ANK AudioKits Forum

ANK AudioKits support forum

Return to ANK AudioKits Forum

Audio Note Kits Forum

RE: Calling All L4 EL34i Users

24.184.225.188

In Reply to: RE: Calling All L4 EL34i Users posted by AudioNoteKits on March 31, 2013 at 19:01:45

I am reading a lot of what others have to say about improving power supplies and I am confused about what further can be done to a power supply except a different power tranny with much higher current output. More capacitance alone will give more filtering but at some point the time constants will be affected.

Ben Jacoby who is a service tech for Audio Note here in New York told me about T/C's many years ago when I used to give him Dynaco stuff to repair and he saw all the capacitance I used to put into those amps. He told me not to add that much as it affected the sonics of the amp after a certain point. Most of the time not good. Using lots of UF will increase bass which can compromise the rest of the bandwidth. He also said the weak link in any Dynaco power supply was the power tranny.

What else do you do in the power supply for the newer L4's that you now sell?

Follow Ups:

RE: Calling All L4 EL34i Users - AudioNoteKits 20:00:50 03/31/13 (3)
Good Question on the power supply improvements - on the original design we just had a small choke on the Screen voltage for the EL34 stabalizing that - with the new design we added a much larger choke that handles both the HT (High Voltage) and the screen - Then we designed a new Power Supply PCB which uses two very high quality Mundorf Mlytic power supply caps - the first cap is a low 30uf capacitance ( ben was right!) - similar to the power supply design of our 300B single ended - then we use a 200uf 4 pole cap in the position after the choke! Fairly simple but good quality caps , good large choke and we have also increased the Mains transformer to have about 30% extra headroom - its a larger transformer - this means the transformer runs cooler and can deliver extra current easily when required as the music demands it - We had a few customers who went from the original version L4 to the new version and they told us the bass was tighter and more defined with more detail and punch - which is what a good power supply should do - so we are very proud of how the product has evolved - we are in a good position in that we are low volume so we can afford to enhance and tweak the product on a regular basis without being committed to large volumes through dealers - thus the continued enhancement of the product line !
- RE: Calling All L4 EL34i Users - xaudiomanx 09:21:43 04/01/13 (2)
  The fact that you increased the current output using a larger power tranny says it all right there. According to Ben he has said many times to me, increasing this and that only increases this and that. Without the power tranny being increased the rest is moot, although I don't think 30% is all that much it is still more than original and far from moot. Yes, I can agree that anything can be improved upon, if that's what is called an improvement although there definitely has to be a point of no return. I would definitely try that amp using one channel only and using another one with one channel only(not bridging) and see how it sounds. That doubles the power supply and should really make a difference.
  
  Years back I used to do that with Dynaco ST-70's and the improvement was drastic, without even adding capacitance anywhere. Improving on the power supply filtering made it even better but the power tranny was then working effortlessly.
  
  Whenever I build anything I way overbuild on the power supply. Sometimes 10 times the needed current. Da Hong See Too was a major believer of power supply overbuilds. He used to be the service tech here in New York for Jadis.
  - RE: Calling All L4 EL34i Users - audiomaniac 19:43:48 04/01/13 (1)
    I find all of this very interesting and encouraging. With all of the discussion regarding the L4 EL34 itself and not the integrated, I wonder whether I would be better off with a seperate preamp. I wonder how close the integrated brings me to that combination (say an L2 Line and L4 EL34).
    - RE: Calling All L4 EL34i Users - AudioNoteKits 07:18:58 04/02/13 (0)
      Yes ultimately having a transformer coupled pre-amp or even an L2 Pre-amp will be better but the nice thing is you can get started with the L4 in integrated fashion and later if and when you buy a preamp you can easily convert your L4 EL34i over to the Power amp version -just bypass the 12au7 pre-amp stage board on the EL34 and order a new Power amp faceplate from us with no holes for volume or selector - Remember the EL34 integrated version does have a tube pre-amp stage - it would have been easy to have a solid state gain stage prior but we wanted to make it as sonically excellent as possible! We have only had the integrated version for about 1 year now so we used to only sell power amp versions!

Post a Followup:

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?

Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
	Remember my Moniker & Password (What's this?) Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:

Message:	(Posts are subject to Content Rules)

Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:	Automagically notify you when someone responds.

To view your new posting or follow-up, click on the RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: