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Thread: Amplifiers any good..?

  1. #21
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: N E Kent

    Posts: 51,624
    I'm Geoff.

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    Anybody interested in Class A solid state amps could check out the kits and components available from China, based on the John Linsley Hood designs.

    If you do an ebay worldwide search for 'hood amplifier' or '1969 amplifier' you should find a few. I've been having a look at them myself.

    You can of course buy a ready made version, but a kit appeals to me, as I can then use a proper UK spec mains transformer.

  2. #22
    Join Date: Oct 2017

    Location: Ontario, Canada

    Posts: 791
    I'm Svend.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Haselsh1 View Post
    Well, the camera in the photo was a Mamiya RB67 in which I mainly used Fuji Acros 100 film that I developed in FX39 solution when it was available. I gave up film based photography back in 2016 when I bought my first ever full frame DSLR. I first dabbled with digital in 2003 but thought it more than a bit of a novelty. Not anymore in 2018. I now get the images I always wanted but sadly not of the artistic quality that silver halides give. Traditional photography gives a quality that I very much doubt digital will ever be able to mimic. Digital is bloody good but in a totally different way, in hi-fi and in imaging.

    Would I ever go back to medium format film based photography..? Of course I bloody would..! Especially if I had the type of property that would sustain it.
    Interesting comments, Shaun. Not wishing to take this thread off-course, I will only say that I agree wholeheartedly that digital doesn't have the look of film. Over the past few years I have been able to get around some of the major time commitment needed for darkroom printing by using a hybrid process - shoot on film, scan into digital and print archivally from there. It retains most of the look of film, and the results can be excellent. Still, silver prints have a depth that really can't be replicated, and that last little bit of that elusive quality is something I haven't found yet with the hybrid process.

    With that, back to your amplifiers...

    Svend

  3. #23
    Join Date: Dec 2008

    Location: East Riding of Yorkshire these days

    Posts: 4,779
    I'm Shaun.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Svend N View Post
    Interesting comments, Shaun. Not wishing to take this thread off-course, I will only say that I agree wholeheartedly that digital doesn't have the look of film. Over the past few years I have been able to get around some of the major time commitment needed for darkroom printing by using a hybrid process - shoot on film, scan into digital and print archivally from there. It retains most of the look of film, and the results can be excellent. Still, silver prints have a depth that really can't be replicated, and that last little bit of that elusive quality is something I haven't found yet with the hybrid process.

    With that, back to your amplifiers...

    Svend
    Apologies for the thread drift here. Back in about 1985 I bought my then Bronica medium format setup and used a De Vere cold cathode head enlarger. A few years later I started to use a Wista cherry wood field camera with the same enlarger. Back then I seemed to have so much spare time and of course plenty of room and dedication. At that time I also called on my time in the seventies of using warm toned chlorobromide printing papers and started using Agfa Record Rapid exhibition paper. It was at this time that it became very clear that a lot of what makes silver halide photography so damn unique is the sheer quality of the printing paper and the fact that these papers used a lot of Cadmium salts in their formulation. This is now banned. I once went to a photo gallery in Glasgow with a friend to look at some work and asked her if she could pick out the 'digits' compared to the 'real' photographs. Of course she could. It was so bloody obvious that silver halide prints produce a 'depth' that goes way deeper and beyond the actual paper. Digital prints in comparison resemble a photocopy that only exists on the surface of the paper. Can I prove this..? Yes I can, I have both types of print here next to me. In spite of this, I definitely agree that a scanned negative is better than a digital only print in terms of 'hidden' quality in the same way that CD and vinyl are just so bloody different. There is a real difference in exhibition prints produced by each method but since the banning of heavy metals in photographic emulsions I think the real difference is now not so great.

  4. #24
    Join Date: Dec 2008

    Location: East Riding of Yorkshire these days

    Posts: 4,779
    I'm Shaun.

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    Quote Originally Posted by walpurgis View Post
    Anybody interested in Class A solid state amps could check out the kits and components available from China, based on the John Linsley Hood designs.

    If you do an ebay worldwide search for 'hood amplifier' or '1969 amplifier' you should find a few. I've been having a look at them myself.

    You can of course buy a ready made version, but a kit appeals to me, as I can then use a proper UK spec mains transformer.
    Geoff, the building of a kit by me is a no go area I am afraid. With your comments in mind though I used to use a Linsley Hood two box phono stage for bloody years back in the nineties and damn fine it was. I only sold it to buy an EAR.

  5. #25
    Join Date: Oct 2017

    Location: Ontario, Canada

    Posts: 791
    I'm Svend.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Haselsh1 View Post
    Apologies for the thread drift here. Back in about 1985 I bought my then Bronica medium format setup and used a De Vere cold cathode head enlarger. A few years later I started to use a Wista cherry wood field camera with the same enlarger. Back then I seemed to have so much spare time and of course plenty of room and dedication. At that time I also called on my time in the seventies of using warm toned chlorobromide printing papers and started using Agfa Record Rapid exhibition paper. It was at this time that it became very clear that a lot of what makes silver halide photography so damn unique is the sheer quality of the printing paper and the fact that these papers used a lot of Cadmium salts in their formulation. This is now banned. I once went to a photo gallery in Glasgow with a friend to look at some work and asked her if she could pick out the 'digits' compared to the 'real' photographs. Of course she could. It was so bloody obvious that silver halide prints produce a 'depth' that goes way deeper and beyond the actual paper. Digital prints in comparison resemble a photocopy that only exists on the surface of the paper. Can I prove this..? Yes I can, I have both types of print here next to me. In spite of this, I definitely agree that a scanned negative is better than a digital only print in terms of 'hidden' quality in the same way that CD and vinyl are just so bloody different. There is a real difference in exhibition prints produced by each method but since the banning of heavy metals in photographic emulsions I think the real difference is now not so great.
    Agreed on all counts! No more thread drift , so I'll leave it there. We can chat offline if you wish. Happy to talk photography any time...

    Regards,
    Svend

  6. #26
    Join Date: Jan 2008

    Location: gone

    Posts: 11,519
    I'm gone.

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    Quote Originally Posted by walpurgis View Post
    Anybody interested in Class A solid state amps could check out the kits and components available from China, based on the John Linsley Hood designs.

    If you do an ebay worldwide search for 'hood amplifier' or '1969 amplifier' you should find a few. I've been having a look at them myself.

    You can of course buy a ready made version, but a kit appeals to me, as I can then use a proper UK spec mains transformer.
    Yep, I had a Nobsound NS-02G integrated amp using the JLH circuit - really good, cost me about £100 used. I've heard far worse for far more - only 10wpc, though, but that's fine with most speakers imo if you aren't a headbanger.
    https://www.amazon.com/Nobsound%C2%A.../dp/B00WTNXWOC





    Some online searching will dig out forum quotes calling it a mini-Krell (as a compliment ) - there's even some photoshopped images of that.



    It is a very fine amp. Probably the best class A solid state I have heard (I am generally not a fan of them).
    .

  7. #27
    Join Date: Dec 2008

    Location: East Riding of Yorkshire these days

    Posts: 4,779
    I'm Shaun.

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    Oh cheers for that Jerry. It certainly looks the business. 10 Wpc is certainly no problem as I use my present amp in triode mode often at 20 Wpc.

  8. #28
    Join Date: Jan 2008

    Location: gone

    Posts: 11,519
    I'm gone.

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    Yes, iirc the Nobsound is the 1990s re-design.

    And yes, the casework is top notch!
    .

  9. #29
    Join Date: Apr 2016

    Location: Bishops Stortford

    Posts: 1,250
    I'm Chris.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jandl100 View Post

    Some online searching will dig out forum quotes calling it a mini-Krell (as a compliment ).
    And like always, you would be an absolute mug to believe everything you read on line. They may have copied a circuit diagram, but savings will have been made in the quality of components, unless of course you're impressed by pretty casework
    Last edited by bumpy; 11-07-2018 at 11:43.
    Source
    SW1X Universal Music Server UMS I Signature with Power Supply Unit PSU I Signature
    SW1X USB II
    SW1X DAC III Special
    Audiolab 6000 CDT transport
    Amps
    Pre amps -- Hi fi Collective twin mono ladder stepped attenuator, with Charcroft Z-foil and silver wired. And First Watt B1 active no gain buffer.
    Power amps -- Welborne 45 SET monoblocks 1.8W / Decware Taboo 6W / Elekit 300B TU-8600SVK plus further improved components 9W / ICE Power 1000W
    Speakers
    Highly modified Endorphin P17 open baffle speakers containing both vintage and modern alnico drivers and paper cones. All silver wired - 8" Cube Audio FC8 full range drivers and vintage 15" Altec VOTT 416 bass drivers. All sat on Townsend Audio Podium seismic isolation platforms.
    BK Electronics XLS400FF Sub.
    Cabling
    Silver mains cables, interconnects and speaker cables by SW1X
    Headphones
    HRT HeadStreamer and SennHeiser HD650 headphones

  10. #30
    Join Date: Jan 2009

    Location: Essex

    Posts: 31,848
    I'm openingabottleofwine.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RothwellAudio View Post
    John Linsley Hood revisited his original design sometime in the 1980s (or 90s?) in one of the electronics magazines. His article incorporated some slight changes and improvements to the original design as well as explaining the evolution of the design. I'll look it up and post a link if anyone is interested.

    Building one from scratch should be quite possible, but the quality of the casework/heatsinks etc. from Nobsound et al. make scratch-building seem pointless.
    The JLH Class A design and subsequent improvement were published in Wireless World magazine. I built one, then within a few months cannibalised it to build the 10W Nelson-Jones Class A amp (also published in Wireless World), finally to abandon that in favour of a Sugden 12.5W Class A design (I knew someone who knew Jim Sugden. so was able to obtain the PCBs and mains transformer at cost).
    Barry

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