The 46 drives 46 Amplifiers - Part 2

Hi!

In part 1 about these new mono blocks I showed some initial assembly steps and gave a hint how the final amps will look like. In the meantime the pair is finished.

The set consists of two chassis, one per mono block.

Two stage, a 46 driving another 46 through an interstage transformer.

The 4 rectifiers in the back are a full wave bridge using 4 TV damper tubes into a choke filtered supply.

Here some more photos of the assembly process:

The top plate with all parts mounted and wired up on the underside shown above. Then the next level is mounted underneath:

And the final level contains the power transformers and DC filament supplies. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo with the last module mounted since I was eager to finish and test the amp.

One of the amps in operation.

Now of course the question 'how do they sound?'

People who read my blog regularly know that I am reluctant to provide subjective sound descriptions. Especially of my own creations.

But these amps really surprised me. The previous, simpler builds of 46 amps were already stunning. But these are simply outstanding.

The 46 has a very special character which draws you into the music. It simply does everything right.

Sometimes more of a good thing can be too much, so the question was would a 46 drive 46 amp provide too much '46ness'?

These amps prove that the concept works. It brings everything to the next level. I can say with confidence that these are probably the best sounding amps I built so far, although they are not even using silver transformers as my other top of the line amps. But there is a caveat.

1.25w is all you get from a 46, yes just 1250 milliwatts.

With the right speakers those are the most glorious milliwatts.

.

Now the question is what would  an all silver version of these amps sound like?

Needless to say I am very happy how these turned out. Since these monos will be shipped to their owner soon, I already ordered the chassis materials for another pair for myself.


Best regards

Thomas