I knew the first time I heard yours Mike, that I would get it eventually. Stereofool has a great acoustic jazz record with vibes and guitar played that played on the ALtman the vibe tones were so liquid perfect, like perfectly real. No grain at all. My SB has some grain.
I emailed with Paul about his regulators when I was thinking of building Aikido preamp. I bought the Aikido PCB boards so I will eventually build it, with Hynes regulators, that is if I ever finish painting inside the house and planting flower beds. Paul is incredibly supportive, optimistic, helpful, and of course knowledgeable. He offered me advice on every aspect of building and designing the power supply and answered more questions after that, and offered ongoing support as I use the regulators in other applications in the future. The noise on his PSs is vanishingly low, like 110dB below PS's
filtered ripple, which is probably better than a battery if it even matters.... For low voltage stuff he's got some smaller units that might work well with the (200ma?) Altmann.
http://www.paulhynesdesign.com/Mike, what is Little SLA?
Another great low current PS is the
Dact CT102 Power supply. They show on their website
here how much quieter it is than a SLA battery, and faster current delivery too, but battery culd be old junker compared to optima which is a unique and superior design to traditional plates. The Dact costs $350 (diycable.com) while optima is about ~$160. Since optima has higher peak current rating than regular batts, maybe that means it is a little faster current speed. Only a scope knows for sure. I look at the cost of the battery compared to buying another new PC from John.
Mike your wrapup will be fun to read. Especially looking fwd to hearing your take on the Lessloss,, and learning about the shocker
Thanks rollo. I can hide the Altmann in the rear of a cabinet shelf, no switches other than power and I can switch that somewhere along the battery cable. But I think it looks kinda cool anyway.
Rich
