Donald North Audio — Owners Thread

This might be a misconception on my part, but is the Sonett 2 fairly rare? I've seen maybe one pop up for sale, and there's been precious little written or said about it. Of course, that might just be because everyone who owns one has opted to guard it jealously. It's basically a more versatile Sonett with greater output power, correct? That'd be endgame territory for me.

 

I'd say that's an impressive quality in its own right. The sequel is probably the only amp I could afford which I'd swap out my Sonett for.

Incidentally, my Sonett is #27. There aren't that many DNA amps out there, which I find kinda cool. Albeit in my own, snobbish way.

 

Still rocking my Sonett 1 with upgraded tubes. I've thought about upgrading it a couple of times.. but it just sounds so damn nice with the HD800 and is so easy to live with. I can leave it on pretty much all day and it runs cool and sounds great and doesn't eat up the tubes, they just last forever. It's basically as easy to live with as SS, zero maintenance required. There are tube amps which you can have a fling with.. but the Sonett is definitely the type of amp that you marry.

Shame that Donald stopped making the Sonett 1 & 2, he should re-release it as an upgraded and fine tuned version based on what he's learned in the last couple of years. I've thought about upgrading to the Sonett 2 but they're not easy to find, and honestly the single tube one is more than enough to power any dynamic headphones. It drives the HD800 with ease.

 

No offense to anyone else's contributions, but @TwoEars' is my favorite picture thus far.

What rectifier do you have in there? I ended up with a "Fat Bottle" Sylvania, branded RCA. Glows like a champ, and I preferred it to a NOS Mullard that I briefly tried. Also, do you find those vibration thingies beneficial?

Couldn't possibly have said it any better, man. Not planning on letting go of mine.

 

@Huxleigh

Glad you like it! I'm far from a tube expert but I'm running Valvo GZ34 and 6H30 DR "supertube". I bought the amp and tubes as a package from a head-fi member who was moving to speakers. He was one of those guys who had tried every bit of kit on the market and the Sonett was one of the last items he put up for sale..

The vibration thingies do eff all as far as I can tell but I got them as part of the deal so why not right

 

Very beautiful photo

It is interesting that you make this suggestion because it is an idea which I have been considering for a while and tossing around internally a few different concepts.

 

Heh, got it. I'd likely remove 'em anyway, since they look a bit goofy. But then I'm a nerd about that sort of thing.

 

Speak of the Devil

Well - if you ever do decide to make it feel free to PM me, I might be interested in pre-order. Can be a year from now... no rush. But in general I think the sonett could be an "eternal classic" type amp. You might not sell a lot of them but steady supply over a long time? It has a kind of timeless quality to it I think.

 

Maybe when (or more accurately if) you have the time, perhaps you'd be inclined to share a few of these preliminary concepts you've been mulling, @Donald North? I think SBAF would be pretty keen to gain some insight into what you might have in the oven. I know I am!

 

I originally developed the Sonett to drive my favorite traditional dynamic headphones at the time, the beyer DT931s. From my experience it paired better with medium and higher impedance headphones. The output impedance is on the higher side which is less than optimal for low impedance dynamic headphones. One idea I have is to keep the original Sonett topology and improve the power supply and cathode bypass capacitors for better layering and resolution while maintaining the tonality. I would also revisit the DC heater supply and try a choke filtered design.

I discontinued the Sonett 2 because 9 out of 10 inquires were for the Stratus. There are a lot of good options in that price category, so I decided to focus on the Stratus and take its concept to the max with the Stellaris.

I like engineering challenges and I continually explored different topologies and tube complements to make a successor to the Sonett 2. Right now I have an idea to make an amplifier primarily for low and medium impedance dynamic headphones with selectable output impedance and less power than the Stratus. It would be a 2-stage design using an oddball dissimilar dual triode which, in my opinion, has the best combination of specifications among those in the category. It would be built using Stratus-level components without the added complexity required for directly heated triodes. I plan to make a prototype later this autumn and will keep the SBAF community posted.

 

i'm sure i speak for more than one of us when i say this all sounds fantastic. looking forward to see what you whip up. godspeed!

 

I know where this is headed. Hope you can make it.

 

What a response!

Don, seriously, thank you for the glimpse into your future plans. From your description, this new amplifier seems incredibly promising. I'm not in much of position to say this, admittedly... but I think that SBAF as a community is grateful to have the benefit of your time and attention.

Heh, there's more that I want to ask... but as long as the damn thing's still blue, I don't think there's much else to be overly concerned about. Lookin' forward to seeing/learning more about this project, as it suits you.

Blow our socks off.

Edit: Thought that I'd throw in a nighttime shot of my (modest) rig.

 

NOooooo.... but what about my HD800?

 

Oh no, did that gorgeous Sonett of yours explode?!

Call it a wild-ass guess, but I suspect that the new DNA amp will probably rock the Senns as hard as ever. At least.

 

You can always get the Stratus or Stellaris. He didn't say anything about the new amp replacing them, did he? I'm sure they won't be discontinued for the time being.

 

If you've got a standard pi filter on the heater supply and are drawing under 100mA, it might be interesting to drop in one of the electronic choke modules by Tentlabs. Nice and compact compared to transformer style, no magnetic fields, and quite good hum rejection - something like 60+ dB. The Sonett 2 seems to have a strong following, and a Sonnet 2.1 could be well received. I wonder if the 2 is like Star Trek; more appreciated now than while it was in production.