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Toolshed Amps?


Shakeydeal

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8 hours ago, captainbeefheart said:

 

I almost spit my coffee out when I too saw the price, wow!!!

 

I will say it does take a lot of time making the chassis which is where I assume most of the money is going. They are very ornate and that just takes time when hand made like Matt does. They are a little too steampunk for my taste but they are an eye catcher for sure. If you have the cash and like the looks it's nice audio bling bling which is a big part of the audiophile condition.

They are cool looking amps for sure, but what is the max wattage with these, 12w?   I think for that price i would rather buy an Ayon spirit V with 75w/ch for a little more cash, but a lot more bass.    I haven't listened to either, so i have to ask, do the Toolshed amps reproduce nice hefty bass.  I have a 12w/ch Chinese amp and it sounds nice at low volume, but not much bass when you turn it up.   

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16 hours ago, oldred said:

Probably wait for a Decware.. Not as pretty.... 

 

 

I was looking at the Decware stuff too looks like a nice option but their backlog is 8 months+ I just don't have the patience to wait that long for something that may or may not work in my system. 

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8 hours ago, captainbeefheart said:

 

7-8 watts output with about 5% THD

 

 

I personally have never heard one so I cannot comment from experience. But coming from experience with other typical 300b no feedback amplifiers is it really depends on the speaker. These types of amps are not great at driving tough loads and do not have great damping. Anyone interested in these types of amplifiers (from any company or builder) should audition them with their speakers in their rooms and see if they work well enough for you. Some speakers and genres of music they just completely fall flat on their face and vomit. Other types of speakers and genres of music they sing like angels. It's really a symbiotic relationship.

 

To me it actually sounds like you need to increase your power a little. I don't know your room size, speakers and listening habits but bass needs power and control. You may want to look for a clean and concise 20+ wpc amplifier to replace the one you have.

Yes, i agree.  I was interested in the Tool Shed amps awhile back from all the good said about them, but when i read the specs and seen the price tag i was a bit taken back.  This led me to purchasing the 12w/ch chinese amp which sounds great til you turn up the volume. The highs and mids get louder, but the bass falls quickly behind.  I have a pair of CornScala's and another 25w/ch Chinese amp that does very well in this combo with JJ KT77's making this a great combo.  I'm sure the TS amps are great little amps, but for me the watt to cost is too much for me.  I'm looking for something more powerful while retaining good clean output.  Primeluna and Ayon are way more powerful quality amps and just a few dollars more.   If i'm spending $5000 on a tube amp, i'm expecting a clean thumpin badass of an amp.

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Decware and Toolshed comparisons really aren’t apples to apples.   The Decware amps are mostly pentode tubes wired in Triode in most of their amps. Nothing wrong with using that scheme , sounds great but much less power than the same tubes in PP.
 

The Toolshed is a DHT running 300b tubes...   they couldn’t be more different other than being low power.   Sure it’s a “simple circuit”  but to employ it to be quiet is not so simple.   Not cheap either.   
 

 

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I would like to know what those amps would cost if they were in a simple chassis like my former Welborne Labs Moondog 2A3 amps. The Toolshed amps have a lot of glam, but it would be interesting to know.

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They would still not be cheap.   Something “cheap” is not always a good value.   
 

He has built versions in a plain box before ...  not sure if this form factor lends itself to doing that easily.   
 

I am betting heavily that these amps are more than “glam”.   I will find out very soon ....
 

Aside from quality parts in and out there is a LOT of fabrication.   I don’t think people understand how much labor is involved in a build like this.   For anyone who hasn’t , visit his site..... Not many people possess the skills to build stuff like that.   

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4 minutes ago, Steve. said:

I am betting heavily that these amps are more than “glam”.   I will find out very soon ....
 

Aside from quality parts in and out there is a LOT of fabrication.

Oh, I agree completely. The fabrication takes a lot of time and time means more money. Matt explained how he etched the aluminum to do the designs, and it isn't a quick process from start to finish (see what I did there?).

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32 minutes ago, Steve. said:

They would still not be cheap.   Something “cheap” is not always a good value.   
 

He has built versions in a plain box before ...  not sure if this form factor lends itself to doing that easily.   
 

I am betting heavily that these amps are more than “glam”.   I will find out very soon ....
 

Aside from quality parts in and out there is a LOT of fabrication.   I don’t think people understand how much labor is involved in a build like this.   For anyone who hasn’t , visit his site..... Not many people possess the skills to build stuff like that.   


Matt IMHO has created a very unique cosmetic style with his amplifiers that reflect a real artistic style and I find them beautiful and within there circuit design l believe he is just as committed to excellent sound reproduction.   
 

These amplifiers represent an Artistic Statement and a Sound Statement and for those seeking these qualities I couldn’t imagine someone not being excited and proud to own one… 🙂

 

miketn

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37 minutes ago, Marvel said:

These sounded excellent, but they look pretty messy under the top.

 

 

moondogs.jpg

I find the obsession some people have with “neat pleasing to the eye wiring style” to be misguided and often sacrificing the benefits of 3 dimensional wiring of good point to point designs that can look messy to an untrained eye.  
 

miketn

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1 hour ago, mikebse2a3 said:

I find the obsession some people have with “neat pleasing to the eye wiring style” to be misguided and often sacrificing the benefits of 3 dimensional wiring of good point to point designs that can look messy to an untrained eye.  
 

miketn

Here are a few examples of what my products look like "under the hood"...... Hmm....... can't shrink them down far enough to get three of them on here.

 

Instead, I'll post a link to the gallery on the website for these pics.

 

https://www.toolshedamps.com/inprocessconstruction

 

The wiring methodology is my own, it does not emulate anyone's style. I'll be adding construction pics as time allows to this gallery.

 

And, yes, nothing is as it is accidentally. All of these choices have been deliberate. Everything has been carefully selected based on the tonal colors it adds to the finished piece. These selections cannot be quantified by math alone........... after all, a 220R/1/2W resistor is a 220R/1/2W resistor isn't it? Whether it's carbon film, metal film, carbon comp, thin-film, or tantalum doesn't matter........... or does it? Even if they measure the same? Hmm............? This then is a rhetorical question, of course they all sound different, despite measuring the same. The human ear doesn't lie, and it is IN FACT the most important development tool we have. Because once we've crossed our "T's" and dotted our "I's", they are the tool that can mean the difference between a good amplifier, and something truly magical. :)

 

Cheers!

 

Matt.

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, mikebse2a3 said:

I find the obsession some people have with “neat pleasing to the eye wiring style” to be misguided and often sacrificing the benefits of 3 dimensional wiring of good point to point designs that can look messy to an untrained eye.  

LOL, I'll let that slide, as that wasn't what I meant.

 

Matt, they are gorgeous amps, and I am sure, as reported, sound wonderful.

 

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Years ago I was experimenting with a 417A input tube interstage coupled to a 2A3 similar to the image in this thread.

 

My main goal was to see what "all the rage" was concerning this input tube (417A) being transformer coupled to a 2A3/300B. I don't remember my circuit values, but they were different from the ones in the circuit uploaded. I tried a lot of different operating points for both the 417A & 2A3 and was not satisfied (measurement wise) with any of them. 

 

Overall, changing the operating points only changed the sound slightly. Nominal distortion was >1% @ 1 Watt, 8 Ohm. This in my opinion is too high, but there did seem to be A LOT OF MAGIC going on in the sound. I bit too much magic for me. 

 

The magic in this case was 2nd harmonic distortion and gobs of it. As I said, I am going from memory, and I did not save any circuit notes or graphs from my AP. 

 

I  may need to mock it up again and post the AP results. 

45-2A3-TransDrive-v4a.png

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Good God…. You are missing the point. This is musical. I’ve tried everything from gyrator, J-Fet CCS, tube CCS, inductor, you name it to load my voltage amplifier stage/s…. this sounds BETTER to my ears. And they are in fact, what my customers rely upon.

 

Please don’t turn this thread into some sort of inane engineering pissing match. I have no idea what you think you need to prove to anyone. Armchair braggadocio and looking down ones own snoot at the effort of others is seldom attractive. 

 

It’s my amplifier I will build it as I see fit. My customers truly enjoy the music that it makes. 107…. and counting.

 

And really, that’s all that matters.

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Of course measurements have real value “when implemented and interpreted in the proper context and with their limitations recognized..!!!“ but ultimately we are designing not for a meter/test but for the human experience and the latter is the ultimate goal and the meters/tests are just tools that must be used wisely and within their limitations.  

 

Heyser who was a pioneer in measuring Audio, Acoustics and Sound Reproduction wisely warned the audio engineers of what was the intended results of their labor and the best engineers understand this fact I’m sure. By the same token the listening experience is also dependent in part by experience and training when it comes to making valid judgements when comparing sound reproduction from our Equipment/Room..!!!

 

Einstein:  "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted"

 

Richard C. Heyser:  “Perhaps more than any other discipline, audio engineering involves not only purely objective characterization but also subjective interpretations. It is the listening experience, that personal and most private sensation, which is the intended result of our labors in audio engineering. No technical measurement, however glorified with mathematics, can escape that fact.”

 

 

miketn 

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35 minutes ago, captainbeefheart said:

So your ears prefer distortion, that's fine nobody says you have to like anything in particular.

 

Could it be that the distortion isn’t what someone likes but the lack of some unmeasured distortion that the ear/brain perceives but not revealed by the test you chose to measure with…?

 

miketn

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20 minutes ago, mikebse2a3 said:

Could it be that the distortion isn’t what someone likes but the lack of some unmeasured distortion that the ear/brain perceives but not revealed by the test you chose to measure with…?

 

Distortion is a change of the waveform between input and output, any difference will be measurable and quantifiable.

 

Not all distortion is equal, you can view them to music theory as a parallel. The second harmonic is a musical octave, the third harmonic a 12th, etc..  These are known as musical intervals and a form of harmony.

 

If you want to break things down to what is natural, sound waves in the air to the ear is expressed with equations in fluid dynamics. In laymen terms the high pressure peaks will travel faster than the low energy troughs which leads to a non-linear transfer and subsequent even harmonics. So one could say even harmonics are more natural vs odd harmonics. This is a very well known concept and why SET amps sound nice due to the even harmonics. In guitar distortion world some prefer linear distortion which produces a more aggressive odd harmonic content. Square waves produce odd harmonics for example.

 

Typically you don't want distortion but low level even harmonics are going to be much more benign and natural compared to odd harmonics.

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21 minutes ago, captainbeefheart said:

A low powered SET amp is not for everyone.

I go from one extreme to the other. My tube amps satisfy most of my needs, but sometimes I've got to play my music louder, but I still want the"magic" sound that a tube amp gives me. That's when I switch to one of my SS amps. 

 

One of my recent favorites is a Phase Linear 700B chassis that was stripped and reconfigured for full complimentary outputs and a completely new discrete driver board (designed by me of course). I have the PCB ready to go, I just need to send it off to a PCB house. 

 

The proto-type driver board is in it now, is a highly modified factory board for proof of concept. 

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