News and updates

march´23

- added news in section ´TheGreenZone´

feb´23

- updated section Test-Lab/Lab-Supplies, HP6140C and Fluke 415B

- corrected some typos

dez´22

- updated section Test-Lab/Network-Impedance Analyzers HP3577A-de

- updated section Test-Lab/What I´d like to have

oct´22

- added "From the F5 to the SuperNOVA" in section "Power amplifiers"

- began "discrete solid-state-SRPP" under section ´Ideas&Circuits/Phono-Vinyl´

- mZOE is having its second birthday. Average consumption settles around 17.9kWh/100km brutto and 14.9kWh/10km netto. Rekuperation won me 654kWh, translating to almost 4400km of free ride

may´22

- added news in the "TheGreenZone" section.

- the ZOE drove 15.000km at an average consumption of 18.55kWh/100km brutto, resp. energy costs of 5.05€/100km

jan´22

- added some news and comments to "Renault Zoe - BEV" section

- ZOE surpassed 12000km by now. Still enjoying each day driving with her.

- managed to source a pair of replacement tubes for the Fluke 415B for a reasonable price

dec´21

- added a video-link and a test-preview to section phonolab-de

- corrected for some typos

oct´21

- my ZOE had its first, 1-year inspection at ~9000km. Everything fine.

- updated Renault ZOE - BEV section with new consumption values

- updated section Mobility and Technology

- removed the AAA-Link. I can´t recommend it wholeheartedly any more as the forum is purposely shifting towards postfactualism. Worse, moderators acting as active players, provoking reactions of users -conspiciously high number of technical orientated users that is-, and escalating tone in threads so that they eventually find reason to close down threads and/or ban users.

mid May ´21

added L12-2 V.4 schematics to section ´L12-2 modifications´

added reviews of the Phonolab and the Monophonic to section ´Phono - Vinyl" (german only)

end of april ´21

added section Merason Frérot in ´Projects/Digital´

early april ´21

added section ´Micsig DP20003 active differential HV-probe´ to Test-Lab/Probes

end march ´21

- after ca. 4.000km the first comparison of consumption, resp. the cost of ´fuel´ per 100km of my Renault ZOE indicates that it consumes only 65% of my hard earned Euros than my former Fiat Punto 1.4. See the new section ´TheGreenZone´. The section shall also include general information about developments in electro-mobility, battery-technology and Photovoltaics.

- Edited section ´Preamp Relay Control´

early march ´21

the pandemic still has a firm grip on us but things are quite ok over here.

Meanwhile Germany does what it can do best .... burocracy and regulation. Due to it we are way behind the proposed vaccination number count and the incident figures rise. We even haven´t managed yet to offer all the old people >80years who are first on the priority list their first shots.

I derive some weird comfort from the knowledge that I reach my 80s too ... one day far far away.

Due to shortly falling intermediate incident figures we are now allowed to visit hair dressers(!), flower shops(!!) and DIY markets again. Don´t You catch the logic behind? Me neither!

Oh wait ... there are elections ahead .... the have to offer the plebs panem et circenses ... Oh my ...

end of 2020.

While around us the world seems to darken as Corona attacks and Trump threatening to not step down, and politics in general seeming to become more radical and right-winged, things have gone on quite well for me and around me. My employer performed well apart from 2-3 months and was able to grant end-of-year bonuses to all employes. Fortunately all stayed healthy also.

I´m still enjoying my new ZOE every day and the laboratory is making progress. Could fetch some devices and bought stuff like cables and those small helpers one needs all the time.

Hope that 2021 will become a better Year for the world as 2020 and as it appears at the moment.

end of sept´ 20

the AS Monophonic project is finished for my part. Also finished three inverse RIAAs for testing purposes.

Got me some nice LED-lights for my lab to mount to the bottom-side of the first floor workplate.

3x90cm wide and giving 3x1200Lumen at 4000K there are now certainly enough Photons flying around to enlighten me properly ;-) Weather is becoming really autumnal, cold and wet over here.

Unfortunately I still have to wait four more weeks for my new car to arrive ... meaning I have to ride the bike to get to and from work.

aug ´20

the AS Monophonic project is almost finished and short before making its market appearance.

Added a new section to Phono - Vinyl

july ´20

the measurement lab is almost finished. Got the workplates mounted and the old electric cabling (from the 40´s!?!) was replaced. Also populated the lab with some more or less useful stuff ;-)

mai ´20

- the measurement lab is slowly growing. Test-wise I screwed the profile frames together. The workplates out of massive laminated beech tree arrived and I started to machine and oil them.

Still a lot of work ahead.

- found a pair of professional ATE power supplies from TDK-Lambda on ebay. Made an offer and won the bid. See new entry under "Test-Lab - Instruments".

- also the long sought after ´intelligent curve tracer´ by locky_z was offered again on ebay by locky_z himself. In a quick decision I bought it. It won´t and in some cases can´t replace my beloved TREK576, but for many applications the modern tracer and its documentation functions will come handy.

apr ´20

-Corona hit the world. I´m lucky again. Going to work as usual, buying food as usual. All around me are still healthy. Yes, keeping the distance and wearing masks obviuosly makes it different, but living at the countryside with a nice quiet garden basically not much changed. Hope we can defeat the virus soon and people can return to their lives and recover.

Thanks to all those brave people who fight the virus in the front line.

- the aluminum profiles for my measurement lab bench arrived. Will have something to build the next couple of weeks. I´m very excited about how it will look finished.

mar ´20

my faithful old weller soldering station broke. Had it since ´86. Though it seemed that only the still replaceble heater element was broken, I decided to look for a new station, since the Weller casing and handle had several cracks, and it had been glued and taped together for many years. Found something cheap on ebay ... a tiny chinese thing with a Hakko T12 clone tip and thought I´d give it a try.

Wow man that thing heats up fast! Its on target temperature wthin a couple of seconds and melts even large solder blobs much much faster and easier than the Weller. Well it most definitely is cheap chinese stuff that requires some safety mods and it certainly will not survive 34 years, but will that any of the new devices from Weller, Ersa, Hakko etc? I guess no!

In the meantime I´ll enjoy the speed and comfort of the new station and am already tempted to buy another one ... maybe a KSGER T12.

mar 07.20

Lucky bastard I am :-)  Today my new gadget for my home lab arrived. On ebay Kleinanzeigen I spyed a professional convection reflow oven for a really good price and won the bid. More under "Test-Lab - Instruments"

- corrected a few misprints and added the english part for the HP3577A VNA

End of feb ´20

- added the Image-HiFi magazine review of the AS Phonolab.

jan ´20

A new decade. Doesn´t seem as if it could become any better than the last one. Seems as if in politics more and more idiots are at work. Anyway, Christmas and New Year went quiet and I did some research and shop-search. Found a offer for an old HP VNA and made a successful bid.

The HP3577A is true boat anchor weighing in at 28kg. When it went to market in the early 80´s it was a true sota VNA with outstanding capabilities and dynamic range, and even the modern devices are no better at all. My VNA has some - hopefully minor-  issues which need so be sorted out. But then t´ll be a first class VNA for measurements from 5Hz to 200MHz.

- Update: The VNA just went out of adjustment. So no hardware failure but just a bit of turning potis to get it started without failure messages.

dec ´19

Due to overstress from the move I had to undergo a hand surgery which of course toppled over a few plannings. I couldn´t finalize the renovation of the new home yet and other projects are also delayed and going slow. Still though I´m scanning ebay et al for new instruments and devices. Got me a another Multimeter (see new entry in section Test-Lab)  and ordered a H-field/E-field probe set.

early Sept. ´19

I´m in the state of repairing/refurbishing the P6042 current probe. The HP54001A, 1GHz active probe has arrived and looks good ... not tested yet. Ex-boss revives the ESL-amp idea. That transforms my plans for the Calvin ESEL into a fully digital MusicServer/ESL-Speaker system.

Edited the Calvin ESEL and TEK 576 parts and added HP54001A (Test-Lab - Instruments)

End of Aug ´19

Has been a busy year so far.  Moved into a new home .... off of the loud neighboring Autobahn to the next small village where it is just sooo quiet. :-)

Had to renovate the old flat and the new ... which is not yet ready .... and are now still searching where and into which box I possibly put those d**** cables, feedthroughs and all the small things I need for measurements. I hope to have it all together again to the end of september.

Anyway, recently I took the chance and picked a TEK P6042a current probe from ebay personal ads for ´only´ 250€. Typically sold for ~500€ it turned out the low price had a reason ..... it didn´t work as it should. See the new entry under Test-Lab.

The AS Phonolab received a very good review in the actual IMAGE HiFi magazine. Quite enjoyable reading ;-)

My beloved ESLs are still unpacked and will stay so probabely up to next year.

The reason is, that they meanwhile simply built too high for my taste and .... Hey honey, I plan to shrink the ESLs (gg).

This means to get rid of the electronics chamber below the panel and to reduce the number of bass drivers from 8 to 6 and chopping off a piece of the towers. This of course also means to design the electronics completely new, as I don´t want to drive them with the class-D amps and through the simple DSP-Filter any more. Since my ex-boss wants me to do a layout/design for a multi-channel DAC and since the Accourate software can easily run on the music server I´m rolling an idea in my head to do the X-over including full room correction via Accourate, multi-channel DACs and decent amplifiers. Well, see how it develops.

Transition from ´18 to ´19 went quiet and smooth.

A Analog Discovery2 arrived. Hope to find out that I can use it as decent Impedance-, Network- and Spectrum Analyzer.

Also its time to look a back on how 2018 was and what may come in 2019 ... so here are some more Comics .... enjoy

and of course no day without weird news from the ubiquitous, perpetual Donald Trump

End of December 2018

- wrote some lines for Test-Lab - Instruments

- corrected for many small errors and typos again (sigh)

- it had been a good year so far ... no health issues (almost forgot my motorbike crash *lol*), job runs well, relatives and friends are ok, even Mrs. Merkel´s period as head of her party finally ended (and her´s beeing a Chancelorette is on the finish line also, Yabbadabbadoo) ... if only the world be´d in a better condition. Leaves lot of room for improvement in 2019.

But let´s not become too pessimistic ;-)

End of November 2018

- I decided to put back together my german and international site on one site and just keep the more

  fancy new look ;-)

- corrected for many small errors and typos

- added a section about lab-instruments and measurement gear

3rd Q of 2018

bought a Audio Technica AT-F7 low-otput MC pickup. What a beauty

It fits my TheKiller tonearm soo well ;-)

2nd Q of 2018

Since I only had some old analog lab instruments I decided to buy some new stuff.

End of March 2018

Begin to write my german website.

The german part will eventually be taken off of this site and be transferred to the new site

September, 2017

- the phono preamp project is close to the finish. The prototypes have had their first evaluation and listening sessions. So far everyone who experienced the phono rated it very high. Almost all comments sound similar .... very high resolution and precision ... very exact staging ... remarkably low noise and extremely low hum. But the most noticeable comment is speed speed and speed.

Soon personal evaluation reports and magazine reviews will follow and I´m quite shure they will be very very positive. My client also seems to be very happy with the outcome. I just hope that it becomes the commercial success he hopes for.

- corrected website for some minor issues like typos, text passages and enlarging-on-click for some pics and graphics.

- added chapter ´CFP buffer/preamplifier´ in Menue ´ideas and circuits/preamplifier´

August, 2017

- started work for my new employer, a german electronic parts manufacturer.

Juli, 2017

- a almost 2 year running project is finally coming to an end. It started in that a aquaintance I had met on the AAA fair asked me to take a look at his project.

So I ended developing a new PCB layout and when the device still not reached the specs, I was asked to develop a complete new design.

Well, the first prototype has passed a couple of shootouts against renowned and considerably higher priced competitors and performs exceptionally well so far.

Production run should start in a few weeks and I´ll see if I can disclose more later.

April, 2017

- changed the section ´hybrid buffers´

March, 2017

- started ´really good 100W amplifier´ in section ´ideas and circuits´.

December, 2016

- Updated section ´ MyTechnics´ with subsections ´Tonearm´ and ´Pickup´

- Updated section ´All-JFET SE-Phono´

- Due to the required update to https I lost my counter at over 24000 hits and had to relaunch a new one :-(

- Updated section ideas/misc with CMOS-logic circuits

- my work for purist ends at the end of 2016 and I´m looking forward to meet new challenges.

November, 2016

British crazyness dwarfed!

Americans have had their presidential elections and the world rubs her eyes in astonishment. How can a proven incorrigible liar, a rude egocentric bully and the worst-wig-on-earth become the new leader of the mightiest military power?

It only requires a keen eye and low intellect to realize that Donald Trump is capable of a lot, but won´t be the one who ´makes America great again´ ... whatever that means anyway.

This is a prime example that one should not make important decisions when beeing in a state of angryness or emotionally off-centeredness.

Btw. did You know that the phrase ´make america great again´ ....

• has been used by Donald as early as in the 80´s?
• that it is copyrighted?

... and guess by whom?

August, 2016

- Updated the Buffer menue with the ´Hybrid-Compound-Buffer´

- Beginning of ´Verschiedenes/Miscellaneous´ a chapter about helper- and periphery-circuits

Juli, 9th. 2016

End of May 2016

Beginning to write the chapter "ideas and circuits -- Verstärker / amplifiers" 

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Mid May 2016

Whilst my stay in Regen around the HighEnd 2016 I  left the two Schott glass tubes -intended for a Cantus tonearm clone project- to the Glasfachschule ´glass college´ in nearby Zwiesel to try to cut slots into the tubes.

Mai 05.-08.2016

We showed at the Munic HighEnd 2016 show.

Had a small both in Hall4,R14, showing our Music Server.

Also we showed the complete setup at an off-side location only 100m distanced from the MOC.

See a short report with pics on monoandstereo

The setup consisted of:

• purist Statement-7 Flagship Music Server, configured with the Ultimate DAC, SSDs and its own WLAN (standalone functionality without the requirement to use a external router for WLAN)
• purist Pre, the passive preamp, configured with 6 linelevel inputs
• purist LMS, the two way active xover for the ESLs and bass towers
• four KR Audio Kronzilla mono SE triode amplifiers with ~70-100W of output power
• purist ESL, consisting of the new panel with 1.2m² membrane area per side and the associated bass tower with eight 6.5" longthrow drivers
• purist Sub, the globe-shaped subwoofer with two longstroke 15" drivers, driven from a separate DSP-filtered 2x1600W class-D amplifier. The casing is cast from concrete and is as acoustically dead as a Dodo
• Neyton Audio RCA and flat Speaker cables. The speaker cables can be ordered configured in inductive or capacitive fashion. The capacitive version is chosen for the ESLs, while the inductive one suits the dynamic bass drivers better.
• The show room was a bare hall with concrete and glass walls and glass roof of ~15m length, ~8m width and ~6m height. The only damping and ´room treatment´ was the red carpet. The room acoustics rather equalled that of a swimming hall. Still though due to the special distribution character the system performed extremely well even at large listening distances. Speakers with a broad distribution would have suffered their Waterloo under such circumstances.

Audience critics were very positive, yes even outrageously positive. Quite regularly the terms ´best of show´ and ´best, I ever heard´ fell. Listeners were astonished about the huge dynamic range and stupendous ´speed´ and attack this compact -at least for super box standards- speaker system delivered, fed from rather medium wattage amps. The performance was certainly exciting and great fun for every listener.

March 2016

• Changed the coating and improved the stretching of the membrane
• This resulted in an considerable increase in efficiency and maximum SPL. Actually I´m still uncertain as to why this effect occured so strong.
• Had to increase the volume level of the bass towers by nearly 6dB to match the panel´s SPL again. Sounds hardly believable, but the bass towers are the SPL limiting elements, even though they are highpass filtered at 55Hz.
• Large scale dynamics are now even more like from a big horn system without loosing on fine detail resolution

Oct 31st - Nov 1st, 2015