the insides

[Doc B]

Here's a pic of the inside of the Neothoriator prototype. Not simple build. The fat copper tubes contain Teflon parafeed output caps suspended in isolation mounts.

 

[randy@matrixq.com]

Love the looks of a great build.  Real eye candy there.

Is that copper tubing being used as shielding?

 

[Grainger49]

That is a true mass of wires.  It is a complex build.  I noticed the copper tubes are all grounded.  Nice touch.

 

[mcandmar]

Very interesting, curious as to what all is on that big PCB?  Those caps are fairly low voltage, but with lots of high wattage resistors and heatsinks surrounding them, is it some kind of filament regulators?    And possibly a high voltage supply at the very end?

 

[Doc B]

Yes, regulated filament supply on the large board.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Very interesting, curious as to what all is on that big PCB?  Those caps are fairly low voltage, but with lots of high wattage resistors and heatsinks surrounding them, is it some kind of filament regulators?    And possibly a high voltage supply at the very end?

Yes, about 3/4 of that board is dedicated to providing two regulated filament supplies for the 845, but doing it the right way!  The resistors and massive number of heatsinked transistors spread out the thermal load nicely and keep the operating temperature of the components at about half their rated values. 

The other 1/4 is our traditional high voltage supply, with individual shunt regulators for each channel. 

The two small copper tubes are shielding for longer runs of signal carrying wire.  The two fatter copper tubes hold our parallel feed capacitors inside, but suspended with damping rings to reduce resonance.

 

[Gerry E.]

How does it sound powering speakers?  Thanks! 

 

[Doc B]

We've been so mesmerized by listening to headphones that we haven't even tried it on speakers yet. I suspect it will sound great, and that it might also make a step up sonically from BeePre as a preamp.

 

[mcandmar]

Is there a possibility of building high power single ended monoblocks with them?  i.e. picture a paramount that can do 25-50w per channel.  I've never seen any SET that can do more than a few watts, or maybe there is a good reason for that?

 

[Doc B]

That would be for another thread. This thread is about the Neothoriator headphone amp. The short answer is yes, we could build custom 845 monoblocks for you.