First off let’s make sure everyone understands I know very little about the subject I’m bringing up and my total amp repair experience is the changing of a faulty protection circuit in a h/k avr500....so please dumb it down as much as possible!
I want to figure out if it’s possible to easily upgrade any components of the sonamp 260.....I own one of these (bought new around 2000’ish) and it’s hardly ‘audiophile’ but seems to me a well built and simple platform that might benefit from some ‘upgrades’.
I understand it’s not as simple as it may look and hope to find someone local to maybe mentor me through it.
Anyhow am I safe in assuming this amp is worthy to upgrade?
It’s currently seeing duty as a sub amp driving dual 10’s
The 260 is supposedly stable to 2ohm and I’ve never been able to make it break a sweat.
As a full range amp the top end is a bit too grainy and harsh (since new) for me anyway.
Is there simple change outs to make it smoother on top?
I think this amps simplicity and low worth (can be had on eBay -$100)
lends itself as a good ‘training’ piece if nothing else?
Anyone have experience with this amp?
Thanks bob
I want to figure out if it’s possible to easily upgrade any components of the sonamp 260.....I own one of these (bought new around 2000’ish) and it’s hardly ‘audiophile’ but seems to me a well built and simple platform that might benefit from some ‘upgrades’.
I understand it’s not as simple as it may look and hope to find someone local to maybe mentor me through it.
Anyhow am I safe in assuming this amp is worthy to upgrade?
It’s currently seeing duty as a sub amp driving dual 10’s
The 260 is supposedly stable to 2ohm and I’ve never been able to make it break a sweat.
As a full range amp the top end is a bit too grainy and harsh (since new) for me anyway.
Is there simple change outs to make it smoother on top?
I think this amps simplicity and low worth (can be had on eBay -$100)
lends itself as a good ‘training’ piece if nothing else?
Anyone have experience with this amp?
Thanks bob
I've never had any luck getting info, service manuals, schematics, etc. from these type of HT/inter comm system companies. SpeakerCraft comes to mind from my last go around with one of these companies. If it's broke they don't repair it but they sure will sell you a new one. That's probably why there are no replies to your request.
Craig
Craig
I have a Sonance Sonamp 1260 that I use to power my Linkwitz Orion 3.3s, with a bridged pair of channels for each of the four woofers and the remaining four channels driving the two midranges and two paralleled pairs of tweeters. I bought it used on eBay 6 or 7 years ago and it has worked flawlessly for me and the sound quality leaves me with no thought that upgrades are needed. What are you trying to fix or improve?
The top end is grainy and harsh (compared to anything else I own/owned) and has been since new.
It’s currently driving my subs (2 - 10’s) like a champ but I’ll soon be retiring it from sub duties with the rest of that system going to the shop. Why not bring the subs to the shop? Waf (shop is under the bedroom)......I’m not about to argue with someone who just signed off on a whole new system for the living room!
I think it would also make a good ‘training amp’ seeing as it really doesn’t matter if I screw it up, but wouldn’t mind throwing a few bucks into it if it would mean a smoother top end.
Do people not Franken-amp these type of things?
Thanks,
Bob
With no schematic it's hard to tell what's going on and what could be better/different. Try and find a schematic.
Craig
Craig
I also have a pair of Linkwitz LX-minis that I drive with an amp I built based on Tom Christiansen's Modulus circuit designs. It uses a pair of Tom's Parallel 86s (based on the now obsolete LM4780 chip) to drive the woofers and a pair of his Modulus 86s for the full range drivers. I would much rather build something like these purpose designed high quality circuits than try to blindly hack my way around the Sonance designs.
Huh......one call to tech support and done.
As soon as I get the email I’ll post it if that’s legal?
Well maybe so but I’d rather get some practice on something already built before going full blown diy.
Well I got em.....nice ones, the original prints....but printed on them is:
CONFIDENTIAL Proprietary property of sonance.
Do not share without written consent.
So I’m thinking posting them here is a no-no?
Ok, the silence reveals....’this guy is dumber than he sounds’ lol
Let me put it a different way....now that I’ve got them what do I do with them?
Suppose I could do a quick tutorial on electrical schematic reading....any suggestions?
Well I got written permission from sonance to share the schematics but they are about twice the size limit for attachments on here.....I’ve tried to shrink the file but gave up after an hour trying.
Anyone interested pm me your email and I’ll shoot it to you, or just fill me in on how to get on here....it’s a pdf file.
Bob
Anyone interested pm me your email and I’ll shoot it to you, or just fill me in on how to get on here....it’s a pdf file.
Bob
Great litttle amp if you make a few changes
I got one of these 260 off Ebay working ant ready to test drive.
For a 50 watt amplifier it looks like an 100 watt on the inside and its heavy, with a large power transformer.
Didn't think much on initial evaluation, but later on the geek came out of me. I then put it on my bench and decided to see what it sounded like If I removed that little crappy input stage/turn on board at the RCA's
And what I can say after simply removing the small coax on the output of that little input board and attaching it directly to the Input on the RCA's, is that it is now the amplifier I am using. I've had an Adcom 5400, NAD, Yamaha and several others in my system. Totally shocked that this $20.00 amp literally blew them all away, in one of my most sort after features. It has an amazing clean and very detail performance, once that little board is bypassed.
I later removed that turn on feature, unplug that stupid red LED and boom, I now have that clarity I love. And its still more power than I use. My front end is a single vacuum tube pre-amp volume only control (no tone shaping).
I got one of these 260 off Ebay working ant ready to test drive.
For a 50 watt amplifier it looks like an 100 watt on the inside and its heavy, with a large power transformer.
Didn't think much on initial evaluation, but later on the geek came out of me. I then put it on my bench and decided to see what it sounded like If I removed that little crappy input stage/turn on board at the RCA's
And what I can say after simply removing the small coax on the output of that little input board and attaching it directly to the Input on the RCA's, is that it is now the amplifier I am using. I've had an Adcom 5400, NAD, Yamaha and several others in my system. Totally shocked that this $20.00 amp literally blew them all away, in one of my most sort after features. It has an amazing clean and very detail performance, once that little board is bypassed.
I later removed that turn on feature, unplug that stupid red LED and boom, I now have that clarity I love. And its still more power than I use. My front end is a single vacuum tube pre-amp volume only control (no tone shaping).
Thanks for posting, looks to be right.
Wondering if mountainman bob might share a better copy (and more if he has it).
I am just starting work on repairing one which has no voltage to the activity LED (and no signal output).
Hello, I am a new member on here. I just bought a sonamp 260 and have a few diodes that I was going to replace because they looked burned up and a black spot on the board. Was anyone able to get a better copy of the schematics for this amp, that would like to share? The amp powers up and sounds better than the Onkyo M282 that it is going to replace, but would rather be safer than sorry and run it in its current condition.
I've just picked up a Sonamp 260 MKII from Ebay, and would like to bypass the input stage as you described here. Could you give me some pointers? I'm OK with a soldering iron, but don't know much about circuits.
@mpdevivo - just clip the red and white wires coming from input board and solder white to r501 / red to r401, then remove or lift one pin on both c401 / c501 4.7uf electrolytics. You will also want to use good non polar electrolytics to replace C801 / C901 4.7uf lytics like nichicon muse series and increase their values to at least 22uf for better LF phase linearity and lower cutoff. You could also add some smaller 470nf PP film caps parallel across them.
The Achilles heel of this amp are the main filter caps. They are underrated in voltage and can go bad prematurely. The supply rails are running close to +/- 50V and the caps are rated 50V. I have 2 of these 260 amps for testing speakers and both amps had bulging PS filter caps. I couldn't find 15000uf / 63V versions at the time so I used 10000uf / 63V which were a little taller size but they fit just fine under the cover of the amp. I dont notice any difference in SQ between the 2 cap sizes and also can't measure any more appreciable supply ripple at lower drive impedances. It may be the replacement caps have lower internal R. Either way, these little 260s sound pretty good for cheap bargajn amps. I found them for only 20 bucks each at a thrift store.
The Achilles heel of this amp are the main filter caps. They are underrated in voltage and can go bad prematurely. The supply rails are running close to +/- 50V and the caps are rated 50V. I have 2 of these 260 amps for testing speakers and both amps had bulging PS filter caps. I couldn't find 15000uf / 63V versions at the time so I used 10000uf / 63V which were a little taller size but they fit just fine under the cover of the amp. I dont notice any difference in SQ between the 2 cap sizes and also can't measure any more appreciable supply ripple at lower drive impedances. It may be the replacement caps have lower internal R. Either way, these little 260s sound pretty good for cheap bargajn amps. I found them for only 20 bucks each at a thrift store.