Posted on Tuesday, 30th August 2011 by Auw Jimmy

I have been a fan for Black Gate for quite long time. My first time impression probably nearly 10 years ago. I forgot whether I heard SKz or WKz at that moment, but I did remember the beauty of tube amplifier, smoothed by those Black Gate (probably not just Black Gate who contributed for the amazing sonic at that moment).

But 10 years back, I didn’t dare to play hundred of Volts for designing tube based equipment, then high voltage Black Gate such as SKz or WKz was out of my consideration. I got some and sell some… Mostly, I preferred to play with NX series, which very common in low voltage application (as low as 6.3 Volts). Very useful in D/A application. Some people say the Black Gate NX (especially the HQ – High Quality version) is very good in D/A coupling application. It produces very neutral sound, transparent, almost nothing (like direct coupling). But some people don’t like this kind of ‘sterile’ sound. Not analog, some people complaint.

Actually, other best application for Black Gate NX series is on the power supply smoothing section, especially on the D/A side.

I still own several N/NX/Hi-Q series, FK series, F series, PK series, Standard series, C series, and off course, the latest acquisition, SKz/WKz series.

All the latest WKz series (not WK, SK or SKz) will have a green ‘Goddess playing harps’ and  ‘Heart of Muse’ text. Actually, Black Gate is not the only one who uses ‘Muse’ in their capacitor series. We also can find Nichicon who uses ‘Muse’ in their line up. Term ‘Muse’ itself (one of them) could refer to any of 9 daughter of Mnemosyne and Zeus. Still on the same mythology, each of the Goddess possesses specific art or science. Probably this one loves music…

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Tags: Black Gate, Capacitor, SK, SKz, WKz
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Posted on Wednesday, 23rd June 2010 by Auw Jimmy

This post is the 2nd episode of my Terratec Aureon 7.1 FireWire mod. You can check the 1st one here.

Below is the final appearance of my Aureon. Sigh… despite the colorful capacitors, I don’t see any reason to say it’s a beauty or an art

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Tags: aureon, Black Gate, mundorf, sound card, speaker
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Posted on Monday, 21st June 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I’ve been very busy later these days, almost no time even to refresh myself listening the music. Powering my tube amp, let them warm up won’t take less than 30 minutes. Well for next few weeks, I don’t think I have such time. Now, I spend most of my time in front of my Notebook, limited with poor onboard sound card and speakers.

After digging my cupboard, I found a pair of Altec Lansing MX5021 speakers and my old Terratec Aureon FireWire 7.1. Not the finest setup and my ears were irritated to hear the sound at first time, although they were better than my onboard combination. On a lazy Sunday evening, I fire up my soldering iron. Let’s see what we could do to improve the sound

You can check here for my previous introduction about the sound card.

The main improvement should be the power supply. I found “el cheapo” 1000 uF  /35 Volt. OK, this was the main filter, the most important, let’s change it to Black Gate NX Series 680 uF / 65 Volt. Also note another capacitor changed to the “purple” Os-Con. This was on the digital supply section.

Enough change for initial stage. Let’s power it up and test the sound. Wow, that was the first impression on the 1st second I heard the sound. The sound was very transparent, the staging, the tonal, all were improved. Not to the level that I was expected, but for a consumer grade sound card, this was OK.

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Tags: altec lansing, aureon, Black Gate, mundorf, mx5021, sound card, speaker
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Posted on Friday, 18th December 2009 by Auw Jimmy

I have a short free time at the afternoon, and it’s time to test my Power Supply for my Gainclone. Powered by Talema dual secondaries, each rated at 18VAC/6.3A

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Tags: Black Gate, gainclone, power supply, talema
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Posted on Sunday, 5th July 2009 by Auw Jimmy

After over 2 month of laziness, finally I finish the tiring job, soldering 60 pcs of Black Gate F Series for my Gainclone Power Supply.

Well, practically, this is not only for Gainclone. The design will be quite modular, as described below:

• Dual rail design, for positive and negative
• Each filtered with 30 pcs Black Gate F Series 680uF/65V (around 20.400uF total capacitance each rail)
• Choke Input Design
• Main rectifier is 4xMUR860 (600V, 8A)
• Snubberized Design with Mills Resistor and Russian PIO/Teflon Capacitor

With 65V working voltage of the capacitor, this modular power supply could be use for many purpose. Let’s say, a MOSFET project?

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Tags: Black Gate, power supply
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Posted on Wednesday, 24th June 2009 by Auw Jimmy

I will continue my journey assembling the Mini Regulator. Now it’s the time for easiest part, the resistors and capacitors. To be honest, it’s not that easy – I mean, not as easy as I thought before

After around 1hour, I finish my job. Ta daaa… as below

I start to learn that DIY is not a matter of good sound, but also “eye catching” appearance. Well, I start it now. I “polish” the heatsink so it shines a little bit (rather than “dull” appearance). Then, I continue with picking colorful components. To be honest, it’s a little bit overkill to use Black Gate NX Series in this application. But I love the color combination and I believe you to. So? Just put it all down there.

The components are combination between Black Gate FK, Black Gate K, Black Gate NX, Black Gate N, and some resistors from Kiwame on most parts and one red one from PRP. Those Kiwames are carbon film, while PRP should be metal film. I pick PRP (despite of its red color) because this position is to set the maximum current of this regulator. Since PRP should be the regeneration of Holco, the most famous precision metal film resistor, so I do really can count on him. Oh, I also use old “dull color” green LED. This “dull color” LED should produce less noise than the newer “bright” LED.

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Tags: Black Gate, Kiwame, Mini Regulator, PRP
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Posted on Sunday, 19th April 2009 by Auw Jimmy

Being a perfectionist is not easy (and not cheap). Still remember my ambitious project before? I want to make it perfect, so let’s start the 1st phase, testing the capacitor (I mean, the Black Gate)

I will use 60 Black Gate capacitors on the power supply. First 30 pcs for positive rail, and another 30 pcs for negative rail. I want both rails have similar capacitance (or as similar as possible). So first capacitor on positive rail will have similar capacitance value on first capacitor on negative rail. Too perfectionist?

I need to know exactly the capacitance of each Black Gate. You know that every capacitor has around 10% tolerance. So when it’s written 680uF, it may vary between 680-68 or 680+68. Who knows? The meter knows.

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Tags: Black Gate, power supply
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Posted on Friday, 10th April 2009 by Auw Jimmy

As I’ve promised before, my Gainclone project will be supplied with special smoothing capacitors. Welcome, the Black Gate F Series 680uF/65V. Each rail (positive and negative) will have 30 pcs of Black Gate capacitor, with total around 20.000uF capacitance each rail.

The main rectifier will be MUR860 and I will also use Snubber circuit, with the help of Mills and perhaps some oil capacitor. Hope it will sound good…

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Tags: Black Gate, Capacitor, gainclone, power bank
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Posted on Sunday, 15th February 2009 by Auw Jimmy

I’m thinking of… a full Black Gate Power Supply

Well, it’s not a dream since I have enough Black Gate F Series stock on hand. One value only, 680uF/65V. I need to use at least 10 pcs each (symmetrical power supply, remember? We are not talking tube, this is chip-amp project!). So total is at least 20 pcs. The troops are ready!

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Tags: Audio, Black Gate, Capacitor, chipamp, gainclone, power supply
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio, Personal | Comments (24)