New Sanders power amp

shawnra

Well-Known Member
Well this is not my whole system because I don't have everything yet to make up a whole system. But at least I have another building block and I'm a step closer to producing music. I bought this amp used from the www.highendaudioexchange.ca in Ontario. It is around a year old and I paid 2/3's of what it's worth new, so pretty good deal. The guy that runs that site is a real pleasure to work with and he accommodated my circumstances and allowed me to buy on layaway. This particular amp is a little peculiar because of its output stage and power transformer. www.SandersSoundSystems.com has two main amp designs, one is the ESL amp and the other the Magtech amp. Well this particular one seems to have the output stage and power transformer of the Magtech amp and the power supply electronics of the ESL amp. It's all good because the Magtech is a higher end amp and it works to my benefit. I could get into a lot of specs and stuff like that but I won't, if your interested check out his website. Suffice to say this amp will power just about any difficult speaker load on the planet. Now I'm onto completing my loudspeakers and then a dac preamp combo. Although I will run it for awhile from the output jack on my computer just so as I can't start to get an impression of how this setup sounds.
 

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Well my speakers are about 95% done and I just came back from the wood supply store with what I need to complete them. So now I've got all the material and all I need to do is to finish the grills for them and put the drivers in place. Everything else is done.

This is a link to my DIY loudspeaker project
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=323584

I should be listening to music by next weekend, albeit just through my output jack on my computer for now. But soon I'll get myself a decent DAC preamp combo to complete the package.
 
Interesting amp and manufacturer. Seems well built. Reminds me a bit of Coda electronics. I see their white paper says their amps have such a massive output stage, they don't need protection circuitry. This may be fine for the amp, but what about the speakers they're connected to, should there be a sudden catastrophic internal failure for some reason ? There are lessons to be learned from Phase Linear.
 
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Now that's a friggin' huge transformer.

I've seen bigger:
1202290515_5b02e611f6.jpg

That's a serious amp. Wish I could hear it through those DIY speaks you are making.:thmbsp:
 
What he said. Christ, that transformer's huge. Maybe the biggest I've ever seen in an power-amp (Not that I've seen every power-amp ever made or anything).

Anyway, to the OP: Once you've got speakers hooked up to something that makes music,you've got a system. I respect your integrity in buying piece-by-piece. You're obviously-got a plan in mind, and I suspect that your patience will be rewarded (Just make sure you use the same patience and forethought in regards to speaker-positioning - It will be worth the effort).
 
Just looked over the pictures you posted...didnt get a chance yet to read the post though..so why such a complex box to carry a cheesecake???
JK...thats some hunk of amplification, congrats.
 
Everyone says that transformer is big but it looks like a standard torroidal used in pro gear, just a metal isolation bowl around it.
 
The potted toroidal transformer is rated at 1750 VA. That's just as much as you can coax out of an average tap off of your electrical distribution panel. The voltage taps equal 93-0-93 dc after filtering. Eventually I'm going to run a dedicated line to the amp. The output stage uses 20 output bipolar transistors per channel and the devices are only used at about 15 to 20 percent of their capability. It's very conservatively rated at 600 watts into a real world 4 ohm load. Into a purely resistive 4 ohm load it will put out about 750 watts. Not that this impresses me that much. I chose this amp because I really like the design, it's just like a really massive output stage and really nothing more except the power supply. Very simple and yes in the future it may prove to be a Phase Linear disaster but I'm betting not. We'll see. On top of that it is extremely green in the sense that it's quiescent current is so low it consumes only 6 watts of energy when not in use but still turned on. Works for me, that is one of the big reasons I bought it.
 
What he said. Christ, that transformer's huge. Maybe the biggest I've ever seen in an power-amp (Not that I've seen every power-amp ever made or anything).

Anyway, to the OP: Once you've got speakers hooked up to something that makes music,you've got a system. I respect your integrity in buying piece-by-piece. You're obviously-got a plan in mind, and I suspect that your patience will be rewarded (Just make sure you use the same patience and forethought in regards to speaker-positioning - It will be worth the effort).

thanks for your comments and you know I will pay attention to how I set my system up. I'm always looking for information and suggestions on how to coax the best sound out of a given setup. I'm just about to move and my new place has a huge living room. It's about 25 to 30 feet long, 12 feet wide and it has a 9 foot ceiling. Any suggestions on placement, what would be my best starting point? When I was looking for a new house to rent I specifically sought out such a huge living room so my new loudspeakers wouldn't dominate the environment too much and I suspect they'll need room to breathe. Hope everyone's having a good cup-o-jo this morning :)

Shawn
 
pertaining to my request for room placement suggestions I found an article on the internet that seems to describe room placement quite well.

http://musiclibrarystudios.com/Documents/Room Set Up.pdf

what do you guys think of these suggestions, especially the 38% rule on seating position that it outlines. maybe this would be a good starting point for me as to I could set my room up according to his formula.
 
looks like a the same styl of transformer that good big sansui amps are known for alot of companies started making that style. great looking amp im sure its an but kicker.
 
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