Bottlehead Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Thermioniclife on September 20, 2024, 10:25:28 AM
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Hey Queen and Doc, I know you guys are winding down in 5 or less years. My question is there any new amps/preamps simmering on the griddle coming up in the future?
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"Winding down" is much more about Eileen and I than it is about Bottlehead. The company is chugging right along and there are lots of new possibilities on the horizon. I'm headed to PB's tomorrow to finish up the Moreplay upgrade manual shoot. We also have the replacement for the S.E.X. amp 3.0 coming soon. S.E.X. 4.0 will go back to our roots and be a pair of monoblock amps that will go great with the Moreplay. We also have the big 805A amps that I have been running for a while now, that will be the highest powered (and perhaps the best sounding) amp kit we have ever done. We will be talking about some other product ideas tomorrow as well.
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A lot of the slowness is situationally my fault. When Covid hit, demands for my services went through the roof, and I've been happily absorbing as much of that as possible, but that has made finding time to crunch through something like a build manual rather difficult.
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Thanks fellas, It's good to know things are in the works. My soldering iron has been at room temperature for far to long. :)
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We got a good 2/3 of the Moreplay upgrade manual done today. We will finish up the photo shoot of the assembly next weekend, after some new PC boards arrive.
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Hey Doc/ Pb will the S4X mono's be of the same chassis size as the Moreplay to facilitate vertical mounting to take up less area?
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I mis-spoke. S.E.X. 4.0 will be a stereo power amp. I think the form factor will be pretty close to the Moreplay. PB may weigh in with a bit more detail.
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PJ and I worked something up that we are happy with that is currently built onto an 8x10 chassis with lots of space.
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Re: SeX 4.0, I noticed mention in another thread of 3.0 being retired due to dwindling 6FJ7 supply - does this mean 4.0 is moving to a different tube? If so, is it one in modern production, or another repurposing of a plentiful and forgotten cheapie?
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or another repurposing of a plentiful and forgotten cheapie?
Another cheapie! Once we stop selling SEX 3.0, the 6FJ7 will naturally become abundant and inexpensive again.
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Another cheapie! Once we stop selling SEX 3.0, the 6FJ7 will naturally become abundant and inexpensive again.
Nice! I look forward to seeing what you've cooked up for 4.0, and to better tube availability for my 3.0 once I have it up and running again. :)
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We got a good 2/3 of the Moreplay upgrade manual done today. We will finish up the photo shoot of the assembly next weekend, after some new PC boards arrive.
Thanks for let us know.
Could you tell us in advance what the upgrade is?
thank you.
AG.
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The upgrade is two separate modules that come together. The first module is a rather large PC board with several different functions. The first is a low voltage bridge rectifier that feeds two independent regulators set up to provide 6.3V DC to each 6V6. This portion of the board is wired in and tested first, and it takes out some 60Hz content (and harmonics) from the noise floor. The other half of the PC board takes the high voltage DC rail and uses a C4S and a stack of Zener diodes to create a regulated high voltage rail that's a bit quieter than the stock power supply, as well as keeping that last big 220uF/350V power supply cap out of the signal path. This regulated supply feeds two additional constant current sources that replace the stock plate loading resistors.
The second PC board is designed to hold the Alps Blue Velvet balance and volume potentiometers, and these replace the stock parts. This module is substantially easier to add to the Moreplay than our typical BeeQuiet attenuator, and it's more appropriate at the price point of the Moreplay. The BeeQuiet attenuator design also presents some additional design challenges that don't work all that well with the 6V6 circuit in comparison to our other products that use it.
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The upgrade is two separate modules that come together. The first module is a rather large PC board with several different functions. The first is a low voltage bridge rectifier that feeds two independent regulators set up to provide 6.3V DC to each 6V6. This portion of the board is wired in and tested first, and it takes out some 60Hz content (and harmonics) from the noise floor. The other half of the PC board takes the high voltage DC rail and uses a C4S and a stack of Zener diodes to create a regulated high voltage rail that's a bit quieter than the stock power supply, as well as keeping that last big 220uF/350V power supply cap out of the signal path. This regulated supply feeds two additional constant current sources that replace the stock plate loading resistors.
The second PC board is designed to hold the Alps Blue Velvet balance and volume potentiometers, and these replace the stock parts. This module is substantially easier to add to the Moreplay than our typical BeeQuiet attenuator, and it's more appropriate at the price point of the Moreplay. The BeeQuiet attenuator design also presents some additional design challenges that don't work all that well with the 6V6 circuit in comparison to our other products that use it.
Sound promising upgrades, thank you for sharing!
AG.
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"Winding down" is much more about Eileen and I than it is about Bottlehead. The company is chugging right along and there are lots of new possibilities on the horizon. I'm headed to PB's tomorrow to finish up the Moreplay upgrade manual shoot. We also have the replacement for the S.E.X. amp 3.0 coming soon. S.E.X. 4.0 will go back to our roots and be a pair of monoblock amps that will go great with the Moreplay. We also have the big 805A amps that I have been running for a while now, that will be the highest powered (and perhaps the best sounding) amp kit we have ever done. We will be talking about some other product ideas tomorrow as well.
Hi Doc. Any news you can share on the 805A amp? I have Pure Audio Project Trio 15 speakers in a large room that sound a bit stressed in my large listening room with a 300B SET amp. I definitely need to buy a more powerful amp, hopefully soon. An 805A amp would probably be just about perfect.
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I can share that we are working on a new power transformer design for it. What we used in the prototype is a bit of overkill and not necessarily the most efficient choice. It is in the early stages and we will need to try some things before we settle on a final design. This is currently in process (literally - emails with our winder this morning) so hopefully won't take too terribly long to develop. That said, the output iron is well developed and we have a small production run of those on the shelf.
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I can share that we are working on a new power transformer design for it. What we used in the prototype is a bit of overkill and not necessarily the most efficient choice. It is in the early stages and we will need to try some things before we settle on a final design. This is currently in process (literally - emails with our winder this morning) so hopefully won't take too terribly long to develop. That said, the output iron is well developed and we have a small production run of those on the shelf.
That is good news! Thanks for sharing.
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Can you tell us a little more on the SEX 4.0?
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Can you tell us a little more on the SEX 4.0?
With the dwindling supply of 6FJ7s and 6DN7s, we are obviously moving to a different tube. The benefit of this tube is that we can squeeze a bit more power out of it but the downside is that the Miller capacitance is high enough that we will need to do away with the volume pot. While the original SEX amp was a pair of inexpensive monoblocks that got tons and tons of modifications published for it in the subsequent years, we have kind of lost that facet of the SEX amp with more recent iterations. In large part I would offer the excuse that a low noise tube headphone amp isn't generally all that flexible when it comes to circuit modifications. Anyway, the prototype I have here looks to be configurable in 2-3 different modes to trade overall gain for extra power, and we'd like to just build that into the parts provided with the stock kit. We do retain the headphone jack as well, but you'll need to use the level control on your source. The lack of a volume control also makes this a very nice companion product to the Moreplay preamp.
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Thanks Paul for the info!
Cary
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We got a good 2/3 of the Moreplay upgrade manual done today. We will finish up the photo shoot of the assembly next weekend, after some new PC boards arrive.
Hi,
Any news regarding the upgrade?
thank you
AG.
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Hi,
Any news regarding the upgrade?
thank you
AG.
Dan is getting close to finishing the manual, and I'm getting close to wrapping up a bill of materials. The large order for PC boards we did arrived, so those are ready to go too.
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Yes, I have been working away at it and the manual is about 3/4 complete. We have a busy week ahead of us and the manual will probably get wrapped up next week.
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Will the new S.E.X 4 be a single triode design?
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Will the new S.E.X 4 be a single triode design?
No.