What power amp after aleph 5?

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mrspis

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#1
I have JBL L90 loudspeakers with heavily modified crossovers, Pass Labs Aleph 5, p 1.7 preamp and a 24bit/192khz DAC, all diy made, connected to the PC via optical cable and i listen only to lossless tracks. Also the whole system is XLR connected. Aleph 5 sounds absolutely incredible, wide sound stage, very detailed and natural sound, especialy with L90 Studio Monitors. When i first got it i couldn't stop listening to it, it sounded so good, 2 classes better than Marantz PM 64 mk II that i previously had, which was also a class A amp. It has been more than two years that i have this system, i cant say that it has bored me, but i got used to the sound. So i would like to upgrade, change the sound a little. I was wondering what would be a good upgrade from Aleph 5. I was thinking of Aleph 2, but its basically the same sound with more power and bass. I really like the natural and detailed sound, and big sound stage is important to me because i have a 25kvm room. I'm not really that into power amps, i did a little research, but I'm not sure. It would be nice if the amp would also be in A class and that it could be made diy. Thanks for replay's. Cheers!
 
#2
BA-2 with BA-3 board or F4 if your preamp has enough gain. You would be going from SE to a PP class A. A different sound not that one is any better than the other. I enjoy both sounds and the BA-2 or F4 are good examples of PP.
 
#4
Thanks for reply. I considered those amps, but they are also Nelson Pass so i taught they would sound very similar. I have not heard them so I'm not sure. What is the difference in sound? I see that F7 is only 25w. I think that is not enough to drive JBL L90, 60w was perfect. Thanks
 
#6
re: Pass designs: I can tell you that they are all different flavors. I used Aleph30 with AlephP1.7 pre for maybe a year and a half with my Elsinore speakers. Warm midrange and plenty of bass but from the ported speaker design. Than I made BA3-B monoblocks (BA3 a.k.a "F5 light" gain stage and F4 for the output stage) and they control the speakers top to bottom like would not believe it (tight speedy bass and detailed throughout). I trimmed distortion to about 60/40 ratio b/ween 2nd/3rd order if I remember correctly and got some of the midrange quality back, enough to enjoy them but not quite like Aleph was on the vocals.

However these days I listen the most to my homebrewed OBs in a 3-way multi-amp setup with F5+ACA+ACA and I can hardly believe that one could get significantly better than that. However I am now about to try a crazy amp setup with Linkwitz dipoles in order to beat that if possible (in a different room though).

I think bi-amping is the order of the day. an F5-like amp at the bottom and any of Papa's designs with great midrange quality like ACA, SITs, Aleph30, AlephJ, F3, etc. on top (to match your need for gain, impedance matching and speaker power requirements). mind you for the mid and a tweeter less power is needed. plenty to choose from.
 
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#7
mrspis said:
It has been more than two years that i have this system, i cant say that it has bored me, but i got used to the sound. So i would like to upgrade, change the sound a little. I was wondering what would be a good upgrade from Aleph 5.
Click to expand...

My 2 different JBLs have been driven by Aleph 5 and Aleph J, and I love them, and I understand your feeling. 🙂

I have been trying several different SE SIT amps (L'amp variations) and I find they are really good. They are just a bit underpowered (8-10W), so I just switch to SIT when I listen to the music quietly, and I'm very happy with this combination. (One of JBL is currently driven by Icepower because of summer heat.)
 
#9
I'd say the bottom line is that there is no 'best', only different. Some different amps will be good for you and others won't. At any rate, you have some good suggestions to try in F5, F4, BA-3, etc. F4 can be particularly fun since it is a clean power buffer. You can build any manner of potent preamps to drive it, and each will impart a different sound.
 
#10
I read a topic here about Aleph 5 vs F5 and majority said that Aleph 5, besides that it has more power, sounds better, especially in the midrange. On the other hand they praised the F5 for deeper bass. Im really thinking about a good diy tube amplifier, that coloration will be definitely an interesting change. Any suggestions on a good lamps to look for or a diy buildable amp? Thank cheers!
 
#13
I think it comes close as the Aleph circuit isn't truly a pure single ended circuit.
There certainly is some level of push pull action from the Aleph Current Source but provided by source follower operation which makes it a little unique. It just doesn't transition into class ab that a regular push pull circuit will do.
If you're in the mood to try something different, maybe just build one channel of an F5 and compare it with the Aleph circuit after experimenting around.
 
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#14
Provided you have adequately biased your circuit for your speaker load both the Aleph and Mu circuits are excellent.

The F5 provides improved efficiency and is quite a bit more flexible in the speakers it will work with in stock condition. No caps in the circuit is probably worth a mention too.

They're all good in their own way.
 
#15
mrspis:

If you are certain you want more than 25 watts, F5 Turbo V2. I owned Aleph 1.2 monoblocks which were paired for years with an Aleph P 1.7 clone and my Egglestonworks Andras. I loved the sound but wanted to build something, so I replaced the 1.2s with F5 Turbo V3 monoblocks and thought the result was better. If you go the V2 route, consider increasing the power supply capacitance from 80,000 uF to around 125,000 to 150,000 uF per rail; a little more authority, no bloat. You might be able to go even higher, though I'm content with 250,000 uF in each of my F5T monoblocks.

Regards,
Scott
 
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