[Andrew Wicks]

Hi all,

I have been enjoying music and hifi for some 22 years now and have quite a nice system at home, but am looking to upgrade various components over time!  

I am looking for a more powerful power amplifier to replace my (good, but low powered (2x35W)) Naim NAP110 and drive some large Linn 4 ohm Keilidh speakers!  I believe that to get the best from the speakers, I am going to need a lot more power, but I cannot justify spending >£1000 on a power amp.  

I have been eyeing the White Noise Audio web site and audiophile products / complete kits in the catalogue for a few weeks and it looks interesting! However, I am a total electronics novice   and wonder whether I could end up wasting a smaller (but still considerable) amount of cash on one of the excellent kits, if I mess up (e.g.  built the thing incorrectly or damage components   or have poor soldering skills) the build!  

Any suggestions would be most welcome?  Do you know anyone that would offer a reasonably priced build service? Where can I start to learn / develop my capabilities?  I need a separate power supply for my Naim pre-amp, could I start with this as a simpler project - what would I need?

David, do you have any views on the likely performance of your amps against some of the standard amps from Naim et al (e.g. NAP 250) or some of the modified units coming out of Chesterfield / Av*ndale?

[Darren]

hey there andrew,

well u can have for example, power amps, fully constructed and cased etc from WNA, if you are really unhappy about soldering etc.

However, all pcbs are marked for component locations and as long as you can follow instructions carefully you'll have no probelm. As for soldering, it isn't very hard at all, simply get a good soldering iron and practice soldering some resisters or whatever to a pcb board until you get the nack, which shouldn't take long.

I'm pretty sure Raj (who posts here a fair bit) constructed a very comprehensive amp with little knowledge of electronics etc, perhaps you could ask him how he coped...

I'll point David towards your post and he'll be able to give you better advice.

Darren

[Raj]

Hi mate,

Ha Darren you must remember all the phonecalls to your house over Christmas eh?    

But seriously, as long as youve got patience and can be sensitive to saftey you should be ok. The laborious tasks are the wire stripping etc, I don't think anyone enjoys this. Check all parts before you start, match up the right transistors for each side, I almost put 2 npn transistors in each monoblock, could have been bad, each device has a position number and there's also a reference list, I rushed and assumed, just check each component as you pick it up and make sure it's the right one, I don't think you can go wrong this way.  As long as you are careful and follow the instructions to the 'T' you should be ok. The other difficult thing is getting the mosfets into the mounting position, I'll let David sort out the explaining on that one. Mind you if you really don't want to face the assembly David will sort it out for you, I bet his work is pretty neat, and if your only purchasing the audiophile mos 250, you may well still be under your budget when including assembly and testing, the kits come very well packed by the way, David used  pieces of ply to line the box with my amp. By the way I've never heard the naim amps, but the audiophile mos 250 really is good, especially so - when you turn the quiescent current to 500ma or so. Hope this helps

Thanks
Raj

[davidw]

There are three fallback positions if you're a bit nervous about building the kit yourself. Firstly if you make up the pcb level modules and they don't work I offer a reasonably priced fixup service ( £25 per pcb unless you've done something really dramatic ). Secondly you can buy assembled and tested pcb level modules then put these in a box and do the internal wiring youself. Or finally you can always buy fully assembled and tested cased kits - these are ready to plug in and go but are obviously more expensive.
As you can see if you look at the rest of the forum customers reckon my stuff is good value for money, and offers performance comparable to, or better than, more expensive equipment from large manufacturers.