manualshive.com logo in svg

darTZeel NHB-108 One, User Manual

Share
Download
darTZeel NHB-108 One User Manual Download Page 6

darTZeel NHB-108 model one

 

User Manual, version B 1.0

 

Page 6 of 35

3.  The NHB-108 in details 

 
 
 

3.1. FRONT PANEL 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

1.

 

Identification Plate 

2.

 

The Eyes 

3.

 

The Power Nose 

 
 
 

3.2. REAR PANEL 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

4.

 

50

Ω

 BNC 

Zeel Inputs

 

5.

 

RCA Inputs

 

 

6.

 

Speakers Terminals 

7.

 

XLR Inputs 

8.

 

IEC Power Socket 

9.

 

Input Impedance Selector 

 

Summary of Contents for NHB-108 One

Page 1: ...NHB 108 model one Version B User Manual ...

Page 2: ...darTZeel NHB 108 model one User Manual version B 1 0 Page 2 of 35 ...

Page 3: ...9 6 1 Power cycle 9 6 2 darTZeel s Eyes 9 6 3 User parameters 10 6 4 Jumper settings 11 7 Maintenance 11 7 1 Fuse s replacement 11 7 2 DC voltage drift 13 7 3 Cleaning and upkeep 13 8 Some advice and tips 13 8 1 What not to do 13 8 2 Troubleshooting 14 8 2 1 Eyes Closed 14 8 2 2 Blinking Eyes 14 8 2 3 Amplifier ON no sound 14 8 2 4 Warped sound 14 8 2 4 Sensitive fuses 14 8 2 5 Sound too quiet 15 ...

Page 4: ...teria of choice 24 T5 3 2 darTZeel schematics 25 T5 3 3 Component layout 25 T5 4 Symmetrically balanced 26 T5 4 1 From the microphone 26 T5 4 2 To the loudspeakers 26 T5 4 3 And into the air 26 T5 4 4 Via the darTZeel 27 T5 5 darT to Zeel 50Ω 28 T6 Onboard safety 29 T6 1 Crowbar circuit 29 T6 1 1 Crowbar activation 29 T6 1 2 Crowbar cycle 29 T6 2 Supervision system 30 T6 2 1 Current sensing 30 T6 ...

Page 5: ...wn safety If you carefully follow all the instructions herein you will be rewarded by very long joyful listening sessions for years and years to come Please carefully keep all documentation and pack ing material in a safe place especially the crate in case you have to move house one day 2 Brief description The darTZeel NHB 108 model one is the pinna cle of more than 16 years of research develop me...

Page 6: ...ion B 1 0 Page 6 of 35 3 The NHB 108 in details 3 1 FRONT PANEL 1 Identification Plate 2 The Eyes 3 The Power Nose 3 2 REAR PANEL 4 50Ω BNC Zeel Inputs 5 RCA Inputs 6 Speakers Terminals 7 XLR Inputs 8 IEC Power Socket 9 Input Impedance Selector ...

Page 7: ...darTZeel NHB 108 model one User Manual version B 1 0 Page 7 of 35 3 3 TOP VIEW 10 DC Offset Trimmer 11 Jumpers 12 Speaker Impedance Switch 13 Fuse Holder 14 Operating Voltage Selector ...

Page 8: ...king the first connection you should think carefully about the location where you are going to put your gear If you planned to fit your darTZeel NHB 108 model one into furniture please bear in mind that you must allow at least one inch of free space all around the unit for proper cooling If you do not respect this the darTZeel NHB 108 model one may stop playing if it becomes too hot The heat sinks...

Page 9: ...as been de signed to deliver more than 90 of its magical sound at cold start After 5 minutes you are very close to the best the machine can offer The increasing quality you may hear as time goes by will be mostly the reflection of your growing musical pleasure No need then to leave your machine powered ON all the time except of course if you like paying bigger electricity bills If your present pre...

Page 10: ...er upper right for the right channel Fig 2 Speaker s impedance switch as shown in Fig 2 When the switch is pointing towards the front plate you are in Lo mode suitable for 1 5Ω to 2 5Ω speakers In this mode you can also parallel 2 pairs of 4Ω speakers By flicking the switch towards the rear panel direc tion you set the Hi default mode for speakers of 3Ω or more This is the most often used configur...

Page 11: ...ding on your own audio system this result may vary however so experiment for your self 7 Maintenance 7 1 Fuse s replacement The following procedure concerns the left channel For the right channel the procedure is the same but that the fuse is in a mirror image configuration If one or both fuse s has have blown first try to determine the cause The Crowbar circuit installed in the darTZeel NHB 108 m...

Page 12: ...25vAC 6 3 amps T type 220 240vAC 3 15 amps T type T type means Temporized Do NOT use the so called slo blo type especially the kind with coil wounded filament The filament in the fuse glass envelope must be seen as a thin STRAIGHT wire Never use improper fuse ratings Very great fire risk Now you can restore the amplifier back to its hori zontal position and put the glass cover on as de scribed in ...

Page 13: ...ntle rub with a cloth soaked in isopropyl alcohol will be more appropri ate Just bear in mind however that the simplest things are more often than not the most efficient We personally found that a spot of soap on a wet soft cloth is the best method most of the time Try for yourself As you have certainly guessed we confirm that it is strongly recommended to never use acid to clean your gear Acid is...

Page 14: ...emperature is under 90 F 32 C but the Eyes blink your machine needs some tuning To cut a long explanation short NHB 108 s eyes should not blink in ambient temperature ranges from 65 F to 90 F 18 C to 32 C If they do the amplifier needs some adjustment In all cases it is important to know the working environment in which you will use your darTZeel NHB 108 model one If you live at the South Pole or ...

Page 15: ...g powered it OFF it is pos sible that it will eventually trigger the Crowbar circuit and lead to melted fuse s In such a case you will have to change the blown fuse s as de scribed in chapter 7 1 Fuse s replacement In order to avoid this situation we recommend that you wait around 3 seconds before powering your NHB 108 model one ON again when switched OFF 8 2 8 RAS Regular And Satisfactory In such...

Page 16: ...scribed above or any similar situa tion will render the warranty void 10 Assistance If you need any commercial or technical informa tion about the darTZeel NHB 108 model one or if you have any difficulties or enquiries please feel completely free to contact us by email at moreinfo dartzeel com You can of course write us at the following address darTZeel Audio SA 2 chemin Louis Hubert CH 1213 Petit...

Page 17: ...thod 20 Hz to 50 kHz 0 5 dB XLR inputs Rise time 0 8 µs depends on measurement method Slew rate 88 V µs peak peak DC voltage output DC comp Off 590 mV max drift DC comp ON 50 mV max Total Harmonic Distortion THD 1 from 7 Hz to 77 kHz Temporal Distortion None at any level and load as specified above Crosstalk 90 dB from 20Hz to 20kHz Signal to noise ratio 112 dB A nominal power Consumption 150 watt...

Page 18: ...h products Not all of them are still in busi ness Alas The more the years passed the more our desire for designing a new machine became tangible In mid spring 1984 we produced a first digital power am plifier in a school lab as a diploma project Paradoxically the innovation here was not the fact that the amp was digital but that no feedback what soever was used The output stage was totally open lo...

Page 19: ... deceptive Easy to pro nounce conjuring up elegance and fascination they nevertheless constitute very tough technical chal lenges since their respective meanings are not at all easy to reconcile Nothing is eternal As for the NHB 108 model one not enough time has yet elapsed for us to as sert such a claim What we do assert is that everything has been taken into account so that you can benefit from ...

Page 20: ... decoupled They start to vibrate at the excitation signal fre quency in this case the music this vibration interfering with the electrical origin of the signal You can hear it if the amp is hooked to a dummy load since in normal use loudspeakers fortunately mask this disconcerting internal singing No such mechanical singing on the NHB 108 model one The electric signal is transmitted stage to stage...

Page 21: ...ed since the 2 inverse deformations will cancel each other This is what the theory says Now let us see what actually happens in practice We will discuss only the best known distortions given that their behaviour is simpler to explain T5 1 1 Keeping in harmony Let us take an amplifier especially designed to pro duce exactly 1 of THD Then let us feed it with a recorded musical instrument We shall su...

Page 22: ...e quencies of 1 500 3 000 4 500 Hz but also 3 500 7 000 and 10 500 Hz will be perceived Once again their level will be very low compared to the 2 initial notes played It seems hardly believable but it is true In prac tice though this is far less embarrassing than you might think at first glance As said above the rela tive level of those ghosts is much lower than the basic notes The result will be ...

Page 23: ...No global NFB is used and both 1st and 3rd stages are even open loop So what about the frequency response Everything is okay up to the Megahertz range 1 000 000 Hertz say fifty times the audio range T5 2 What application field The electronic schematics of the darTZeel NHB 108 model one s audio circuit as we will soon see is astonishingly simple It s because the NHB 108 has high THD and IMD values ...

Page 24: ...n MOSFETs are also slower in absolute terms than bipolars and are much harder to drive in pulse mode Reproducing very fast transients requires a lot of instantaneous current drive not easy for the power supply to properly feed so temporal integrity could suffer T5 2 3 Bipolars These have been in existence for more than fifty years The industry knows them very well Today s bipolars are better than ...

Page 25: ...a faible valeur de la contre réaction 3ème étage étage final de sortie dépourvu de toute contre réaction Cet étage amplifie en courant le signal issu de l étage précédent permettant ainsi d alimenter un haut parleur Le courant de repos des transistors de sortie est ici défini par une ten sion de jonction base émetteur et non par un cou rant de polarisation Ce système élimine le besoin d une régula...

Page 26: ...s generate very tiny electric signals and very long lengths of cable run from the studio to the mixing console In these conditions it is primordial for the signal to be free of any hum and or noise Also in concert performances mixing consoles are generally located quite far from the stage and bal anced lines are welcome A technical trick using that 3rd ground wire also makes it possible to carry t...

Page 27: ...f external disturbance immunity trans formers are much better than full active balanced topology The common mode rejection this is the name given to that kind of immunity can be wait for it no less than five thousand times better when using transformers instead of full balanced circuits Another unbeatable advantage is that they offer true electrical isolation called galvanic isolation between the ...

Page 28: ...d so have coaxial cables Impedance matched links are utilized everywhere when high tech performance is needed Radio ap plications radar microwaves computers and all such precision technologies use impedance matched links So why not audio The great advantage of impedance matched links is their virtual absence of losses whatever their length For those of you who want to know everything about matchin...

Page 29: ...sisting mainly of a power thyristor is activated The Crowbar shorts the power supply melting actually evaporating the mains fuse of the channel concerned The principal advantage of such a Crowbar circuit is that it can be kept totally outside the audio signal path thus completely avoiding any influence on the music Its caveat The price Thyristors like those we use in the NHB 108 model one can shor...

Page 30: ...tput device does not fail because the current is too high but simply because the temperature caused by this cur rent rises too much So our monitoring circuit compares the instantane ous power dissipation with the value that the output stage can handle There is no thermal inertia here since we just measure the right thing at the right place A premiere in the audio field we can mod estly say We then...

Page 31: ... supplies have very low output impedance through high feedback regulation NFB everywhere When huge dy namic changes arise the NFB is in a state of over flow and the output impedance suddenly increases dramatically causing dynamic compression Does this remind you of something T7 2 Voltage or current For purity reasons invoked earlier the output stages of darTZeel NHB 108 model one only have a singl...

Page 32: ... not 45 Let us confess that for 333 watts this is quite reasonable Do you now better understand why Lots of Am peres does not necessarily mean Superb Bass T8 The sound of darTZeel It is always hard to define objectively what we per ceive subjectively isn t it How to enjoy an excel lent glass of wine if not sharing it with friends We could say that the darTZeel NHB 108 model one offers an outstandi...

Page 33: ...this small polarizing voltage even keeps their internal elec trolyte in perfect chemical working condition greatly reducing the warming time usually needed with other gear All these reasons led us to keep the darTZeel NHB 108 model one powered at around 2 volts instead of 60 even when shut OFF by pressing the Power Nose Your amplifier is then always gently permanently energized extending even fur ...

Page 34: ...ear or even every 5 years but this does not mean that we will rest on our lau rels The design of the NHB 108 model one incorpo rates the best that this beginning of the 21st century has to offer We sincerely think that at the time of going to press it is not possible to go much closer to the sonic truth than that which the darTZeel NHB 108 model one is already capable of providing As the years go ...

Page 35: ... tool is supplied as standard with the NHB 108 model one The 2 suction cups supplied with the NHB 108 model one Please do not forget to slightly wet them to get firm vacuum on the glass A No 0 flat blade screwdriver for adjusting the 12 turn trimmer this tool is supplied as stan dard with the NHB 108 model one A universal DMM Digital Multi Meter not supplied Procedure DO NOT FORGET THAT THE AMPLIF...

Reviews:

No comments

Brands by name

Popular brands

Load more brands