New Miniwatt N3?

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Folsom

Re: New Miniwatt N3?
« Reply #20 on: 23 Jun 2010, 05:44 am »
Sooooooooo I have been inside my Miniwatt N3 (formally my Grandfather who passed away two weeks ago or so...)

I bypassed the volume which is an Alps green and let me tell you not very balanced according to the old multimeter! It was pretty easy compared to somethings. I would recommend only doing it if you have a desoldering tool (not just a solder sucker). I still cut the supports for the pot.

Aside from that I am replacing the two outside 9 pin sockets because the one on the left had a bad connection that eventually burned the metal up until there was a 2 mm gap of air... Pain in the butt! Hopefully tomorrow I will get my new sockets. Luckily the thing is no lead free so soldering has been pretty easy. I have only had one ring to a bit misshapen on one socket but it is on the face and not the connection to the tracing from what I can tell (tracing appears to be connected to the ring internally not the outside lips). The tracing have not been lifting either.

There is nothing in the signal path pre-tube that I can tell, besides the pot you SHOULD REMOVE TO HAVE A TRUE HIGH END LOW PRICE AMPLIFIER. There are maybe two resistors in parallel pre-tube. There is a solder point to bridge the channels together or something? Not sure...

Diodes markings I can not read but the N3 features a T220 (probably something equivalent to MUR860s) instead of the junky ones found on the originals that people replaced, wait there are two smaller barrel axial ones but they look like vishays or something a bit more robust than the pictures from the original Miniwatt. One tantalum resistor for something... Two X2 capacitors for filtering that lead into two nice looking CMCs or something. A bunch of Nichicon capacitors including fancy metallic blue ones (Muse I am guessing) that appear to feed the actual circuits and not just power supply. Hm what else... some RIFA film caps... The wiring that is not in board is a translucent pale blue and is silver color underneath. There is almost none on the whole thing except around the plug and a couple half inch strands at the RCA ins. The RCA's are nothing to write home about but they feed into tracings that go around the outside edge to the front. You could bypass this with a shielded wire but with how quiet the amplifier is to begin I think you would be wasting time. In fact most the parts are nicer than ones found in a lot of more expensive equipment I have seen in (you know $3k+ range).

I think the guys really out did themselves. If there is room for improvement it is in the Tubes. Everything else would be sort of picking exotic parts. The only thing I can see would be putting in some Teflon film caps if the signal passes through them but there may not be any signal going through any capacitors... Overall once the pot is gone you got something straight magical... hm maybe put in a ceramic fuse in the back. One hell of a deal for an amplifier!

If you want to replace the pot well I doubt anything would fit in it. I think you can forget it.

HAL

  • Industry Contributor
  • Posts: 5174
Re: New Miniwatt N3?
« Reply #21 on: 17 Jul 2010, 02:26 pm »
There is a nice review of the N3 in Stereophile this month by Sam Tellig. 

Sounds like something fun to have in a listening session!

mca

Re: New Miniwatt N3?
« Reply #22 on: 17 Jul 2010, 03:22 pm »
What kind of cheap and cheerful speakers can this amp drive?

Mariusz

Re: New Miniwatt N3?
« Reply #23 on: 17 Jul 2010, 03:56 pm »
What kind of cheap and cheerful speakers can this amp drive?

Single driver designs like Tekton, Omega, DIY etc.
Speaker choice will depend on your budget, requirements and space.
DIY will always get you more for your money.

 :wink:

Folsom

Re: New Miniwatt N3?
« Reply #24 on: 5 Aug 2010, 12:25 am »
They drive horns well.

Got to tell you all that after awhile and replacing lots of parts... my MiniWatt 3 has horrible stupid oscillation that is one when it is on. It sounds great but the sound is a real hindrance in between tracks etc. I think the design might be too cheap for what it is trying to do. I am thinking about switching to something else but I am not sure what other amplifiers that cost piss (because I have no money at all, it will be a stretch to build anything) can replace it. I need the high output impedance for Ed's Horns. They just sound good that way, the bass is there, the magic is there. The F1 is a potential project but I would have to make my DAC have balanced outputs and buy a ridiculously expensive balanced volume control for my volume box.

kku

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 5
Re: New Miniwatt N3?
« Reply #25 on: 25 Jan 2011, 05:54 am »
Miniwatt N3 is neat with infinite driver tube rolling options(1X 12ax7) but there are so many better(than N3) choices for that kind of money from China and HongKong(Miniwatt is also from HK, in case anyone didn't notice).

I have been doing my homework in shopping for tube amps under 400 dollars for almost a year now. Sinovt 6V6 amp can be bought for $450 shipped and it has features that can be found in premium gear such as use of a tube rectifier and a power choke. It also has very decent power and output transformers and high quality circuit parts for money. There are many other chinese brands out there but parts and build quality are much better than other similar priced chinese tube electronics like Yaqin, Xiangsheng and Meng.

This one link I've found while on diyaudio forums about a place selling Xiangsheng amps for under $310 shipped available with tubes like EL84, KT66, KT88, FU50 etc. There's a thread on diyaudio forums regarding FU50 tube version and many seem to be happy with it.


wushuliu

Re: New Miniwatt N3?
« Reply #26 on: 1 Feb 2011, 08:08 pm »
I got a Miniwatt N3 recently to mess around with and compare w/ the ONIX SP3. So far you know, it sounds dang good! It's not quite enough power to drive my full range drivers but that aside the stock version has a very easy-going sound, warm and sweet. It does not have the clarity and open-ness of the Onix but it's only been in use a few hours. Vocals sound terrific though. Tactile and 3-dimensional. Of course I popped it open to see what's what but the space is tight and unlike DoS above I am NOT about to try and mod anything in there. The Onix sounds better as it should given the design and all the mods, but the N3 definitely wins on warmth and 'tubey-ness'.

As kku mentioned above there is an increase in lower-priced SE tube amps from China, but almost all seem to suffer from QC issues or need some changes under the hood to get their best. So they're more like quasi-kits in the end. The Xiangsheng Sweet Peach certainly looks nice and gets some good praise.