Solid-State Power Amp Adventures

My friend is very good at building amps. These are his monoblock interpretations of the First Watt Aleph J design. I have heard them in his setup pre-covid and they are very nice. Now I get to hear how bad or not my Bel Canto Evo4 gen ii sounds in comparison. And yes the casework is brilliant, I will have to get a pic of it all lit up.

 

Amps sound great. Definitely a step up from my Bel Canto. Here are some night pics. Obviously the brighter ones are due to high iso and over exposure. And no tripod for any, so sorry about the blur.. At least you can see the cool pattern.

 

I like to pretend I don't care about aesthetics, no pretending with these though. Very cool imo.

 

Those are beautiful, serious commitment to get all those holes drilled perfectly.

Some might be interested in some of the newer posts on DIYA in this forum : sound of various PASS amps.

I enjoyed this post too as I have been curious about the Babel J2

Looking forward to more impressions @bixby

.. dB

 

just an aside - those top plates are likely either water jet cut or laser cut. seriously cool looking.

 

LOL, just assumed a drill press. But that would make things easier and keep it uniform.

 

IIRC it was a drill press. He said it was quite tedious.
EDIT: 3 bits and a round file, whew!

 

I assumed a router table/cnc thing! either way it's great

 

Whoa, those mono Alephs are cool.

 

Any pictures of the internals? Just finished building a dual mono aleph j yesterday that was mostly inspired to try due to this thread. I was thinking at first to try/buy the Aegir but building this sounded fun and I'd never done a project like this before. Hadn't planned to do dual mono but they were out of the larger transformer I needed so got two smaller ones that would allow me to build a 2nd amp if I ever choose and make switchable monoblocks.



Mines not nearly as pretty as bixby's but maybe i'll see if i can get a friend with a cnc mill to make me a fun cover enclosure. Truly impressed someone did that on a drill press.

 

That's insanity.

 

I popped the top on the SMC DNA-125 just last night, thought I'd share as well:

 

dual transformer is better anyway, even if they are half size. because of winding/core they are less sensitive to dc noise on the line and a few other considerations.. I've read, anyway

 

That was the same rationale I used to justify going this route. It was really only about another 75-100$ all said and done to do it, so not a huge cost. It does make laying things out in a 4U chassis very challenging when the diode rectifiers are used on those universal psu boards. If I had the experience I have now going into this project, believe I would have skipped those boards all together and point to point wired each psu with monolithic rectifiers and saved a ton of space. However, I was also told the diodes provide a blacker background compared to those so that made the decision for me in the end.

 

I used dual trannies with monolithic rectifiers for my SIT amp , the capacitor bank and CRC filter was good enough to bring the noise levels down to not think about it.

@pechelman how are you enjoying the Aleph?

..dB

 

I really only have a few hours listening so far, 2 of which were on junk speakers placed on my garage workbench while I sat on a bucket to make sure things were all good before hooking up to nicer ones. Also I'm not the best person to evaluate gear because I'm new to the hobby in general and my other amp is the first real power amp I've ever owned which is a flea watt deal with 2wpc from 45's made by dennis had of old cary audio.

Right off the bat though, it's clear that the aleph reaches both higher and lower. Highs are a bit more present and intentional, sparkling without being harsh or fatiguing, whereas the 45's seem a little more rounded and gentle. The aleph presents much more impact on the bass as well as better definition, similar to what I experienced when adding in a Gungnir Multibit/pi2aes to the chain instead of using a handheld DAP as the source (don't laugh at me too much). Presence of vocals is slightly reduced and flattened compared to the 45's which are pretty magical to me even without having good/many points of reference like most on this forum. Soundstage is still good but again maybe it is flatter and wider vs the 45s which presented more of a rounder enveloping bubble of a stage of having the singers be right there in the room with you.

The one frustration so far is that the increased power of the aleph does make some preamp hum more audible. The aleph itself is fortunately very quiet/silent for me thus far; was very worried about this given how densely packed the 4U chassis is right now. Also the turn off thump is so so so gentle even with 98db speakers. Glad I didnt bother with a soft start or speaker protection board.

 

I hadn't really taken much notice to the JL Hood Amp @purr1n had mentioned, mainly because I wasn't in the market. Well things have changed and loosley on the hunt again.

Well colour me shocked to see the vast selection the JL Hood replicator' store has! So many pieces of interest and look pretty well built all things considered!

https://hifi-exquis.aliexpress.com/...2.444717d09Cna4G&origin=n&SortType=price_desc

Namely:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32645108208.html?spm=2114.12010615.8148356.27.6b616189nu9UCD
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32842302749.html?spm=2114.12010615.8148356.54.36fd5293KsGIXG
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33025495245.html?spm=2114.12010615.8148356.51.6b616189nu9UCD
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33021133942.html?spm=2114.12010615.8148356.18.444717d09Cna4G

But wow. If the amp Marv reviewed was decent especially given the price, some of these other replicas may also be a steal...An Accuphase rep that doesn't suck for like 1,000....

 

hah I've had a couple of clones from china.. a krell ksa-5 clone headphone amp with speaker outs.. and a goldmund mimesis speaker amp clone.. they were both only ok. The goldmund clone was nicer of the two. I wouldn't buy again, I don't think they sounded like the originals.

On the other hand I had a Firstwatt clone from thailand that was incredibly good, I'm 99% sure it sounded just like the real one. I only got rid of it because it ran too hot to use on my desk in my bedroom

 

Who did you source that clone through?