AKSA Amplifiers Owners & Discussion Thread

[theophile]

I have Hugh's Naksa on loan for the weekend....It's actually more musical than the Quad II-Forty monoblocks with the vocal in my setup plus it has great bass drive, slam.

Marvellous! Nice work Hugh.

The Quad was designed by Tim de Paravicini.He is renowned for making 'musical' amps.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/renown

Edited November 6, 2010 by theophile

[andyr]

The Quad was designed by Tim de Paravicini. He is renowned for making 'musical' amps.

Yes, he is ... but obviously as far as Jasper is concerned, Hugh makes more musical amps!

Given Tim's status amongst the pantheon of hifi gurus ... Hugh should be in with them, too.

Regards,

Andy

[jaspert]

The Quad was designed by Tim de Paravicini.He is renowned for making 'musical' amps.

Reknowned doesn't mean always. May be it's the KT88 I'm using.

Edited November 6, 2010 by jaspert

[Hugh Dean]

TdeP has made some good amps, I agree. The original Quad II was a difficult act to follow, with it's pentode output stage, using cathode coupled transformer feedback. Very tricky.

Jaspert, I'm very pleased it went well. The NAKSA is unique from a topology standpoint, nothing quite like it in the commercial arena. You would expect it to sound different to anything else, and it does. With reduced global feedback, it copes with reactive loads very well, and this is the secret with the ESL57 which drops to 1.8 ohms at 20KHz and is a ***** to drive.

Thanks for the praise, Andy, now, can I live up to it?

Cheers,

Hugh

[Hugh Dean]

Folks,

As of the end of this week, I will have a decent quantity of NAKSA 100 modules for sale. Two modules, complete with their own separate heatsinks, are required for stereo.

Power supplies are integrated with the amp modules, two complete supplies to a channel. Heatsinks are 300mm x 75mm, one single transformer of 425VA (or 500VA) is required, with two 35 Vac secondaries.

This amp has all the sonic features of the NAKSA 70 as reviewed, but is quite a bit more powerful, doing 100W into 8R and 185W into 4R.

I will formally announce product details and pricing on my website this week. This is a corker of an amp, with extraordinary realism and transparency, all the stops pulled, and hopefully I can ask John Darko to review it reasonably soon.

Cheers,

Hugh

[Hugh Dean]

Here's a piccie of the completed module, mounted on its heatsink.

Cheers,

Hugh

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25404[/ATTACH]

[VanArn]

The Attachment 25404,appears to be invalid.

[theophile]

The Attachment 25404,appears to be invalid.

It's go a nice orange tinge to it(as attachments do).

[Hugh Dean]

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=25404

Works for me, why not you..... ???

Hugh

[Guest Drizzt]

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=25404

Works for me, why not you..... ???

Hugh

Don't know, but doesn't work for me either. ??

[Hugh Dean]

OK, try again. Attaching piccies to forums is always a challenge at the best of times for me, it's infuriating.

Cheers,

Hugh

NAKSA 100 module - two required for stereo

Edited November 16, 2010 by Aspen

[tuyen]

Sorry Hugh,

No joy on this end.

Tuyen

[Hugh Dean]

Working now? It seems you must go advanced, and attach, rather than insert the image.

Hope it works now.....

Hugh

[tuyen]

Success!

Modules look clean.

[Hugh Dean]

Yes, they are clean, you are looking at perhaps 100 hours of CADCAM work to make sure all issues are addressed. Layout is extremely time consuming; many factors to consider.

Hugh

[A J]

Less in this case IS MORE !!

[stefan534]

Looks great Have you some idea of what it will retail for Hugh?

[Guest]

Hi Hugh

Whats the width of the heat sink .

Cheers

[Hugh Dean]

Yes, price is $1420 plus GST for two modules with integrated supplies; all you need is a case, binding posts, switch/IEC socket and 500VA trafo with two 35Vac secondaries. That's it, complete stereo amp. It's designed for minimalism; a passive pre or Lightspeed is just fine, although a tube pre will add that certain tubey sound many really like. The rest is supplied, including wire, connectors, and RCAs. Bias is 100mA, very natural sounding with cavernous bass, sharp imaging, extraordinary transparency and effortless slam.

Heatsink is 300mm long, 75mm tall. Heatsink flat to fin tips is 50mm, and flat to top of filter caps is 55mm.

Ciao,

Hugh

[Guest]

.......................

Edited December 10, 2011 by 56oval

[Paul Spencer]

Any case suggestions Hugh?

[Hugh Dean]

No, Paul, none yet, except perhaps the Altronics pro cases, 2U to accommodate the 75mm high heatsinks.

Metal work is not really my thing, but I'm working on it.....

Hugh

[Paul Spencer]

Yep, I knew of those, the best thing local I've seen so far. Metal work isn't really my thing either, although I did see a nice diy case recently. The nice thing about these modules is that the heatsink can become the side and that makes case building so much easier - folding sheet metal is the tricky part I find. The heatsinks mean getting around bending.

[Guest]

..................................

Edited December 10, 2011 by 56oval

[Hugh Dean]

Paul, Mal,

I'm working on two suitable enclosures with Graeme Huon in Waverley, designer of the Whyse products. We have one in the offing from Elgee in D'nong. Dimensions for the NAKSA 70 will be around 250mm deep, something like 300mm wide, and about 60mm tall. The Al sheeting will be a full 3mm thick, making it ideal to eliminate the heatsink altogether. A detachable, refined front panel will be fabricated too. The 100W NAKSA will use 100mm height, 350mm width, 300mm depth, with two side mounted heatsinks internal but mounted astride large ventilating windows cut into the base. I have a stock of front panels for this enclosure. This is the plan. Then I can sell them a little more complete for noobies.... but this process is still in train, as I recover from the one year long R&D development cycle for the electronics!

Cheers,

Hugh