Zen Variations 4

The Wooden Penultimate Zen Like nearly everyone else who has displayed their projects, I too have become addicted to the wonderful class A Zen amplifier sound. A few years ago after burning out a cheap amplifier I built a 5-watt Son of Zen amplifier into the chassis and have loved the sound since. Once the Son of Zen was completed I started looking for my next project. So here it is, the wooden Penultimate Zen. The sound is very clean and pleasing. The PCB boards were from Pass Labs, the electronic parts were from Digikey, and the large parts were gotten surplus. I do have a Plexiglas cover that, along with the Plexiglas sheet holding the capacitors in place, was courtesy of the recent Amtrak derailment near my house. The voltage rails are slightly lower than in the published circuit because I used the transformers I had available. The voltage rails drive about 40,000uF capacitance per channel. Due to the use of the small heat sinks I am currently running my amplifier at the lower bias setting, which still leads to a nice warm 20-degree rise above ambient temperature. I love the wooden look and for me it was much easier to get and work with. The only drawback to using a wooden or even part wooden chassis is the loss of possible heat sink area. All you really need to do is get bigger heat sinks. That’s my plan for next time! I would truly like to thank Nelson Pass, Karen and the others whom have made this wonderful web site possible. These amplifier projects led me to take electronics classes in college to further my understanding of the amplifier circuits. I find that I keep coming back to the web site and the schematics for reference and am very grateful that they are here. Thanks! Any questions or comments feel free to email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) David Andrews