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The most time consuming in building such project is to source for
all the necessary parts especially when you cannot obtain them from a single source. I have tweaked
the original design slightly by having a dual power supply in a single chassis. In another word, this
is a dual monaural stereo Class A power amplifier.
The power supply consists of dual toroidal transformers, dual
bridge rectifiers and twenty power electrolytic capacitors. All the power capacitors are soldered on
an un-etched PCB, being used as a ground plate and shield between the power and the amplify section.
As you can see from the photos, my technique of connecting up the circuit utilized the point-to-point
connectivity. This methodology will have the least soldering joints and it is possible as this is a
simple circuit.
The heat sinks are recycled from some obsolete industrial
equipment. I obtain them for free, so I only invest on the aluminum frames and the top & bottom
panels. Most of the components use in this project are carefully selected and matched from a large
amount of parts. After burning a couple of my weekends, I finally bring the amplifier alive without
much obstacles. I am amazing by the sound of this amp produced that I decide to build another similar
one so that I can have a bi-amp configuration.
The setup of my current system is as follows:-
CD player connects to the active cross-over network, and the high-pass output of the network connects
to the tweaked Aleph 5 amplifier driving a pair 60-inches ribbon speakers. As for the low-pass output
of the network, it is handled by the other tweaked Aleph 5 amplifier driving a pair of NHT 1259 bass
speakers.
And how does it sound? Oh, it's wonderful. The bass is powerful, fast and tight. The treble is
dynamic, detail and clear. One thing you have to be cautious with this amp, especially if you have kid
around. This amplifier generates a lot of heat and the heat sinks are really hot even if you leave it
on without playing any music. Reason being this is a Class A amplifier.
Details of my Aleph 5 project can be found at http://www.geocities.com/ec1288/index.html
Last but not least, special thanks to Nelson Pass for his
willingness to share his designs.
Edwin Chng
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