How's the Ball's O)))) design coming?

GuyLaCroix wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 8:33 pm How's the Ball's O)))) design coming?

Ha. Well....when I made the comment I was overlooking one fundamental flaw which Nate reminded me of:

Nate Dort wrote: Wed Mar 16, 2022 12:12 pm A switchable Sunn/Traynor/GK pre into one of those ICEPower class D modules would be cool. No need to reinvent the wheel or use unobtanium output transistors

That's kind of a big one. A lot of the old part numbers arent made anymore. There are replacements that are but for how long will they be around? Most of the old 70's designs (Peavey, Sunn, Traynor) had very similar power amps and really pretty great. It could be very easy to take a modular approach, like Peavey did, and make one power amp design that you can just plug and play with all the preamps you desire. Sunn Beta, TS-50, Ampeg V6, whatever you're sticking different pre's in front of the same power amp and I think that could work great IF those power transistors were available. I dont know my part numbers on those things, but I think Nate does, and if he's got differing opinions about what's available now then i'm all ears. If it was viable, i'd totally sink some time into giving it a shot.

Sure, sure so you're saying it's a collaborative design. The PRF Dort Balls?

I ain't got time to design shit, but if you want to go old-school TO-3 package in something that is still in production for the time being, then I think the main candidates are MJ15022/24 (NPN) and MJ15023/25 (PNP), depending on what your max VCE is. 22 & 23 are fine up to 200 V, 24 & 25 are good for 250 V.

There are a lot of other candidates in other packages that are less in danger of going EOL any time soon,

I was specifically thinking of the old Acoustic output stages that didn't seem to tolerate anything other than RCA 2N3055H transistors. I wouldn't try to clone those.

losthighway wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 8:16 am Sure, sure so you're saying it's a collaborative design. The PRF Dort Balls?

Well...I wouldnt sully Nate's name like that.

In my mind the hurdle is really the power amp. There are plenty of power amp options out there, they're just usually rack options for piece-meal operations. What it seems like what people want most, though, is the creature comfort of a "Guitar amp". A tolex covered wood box that does one thing and looks cooler than a Quilter. I dont know if that's desirable in general or just desirable right now during the great tube freakout of 2022. Toilet paper was real desirable two years ago,

I know what some of these words mean.

I suppose I'm antsy because my Concert Lead is starting to show its age. I'm somewhat averse to the thought of bringing it out. But that and the cab are so much lighter than my tube combo.

Was going to say, the abundance of small & useful power amp options kind of makes designing a power amp unnecessary. I’d say focusing on preamps would be a better idea, but there’s also plenty of clones of most of the desirable vintage stuff at this point as well.

Adam P wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:46 am Was going to say, the abundance of small & useful power amp options kind of makes designing a power amp unnecessary. I’d say focusing on preamps would be a better idea, but there’s also plenty of clones of most of the desirable vintage stuff at this point as well.

Even if I was building a thing, I wouldnt really "design" a power amp, i'd just copy a decent example from Peavey or Traynor or whatever.

I’d be fine with a preamp with switchable output impedance so as to work with different power amp options. From my understanding, old PA amps, new PA amps, tube effects returns and solid state effects returns have different preferences in this regard.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:55 am

Adam P wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:46 am Was going to say, the abundance of small & useful power amp options kind of makes designing a power amp unnecessary. I’d say focusing on preamps would be a better idea, but there’s also plenty of clones of most of the desirable vintage stuff at this point as well.

Even if I was building a thing, I wouldnt really "design" a power amp, i'd just copy a decent example from Peavey or Traynor or whatever.

Sure. Design, copy…I guess my point is that solid state power amps are pretty much linear clean gain, and there’s plenty of stuff out there already that does it perfectly fine.

What about something like a preamp with an onboard power amp using something like an STA540 (like the Orange Micro Terror) and a line out for driving other amps?