layout & chassis building take up a lot of time & there's always something that either isn't quite how you wanted it or was not designed in & requires major surgery to include. So if its been done its worth the money.
My main concern is the weight & bulkiness ie: freight cost to Australia. I could save weight on Tx's but custom torroids woud end up more expensive than the supplied I reckon.
if there's anyone from this part of the world who has been through the exercise I'd appreciate some input.
cheers ... cb
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| tropicalcb |
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Reply with quote | #2 |
G'day again ... update on my request from yesterday ... I've found a post by atomsite from a couple of years back in which he documents his building of the Beast Twins & has some descriptive observations about the sonic flavors he encountered. Very helpful, thanks. I will wait to hear back from Bruce & have just about decided I would like to get the full kit .. I'm obviously not going to audition a sample any time soon so my gut tells me this is what I'm after. I've also figured construction will take more hours than I've calculated but thats ok. If anyone has other personal impressions of build & sonics I'm still interested.
cheers ... cb
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| Charlie M |
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Reply with quote | #3 |
tropicalcb;
I did not build the kit, but if I had it to do all over again I may choose it over a DIY version. A good deal of time was required to source parts, order everything, and then layout the cases and finish them.
I had the time, so I ultimately did a DIY version to go with my choice of resistors, film capacitors and tubes. In the end, I didn't save anything over the kit as far as cost, as I ended up having to replace all the Sevtlana EL-509-IIs with JJs (and it's the JJs that come with the kit). The JJs, as others have noted, do go through a few duds in a batch of 32, so you may need as many as 34 to 36 tubes to end up with 32 good ones. Other than that JJs balance out very nicely.
The main difference with my DIY version over the stock kit are the 0.1 and 1.0uF fim caps I chose to use and I went with Telefunken 12AX7s. I'm not independently wealthy, so it was a decision to spend what it cost to build them. With that in mind my logic was to put the best i could in them since I was spending that much anyway.
Comparing Beasts to highly modded Dynaco ST-70s, and the Transcendent Sound CF Amp for tubed amps, and DBX, Marantz, and other SS Amps, there just is no comparison. Not knowing what to expect (as I had not heard them before building them) it took longer for them to break/burn in than anything I've ever encountered before, but I was literally stunned by the sound. I still am and have posted here before that they are mesmerizing; they are a sirens song.
The combo of the TS Phono Pre, GG and Beasts is where my search for high performance audio equipment has ended. I do not foresee looking anymore or even auditioning anything else, I am that satisfied with the "middle" parts of my system. Lately I have gotten into speaker building, and there's a whole lot to explore at that end of the system.
Lastly I have kept track of what used Transcendent Sound equipment sells for. It seems to sell used for very close to what a kit costs new, if you can find it. Quite rare in the world of audio equipment.
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| tropicalcb |
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Reply with quote | #4 |
G'day again blokes ( well of course any female audio freaks who may also be on the forum ... are there any? ) ... I thought I might give an update as I go with this & hopefully get time when they're finished to write up a review & post some pics.
I ended up going with a scratch build utilising the PCB+CD. There were a number of reasons for that which are incidental to this post, so not worth covering.
Anyway it saves me money & allows a little leeway for parts choice etc.
Now I should say onyez to a few people on this forum who took the time to respond on-line or via email or phone ... reading & hearing other people's opinion & sonic impressions is the next best thing to auditioning.
So I've got most of the parts that weren't already in the box & the board resistors, for all the boutique parts lovers, will be Kiwame 2 & 5 watt 1% ... mainly because I had quite a few values which I picked up a while back very cheaply. I got the rest of the resistors from either WES in Sydney or Mousser in the US ... my opinion is that in preamps at least, the Kiwame's are as stable & as good as a 1 watt beyschlag & consistent. With a bunch of them on a PCB it stands to reason that if anything is going to have an influence on the sonics then resistors will be more prone to than a couple of capacitors. So the caps ... well I prefer styrene film & foil & my liking of caps is inversely proportional to their cost - the cheaper they are for good quality, the better they sound!! ... of course after discounting anything but polyprop & styrene fim & foils. The best bang for buck for me has always been the FKP Wimas ... the red MKP are fine & they are more readily available. Unfortunately I can't find them any more & where I've seen them they are expensive. Same for the MKP.
The FKP are also only available up to 0.22uf in 400-600v from memory. I couldn't find a 1uf 4-600v styrene foil - multicap RX are a good styrene but they're only 200v in the 1uf & hideously expensive. Using a 200v where they are in the circuit is probably stretching the old rule that film caps will handle 2.5x their rated voltage. I had some australian ducon 0.33uf styrene film & foils which haven't been made since early 70's but not enough to paralel them. So I ended up with Solen film & foil PP's I think they are .. reasonable cost at trade so they will sound fantastic!
The chassis are being done with the assist of a bloke in Melbourne who bought the kit & is in the process of building himself.... thanks mark! He had to redraw the original chassis for his additions to suit his own aesthetics & he has been kind enuff to offer a file for the SS laser cutter & folder. I want them copper plated & clear sealed like my main preamp, so he has found someone to do that for me as well. He has also given me the bits & pieces from his kit that he won't need such as the meters, push buttons etc. So that was a real bonus.
Tubes I've managed to get from Martin Billington in UK ... who happened to have a friend ordering from the factory in Slovakia the day I emailed him ... and at a very good price. They are also testing before shipment. This will work out approx 10% cheaper than the Transcendant Audio price given currency trade fluctuations & the timing etc.
The Tx's were a custom job for a couple but as it turned out I ended up with higher VA ratings on them & shields ... I am stuck with doing my own fascia & am looking at a cover for the Tx & maybe incorporating a meter from the original DGC Haire Cinerama amps from the 50's. Maybe I'll do fascia & Tx covers in an anodised aluminium?? dunno yet.
so thats it so far ... boards are being stuffed as we speak ... they're not too bad but not as stiff & sexy as my mono John Broskie Aikidos. This is a minor point for me as the only benefit to thicker boards is if you are constantly pulling tubes in & out.
anyone who is thinking of the kit is welcome to contact me either here or via email ... I don't have a lot of spare time due to what I do but I will endeavour to assist.
cheers ... cb
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| Don A. |
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Reply with quote | #5 |
Looking forward to (hopefully) seeing some pic's, as your build goes forward!Don |
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| Bill | |
| tropicalcb |
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Reply with quote | #7 |
Hey Bill .... nice work ... black powdercoat is not my favorite though. The main reason I've gone for a copper plated chassi is that I had a preamp chassis that I got from a chinese source & its had a few different preamp designs in it up till a year or so ago.
I settled on the aikido B9A mono boards + WAD phono 3S + Hugh Deans Paris battery driven headamp .... this was to be my final preamp ... seperate chassis for the tube reg'd PS's etc & the black powder coated chassis was looking very doggy by that stage. What I didn't figure on was the poor quality of the sheet steel thay'd used ... it was a bugga to get it prepared & although the copper plated with a gloss clear protective finish looks great I'm now more clued up ... its great from a few feet but can be nit picked up close. So when I was stuck with getting my own chassis for the OTL's I wanted to match the preamp main box,& the right SS gives a pristine copper plate & can be 2 pack hard clear finished of done by the right people. Its going to end up around AU$1k for the chassis but this is THE power amps, so bugga it!
Have you got any ideas about a cover for the torroids? I'm definitely doing & thinking of a sloping front with air holes & the round mesh inserts from a rack mounted 1955 DGC Haire Theatre amp, smack in the middle. Champagne gold anodised cause thats what the Cineramas are now with the inserts a black mesh - either powder coated or anodised black for the OTL's. Thats down the track though.
I personally don't like the fuses on the front but the lED's make up for it ... looks neat & utilitarian & functional & the main thing is you did it ... great work mate!
How does it sound? did it surprise, delight, stun you? is it what you expected? can you give a couple of lines of your first impressions & how that changed or what, over the break-in period?
cheers .... cb
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| Bill |
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Reply with quote | #8 |
tropicalcb:
I built my Beast using of the shelf components. The chassis are Hammond.
The best thing I like about the Beast is the imaging. The sound stage is wide and deep. The music floats or across the front of the room and the sound stage is outside the speaker placement. You don't associate the music with the speakers. It truly is a 3D realistic experience.
I did discover that my CD player limited the sound stage. I built the DDAC and this DAC really expanded the sound stage.
Regards. |
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| tropicalcb |
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Reply with quote | #9 |
G'day agin ... well things are moving along nicely ... the tube goddess that Harvey R always spoke about has smiled on me. Maybe Harvey had a word to her for me! Of course we all know that he's been unofficially canonised & is the patron saint of OTL ... he's like that!
... so where we are is: chassis' have been laser cut & folded & are due to go to the copper plater mon/tues 7; next door after plating to be clear lacquered. Mark has sent pics & they look great. The on/off switch is a problem .. the original chassis have a huge sutout & the switch goes into the fascia which I don't have ... overlooked that in the rush. Interim fix is perspex until fascias are cut.
Boards are stuffed - Kiwame 2 & 5 wattt, film & foil PP ... low z electros .. generally I had a lot of components as mentioned so it wan't a big shop list. ... rectifier diodes ... couldn't source the 6As? in the parts list but found Fairchild hyperfast/soft recovery .. these should be good based on the work Aksa have done on the influence of rectifier diodes on sonics in SS circuits. The engineers will say it doesn't make a difference, but I think there is a good correlation between sonics & these components ... besides they're 6A 800v so they should do fine.
Is there somewhere to post pics? anyone gimme the clues to post pics here
cb
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