Gainclone heaven ?

[PeterSt]

Hi again Paul,

I don't want to intervene with Nick's ideas and responses, but I have a few general remarks which may be of importance for you;

First is that the position of your volpot may have been derived from my own (shown) setup earlier in the topic. In my situation indeed it's at the bass side. But what may have slipped your mind is that in my situation the first GC acts as a preamp for the second one, or in oter words, the gain from the first goes right into the second. Quite obvious that this urges for the volpot at the the second GC, right ?
But I think not so in your parallel setup ...
I even think that you will find yourself in tuning that pot to 0 attenuation in this setup, because both really should be applying the same output to the individual drivers. This means you should leave out the pot, as far as I can reason out (and if not, you'd be tweaking in the wrong direction ?).

You must also realise that it is quite easy for me to explain how the connections are, but which is different from applying a well designed crossover. But let's say you have that in the speaker and can make use of it.
Now draw the cross over slopes (make up something, because it needn't to be right), and now imagine that you'd indeed be having (or *needing* like in my setup) a volume for the bass section. This is needed for two reasons (or better, is applied to two phenomena) :

1. Getting the net bass output equal to the mid/high output;
2. Maintaining the crossover slope as designed.

Ad 2.
This is why you have to draw this line. All you need to do further is put your imagination onto the left part of this line going up and down, at you changing the volume ...

See ? together with changing the volume you would be adjusting your cross over. One good say "not good", but one could also say "hey, right !". Why the latter ? well, because it is your actual means to tune in that theoretical cross over. And, you can bet that when you have it right, the volume in between bass and mid/high also is right. As you can imagine that this won't work the other way around : when you hear the volume is right, the cross over will be right as well by accident.

Of course, the latter should be true, but it requires objective listening instead of "liking a fair amount of bass". And actually it requires your "capability" of hearing that the cross over is tuned in right. But, always START with a theoretically well designed crossover (which takes two electrical sets of stuff of course), or otherwise you'll end up in tears.

In the very end I'm quite sure this all can't go without measuring, so think about this too, before it's too late.
Preserve your old set of coils and resistors and caps and make photos of how they were exactly mounted. Next build new ones as copies from the old. because you know, once you indeed start measuring, you will also start changing them. If now next you can't get it together within on year, you *will* want to go back. This may also happening after months of being satisfied, but in the end not. It is especially this situation that you stopped paying attention to the original situation. Always preserve that ...

If your current speakers are made for bi-amping, it would be my advice to just leave it like that, and bi-amp - period. No volume nothing (preamp allowed of course).
If your speakers are not made for that, well, it could be a nice hobby for indeed a year or so, but my advice would be really to not do anything. Ah, too late eh ? Well, yeah, what ...

One last thing :
If you don't have the crossovers right, this may not show right away at all. I mean, technically things may sound right, but the emotion may be lacking. So, check for emotion. The most tough and indirect thing, because you *will* be focusing on the technical thing first. It goes automatically. And of course, if that ain't right, how to proceed. But when you're at last done with the technical stuff (all sounds balanced etc.), how to tweak for emotion without the experience ?

Peter

[Scroobius]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your comments. Well at least I did say I had not thought about it yet

If your current speakers are made for bi-amping, it would be my advice to just leave it like that, and bi-amp - period. No volume nothing (preamp allowed of course).

The speaker xovers are split and can be bi-amped. So other than the usual bi amp set up (NOS1 into 2 Gclones) the only other way (?) would be NOS1 into Gclone 1 (acting as pre amp) then into Gclone 2 and Gclone 3 one for each driver. But is that solving the problem? won't Gclone 1 see different reactance's of 2 gclones just as NOS1 will in the traditional set up?. Also more components etc in the signal path.

PC

[PeterSt]

the only other way (?)

Indeed, NOT the only other way.

GC1 outputs in parallel to the mid/high drivers. So, to that and to GC2. Don't forget to sneak in your crossover between GC1 and GC2, so it frees that from dealing with high frequencies (would be a waste of power).
Otoh, your crossover (bass side) won't be made for that, so better stuff it behind GC2's output afterall.

Where's GC3 now eh ? haha

Also, the reactance from GC2 to GC1 is line level against high level output, which is quite different from line level against line level when two GC's would be pondering onto a poor DAC output.
You could say, though, that the combination of high output against line input is the other way around from "good", and although I never gave it some thought really, I think it's all the current which will push it through anyway (I must be very careful what I'm saying here, because it really hasn't been thought over - not by me).

Peter

[Scroobius]

Hey Peter,

I am sure that I do not understand this properly (for which I apologise and hope you will bear with me)

My speakers actually only have 2 drive units so as I understand what you are saying this means:

GC1 >> HFxover >> HF driver

GC1 >> GC2 >> LF xover >> LF driver

I think I must misunderstand as the gain of GC1 into GC2 would be far too high.

PC

[PeterSt]

Hey Paul - that depends.

Originally you are right. But what if your mid/high is really high-sensitive, while your bass obviously is less ?
Anyway, that is what the pot is for ...

In the mean time I can blow windows with this, and all the amps are, are 27 Watts or so ... (not at maximum gain)

Just think carefully about yor options. Step away from my setup for a while. Think about Nick's means too.


PS: Also important (at least for high sensitive speakers) : these things can be 100% dead quiet at full gain (which latter just is the case without preamp).

[Scroobius]

Thanks Peter plenty to ponder. I will try a number of options and post the results.

All the best

PC

[Scroobius]

Hi Nick,

As a result of reading this thread I bought and have now finished my first Gainclone amp (not sure how I missed all the stuff on the net about GC's!!). It was fired up for the first time last weekend and I am listening to it now (Peter Daniels "Premium Kit" in dual mono with 2 x 300VA transformers). I am really very surprised by how good this amplifier sounds. A very precise sounding presentation with excellent imaging (oodles of sound stage depth on good material) but still with a "liquid" mid range. Even with some of the worst recorded hard sounding digital CD's it still sounds good. A neat trick with such a high level of detail. This little amp seems to work really well with my Audio Note AN/E's and there is loads more volume on tap. The only negative is that it is not quite as relaxed as my old 300B's.

I guess the real surprise is that I am not tempted to return to my mono block 300B SET amps which I did not think I would ever be parted from. Maybe I will give it a bit longer until a final decision but so far the GC's have it. So the next mission is to build another GC and bi-amp. Could be interesting.

Paul

[Per]

...Peter Daniels "Premium Kit"

Hi Paul, Thanks for sharing. I suppose you bought them from http://www.audiosector.com What about a nice picture showing your new amps?

[Nick]

Paul hi,

It’s great to hear how things have gone so far. I know what you mean about not noticing gainclones they just passed me by whilst I was spending loads of time working on my AN P4s. They are great fun aren’t they and the costs relative to manufactured alternatives just keep me  .

A quick tip, in the Peter D’s kit there is an input resistor 200 Ohm I think. It is fine to bypass this (if you have not already) and it’s very well worth doing. Just put a link across then (a 5 min job) and take a listen.
I completely agree with your view of sound, I think of them as super “accurate” sounding  valves in the mids but with low end extension/control and very sweet highs. They don’t sugar coat the sound though, so if the source is not absolutely spot-on you seem to hear everything, both good and bad.

You have me smiling about your much loved 300Bs, I haven’t powered up my much loved P4’s once since I got the gainclones going. It’s not to say that the P4s aren’t really great amps but I just love the gainclones.

When you get time the bi-amping is really worth going for. I was very surprised at the difference it made. In my setup I have two clones per channel running from a 300va R-core per channel, works great and dead easy to setup this way all in one case.

Regarding them not being as relaxed as your ANs this may turn out to be an asset in the end. With the changes I have been trying on the NOS1 they REALLY shine and I have a sound now that is supper detailed whilst being relaxed and not fatiguing. I would describe the gainclones as very “honest”.

The last change to the NOS only happened today but it’s real hum-dinger, and dead easy to apply (it takes about 15 mins). I am waiting for Peter to come back to me but I am quite confident it’s based on sound theory and it is simple to understand what it is doing. It really suits the transparency of gainclones, I will keep you posted.

Kind regards,

Nick.

[Scroobius]

Per - Yes audiosector is the site. Here are a couple of pictures of the GC so far. Its not quite complete I just need to tidy and final run of the I/O wiring before bolting down the lid.

Nick - I did not install the input resistor just a bypass link after reading comments on the diyaudio site. Gain is high (separate issue to input R) I have just been listening (at quite a reasonable volume) at -30db but with the 300B's I was never much below -6 / -9db. I do not have volume pot on these as prefer to use XX digital volume I may reduce the gain at some stage by changing the feedback resistor(s) ratio but no rush to do that yet it sounds fine. I can get some serious window rattling volume now which I have to say is v welcome (sometimes when the neighbours are all out :-)

I agree exactly with your comments about the sound quality of the GC's what an audio bargain they are!!.

Also I spent a great deal of money upgrading my AN monoblock 300B's I could have saved a lot of time and money had I known then what I learned from this thread. One of the things I love about NOS1 and this forum is that after selling all my old kit I will have more money in the bank (quite a bit more) and a hugely better sounding system. I never imagined my system could possibly sound this good and there are more changes to make 

Can't wait to hear the mods to NOS1 - improved sound quality? mouthwatering.

By the way note that the transformers below are secured in the same way as NOS1 - good old blue tack.

I guess one of the reasons the GC's sound so good compared with the 300B's is the GC lack of an output transformer - Mani is coming to see me later in the summer with his output transformer less 300B amplifier - that is going to be a very interesting session and I will report back with our findings.

Regards

Paul

[Per]

Thanks a lot, Paul for the pics. Nice job  Where did you buy the case and the trafos? Best, Per

[Scroobius]

Hi Per

Trafo's from Airlink    http://www.airlinktransformers.com/    in the UK - good quality units. I found it difficult to find decent looking cases there are quite a few out there but most of them look home made I eventually found these  http://www.modu.it/homeeng.html  which are based in Italy. The cases are v good quality and look nice with lots of sizes to choose from. Nice company to deal with as well. Only problem is that whilst the cases are reasonable price courier charges are quite high but anyway they arrived very quickly so OK. Modu will also engrave and ink the front panels if you really wanted to go that far. If you want any more info please let me know.

All the best

Paul

[Per]

...I found it difficult to find decent looking cases there are quite a few out there but most of them look home made...

Thanks a lot Paul. And you are right about cases. I have found a few some time ago - but like with a lot of other stuff I can't find anything when I want to    So I am very grateful for the links. I'll give them a nice searchable description and sync them with my gmail account - hoping they won't disappear 

All the best,

Per

[Scroobius]

Hi Guys,

Can anyone help with ideas about cost effective but high quality speaker cables?. Any ideas would be very welcome. I am now using GainClones in a mono block set up up - one amp per speaker (of course). I would like to bi amp - no problems I have all the bits. BUT speaker cable IS the problem - or rather the cost of it. I have longish runs to my speakers about 6m per speaker. I am currently using CHeLA (http://www.vhaudio.com/speakercables.html) cable and that is very good to these ears anyway. In the hope of finding a decent but cheap cable I did try paralleled satellite coax cable (OK anything is worth a try to reduce costs) but it falls a long long way short of the CHeLA cable currently in use. Bass disappears and all the fine filigree of detail that NOS1 produces also disappears. I could feasibly run bare cable for most of the route with a lot of work and I would be prepared to do that. But before I start it would be great to hear what any of you other Gainclone users have in the way of cost effective speaker cables.

All the best

Paul

[crisnee]

I'm not sure if you need a specialty kind of speaker cable or not. If not here are two sites that sell well made inexpensive cables. Monoprice.com and http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm.

-Chris