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After two years of gathering parts, I've finally a working Aleph 5.
As an electrical engineering student it's hard to find the funding for all the parts. I chose to build
both channels in one casing, mainly because of the transformer I could get for a couple of euro's. It
isn't finished yet, but from now on there will be only cosmetic changes on chassis and
connectors.
For the power supply I've used one 630VA transformer with two
individual center tapped outputs of 28VAC. So both channels have separate windings. After the
rectifier I used two 63V 47.000uF Panasonic GAA capacitors. The DC output of this supply under load is
32 Volt with 190mV ripple. No CRC or CLC filters at this time, because there is (almost) no hum on the
output (20mVPP max).
Because I etch all my projects myself, I chose to use self-made
circuit boards. Only the low current section has been put on the circuit board, the power stage
section is point2point connected and mounted on the heatsink.
The heatsinks are salvaged from a switching power supply, and
are approx. 0.29K/W each. At the current bias level of 2 amps they get approximately 60 degrees
Celsius (140 F). But nobody will touch them, except me. ;)
At this time, the chassis has been build of wood. Not very
solid, nor really nice to see but it holds the parts together. I'll build a new one out of aluminum
later, but still have to decide if I'll build one amp, or two monoblocks. I'll also add a DC
protection and slow start circuit later.
As for the sound: just amazing! Compared to my Technics SU-8044K
it's like a whole new dimension has opened in my room. From flat, to nice dynamic and perfectly placed
music. I'll spare you from all the expressions usually found in audio reviews, but to me it's a great
amplifier worth all the work and costs. Until my Aleph 1.7 pre-amp is build, I'll use my Marantz 1060
(isn't she a beauty?).
New speakers will be bought or build in the future for an even
more exciting audio experience.
I would like to thank everyone for there help, especially
Nelson!
Without all the topics and schematics found online I most likely
would have seen a lot of smoke before the amp worked.
Erik Hoogma, The Netherlands. erik-at-hoogma.net
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