Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Odyssey Stratos - part 2

I just received my replacement amp today. It's all hooked up and sounds sweet. I'll post some pics of the Stratos' inards, as well as a new updated pic of my entire setup. I moved my Hsu a bit.

More to come...

I'm giddy about this Spiff.
I still haven't cut the Odyssey from my short list yet. It is still in the #3 spot but JUST behind the Anthem MCA20.

As promised...here are some interior pics of the Stratos.

NOTE: This is the first amp that Klaus sent to me. He has told me that the replacement that he sent has an upgraded board. I'll take some pics of that one and post them as well. I left the pictures high rez.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

So far so good. I'm diggin' this new amp. I've not yet A/B'd it with my Rotel RMB-1075 for two channel performance. I'll get around to that later and let you know my thoughts.

But it looks so... simple. I'm sure that's part of the beauty of the thing.

I was surprised how simple it was inside too. I guess I've never really looked inside an amp before, but I was expecting it to be a bit more complex.

Amps are VERY simple electrically. Some of the best ones (and I'm talking vintage a bit here) use point to point wiring -that is, no circuit boards. From what I understand, using individual wires helps the designer control issues of capacitance and inductance.

Look like a really well built amp. Those power filter capacitors have a nice huge rating. I imagine that this thing goes LOUD.

Again, as promised (though a bit late) here is a pic of the inside of the new replacement amp.

Replacement

Are you going to custom-order a lexan case cover for it so you can run it exposed?

Hell no.

I'm not a techno-geek. I much prefer the nice silver finish look.

But boy, it's pretty inside. And it looks better with a red board!

Take some front pics of it, I wanna see what it looks like.

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I was surprised how simple it was inside too. I guess I've never really looked inside an amp before, but I was expecting it to be a bit more complex.

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It is a scary thing eh spiff?
All that cash for alot of air.

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All that cash for alot of air.

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Your post is not as facetious as it might seem, for it's the finely generated successive waves of alternately compressed and rarified air, assaulting his ears just so, that spiffnme paid for.

ereed...look up. I've already posted links to the pics.

Wow...nice beefy toroid in there..

By the way, these are some beautiful pics. What kind
of camera did you use?

Hi,

Big, fat, toroidal transformer. Very nice. Is it Class A or Class A/B? If it's pure Class A, it would run very hot and your electric bill would increase exponentially.

I once kept my take-out lunch warm on top of a giant Class A power amp we were doing listening tests on (with a buncha other amps) at the NRC in Ottawa many years ago.

The website states that it's Class A/AB.

I've often wondered what the heck the "class" system meant. If you've got the chance, I'd love a lesson in the amp class system.

BTW...the unit runs very cool. I leave it on most of the time, and it's hardly even warm to the touch at all.

Here's a good link Craig, Amplifier Classes

spiff...take pics of the faceplate...I wanna see what the faceplate looks like while sitting on the shelf. The pics you linked doesn't show the front of faceplate.

uhhh...that was a clear as mud. That article was obviously written with an electrically educated audience in mind. Thanks for the link though.

Well Craig, since nobody has offered a superficial review of the main amp classes, I'll try it. Class A operation makes all the power output transistors carry a heavy current flow at all times, regardless of whether there's any sound being reproduced at that instant. In pure class B operation, the transistors only carry current at the instant that they're actually amplifying a part of a sound wave. One that amplifies during the positive part of a wave is shut completely off during the negative part and the other transistor(or multiple transistors)is turned on for amplifying the negative part. The net result of these schemes is that the class A is very inefficient(maybe 20%), using power continuously and runs very hot, but since the current is always "on", there's no problem in turning on when the sound wave changes polarity from positive to negative and vice-versa. The class B is a lot more efficient(maybe 60%)and runs cooler, but it has to turn on and off very quickly(all this is happening in millionths of a second)when the sound waves crossover from one polarity to another, and since it can't do it instantaneously from a dead start(i.e. no current flowing), there's some "crossover distortion" introduced at those points. The class AB(somewhat misnamed; mostly B with a little bit of A operation)allows just a little bit of current to flow at all times(but much less than in class A)so that it accelerates from idle rather than a dead start and the crossover distortion problem is reduced while keeping most of the power use efficiency and cooler running of pure class B operation.

As a practical matter, any of the preceding classes can be designed with inaudibly low distortion, so this is more about bragging rights than real-world sound quality and you can pretty much feel free to ignore amp classes. Numbers count, not letters.

Thanks John.

How about an overly simplistic analogy?

Class A amp is like the 40W light bulb turned on. It is always on, always using 40W, hence hot and inefficient.
Class B is like the 40W light bulb with a manual switch. You can turn it on and off but there is that 'lag' time between on and off.
Class A/B is like a light bulb on a dimmer switch. A little current is always flowing although the light may technically be "off" (dark room with dimmer switch set way down low) which when necessary can go up to its full 40W and down again (quickly move dimmer switch up to full position).
Class AA/B is like the previous description except that its minimum current is usually higher such that the light bulb is always at say a full 5W all the time (the Class A part) but can bump up to 40W and back down again when necessary (the A/B part).

For some definitions of terms, this is a good site.
For the amp stuff again, this page is pretty easy.

Yes, chess, good sites, and for an overly simplistic analogy I like the one in the AB definition about the three cars at the stoplight with car A racing its engine at top revs, car AB with engine idling and car B with its engine turned completely off.

spiffnme, congrats on the new amp. As a proud owner of both the Stratos and HT3 from Klaus all I can say is you will be a happy camper.

So far so good!

Great links! I really enjoyed the second one. It answered a lot of questions for me. I was wondering what Class D amps were...

Sorry for the delay...

Stratos face
Stratos in rack

Spiff, form those pictures it looks like the Stratos might interfere with your VP150. Who knows how badly those huge heat-sinks can refract sound from the left tweeter!

Sounds good to me. That's all that matters. It looks closer than it is - especially in that first picture.

Those really are great pics spiff.
What was the camera again?

Incidentally i've come to something of a decision on the 3 amp choice i had previously. I'm planning on buying a Stratos for my HT setup with the M60s in the basement while leaving the rest of my speakers hooked up to the Onkyo.
However i still have to decide b/w the Anthem and the Parasound for our large music system.

Decisions, decisions!

Mark

Oh, god, those heat sinks are beautiful. Pretty, pretty...

I haven't seen the official "Top ten signs you know you're a geek" list, but I'm sure "Lusting after heatsinks" is on there somewhere.

Man, a nice copper heatsink. Mmm. I'm telling you...

Geek! If I opened your PC would I find a liquid nitrogen cooled overclocked athlon 64? Please say yes. I just want to dream.

Nope. You'd find a pokey, overly hot Athlon TBird 1400. With a Zalman flower Al/Cu heatsink. I wish I could afford an Athlon64 with nitrogen cooling. But then I'd have Axioms, too. :-)

Amen. The upgrade was either a PC or the speakers. I made the right choice (at least until doom3 and hl2).

jr

Ah, the long, long wait for vaporware. I'll believe them when I see them. I just need a proc upgrade + more ram so I can play PlanetSide better.