All too many audiophiles think of vacuum tubes as being unreliable, and this rant, along with the attached video attempts to discuss why this doesn’t have to be the case.
Tag: amplification and electronics
Anything related to amplification or electronics (DACs, etc)
Exasound DACs
And now for something completely different … auditioning DACs. Our neighbor, friend, and Positive-Feedback reviewer Lynn Olson brought over two Exasound DACs for this analog diehard to sample (pun intended). I’m a turntable designer, and many think of me as an analog only kind of fellow, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
NiWatt Update
With the number of design changes we’ve made to the NiWatt over the past 18 months, its initial release might well be called the NiWatt Mk-IV. All of this is to say, that the design is stable and mature, and there will be no need for first year revisions (all too common with some manufacturers). …
Development of the NiWatt – Part 3
It dawns on me that we haven’t had any NiWatt updates in a while, and as we near production, it’s time to bring you up to date (stay tuned for news). I went through photos taken at various stages of prototyping and have a bit more of the story to tell.
Guitar Amps vs. HiFi Amps
I’ve been thinking about guitar amplifiers lately, and their relationship to hi-fi amplifiers. The common “knowledge” is that they’re entirely different – with a guitar amplifier being a tone producer (even a “clean” jazz guitar amplifier) and a hi-fi amplifier being tone reproducer. Well, it’s not so simple …
300B SETs and 89dB Speakers – are you NUTs?
Who, in their right mind would ever dream of matching a 300B SET amplifier to an 89dB speaker? The NiWatts have been on a local tour as we await the first batch of production chassis – this, in preparation for their Fall tour to the East Coast. Yesterday, I put them to a real test …
Karna Meets NiWatt
Many of you know that Lynn Olson’s Karna amplifiers inspired several key design elements in the NiWatt amplifiers. Last week, Lynn and I applied a few tricks to the Karnas which were learned during the NiWatt’s development, and Lynn let the Karnas extend their visit for a few more days (Lynn likes to call them …
Development of the NiWatt – Part 2
The first post in this series developed into a design manifesto – a retrospective on everything I’ve learned both as a designer and music lover. Never lacking something to say, it quickly became apparent that this would be a multi-part series. In this post, I’m going to cover my breadboarding approach: selecting the basic architecture, …
Development of the NiWatt – Part 1
During the final review of the NiWatt drawings for the first production chassis run, we revisited all of our assumptions. With this retrospective, we thought it would be a good opportunity to document the process – from initial concept on through production. There’s quite a bit to cover, and we’ll do this in a …
