Status on my WOPL 400 II Build

demonx

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#1
Ok so here's the background. I've had my amp and preamp for about a year and a half. I did a few things to it like re-caping the control board and adding a speaker protection circuit. I became aware of the White Oak upgrades by watching amps on ebay. Now we are jumping ahead to current time. I pestered the spouse for the control board rev-E kit and the power supply capacitor kit for xmas. So I get the kits and have the week off and jump in head first. You know that part where you are supposed to thoroughly read all instruction, was out the window. I didn't start asking questions until I couldn't get the bias to set right. Not terrible but definitely on the high side. I think that was probably not so much my fault. Joe sent me an update to fix that. I completely spaced on the part where I was supposed to replace all the output transistors. I ordered those from Joe and they arrived today. I headed to my favorite local electronics store for mica insulators which are the kind that I prefer. I believe the heat sink grease works better and don't care about it being messy. I figure you can't see it with the covers over the transistors anyway. So I get there and they only have 2 for $1.50 each which is both disappointing and over priced. So now I've ordered them from Mouser for $.19 each. In week or so and I'll have the rest of my parts and be back at it. My next PL project will be to re-cap my PL 2000 preamp. Does anybody make a kit for that? :happy3:
 

laatsch55

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#2
There are at least 5 PL 2000 fix it threads, A couple were rather extensive. You might peruse those to get some ideas. I know of no kits for it, but there aren't that many caps. Take a look and post up some questions....
 

demonx

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#3
There are at least 5 PL 2000 fix it threads, A couple were rather extensive. You might peruse those to get some ideas. I know of no kits for it, but there aren't that many caps. Take a look and post up some questions....
Ok I'll take a look. I saw there weren't many in it. I would only do the electrolytics anyway. It works fine now but...... The caps are probably pretty old.
 

laatsch55

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#4
On a couple I replaced the ceramics with polypros.....on the axial electros, they can be replaced with radials.....
 

Gibsonian

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#7
One of my first recap jobs was a 2000 many moons ago. I left original opamp in there, unlike Lee in his thread. It did sound a lot better than before recap. I recapped a 3300, upgraded the opamps in it and preferred the 2000 to it. The 3300 is a good looker though.
 

laatsch55

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#8
I didn't like the response of the 3300 either unitil we redid the caps in the line amp stage where we got the response to match the WOPL'ss....
 

demonx

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#9
I'm all for sounding better! The main reason I joined here was Joe said it was the only forum where I could get good advice. I told him about some of the posts I'd read in other forums. He said to ignore most of what those guys had to say. I'll start gathering parts for the PL 2000.
 

laatsch55

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#10
Yep, Joe is quite a hand. Given a schematic ( and sometimes even without one) he knows what's happening inside a circuit.
 

laatsch55

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#11
I'm all for sounding better! The main reason I joined here was Joe said it was the only forum where I could get good advice. I told him about some of the posts I'd read in other forums. He said to ignore most of what those guys had to say. I'll start gathering parts for the PL 2000.

If you would like I'll post a link to the build thread where we did the most....
 

grapplesaw

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#12
I hear you on the sound quality of different Op amps. They are quite different from one to the other.. I am currently reading two books on them and now know that I don't know much about op amps. Pretty thick reading. . Upgrading them does not necessarily improve anything and offen makes more work to get proper stabilization. I will follow up more in the 500 thread this week on op amps. Lots of information to share and confuse you with.
Glen
 

Gibsonian

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#13
I'm all for sounding better! The main reason I joined here was Joe said it was the only forum where I could get good advice. I told him about some of the posts I'd read in other forums. He said to ignore most of what those guys had to say. I'll start gathering parts for the PL 2000.
Isn't that the truth. There is so much misinformation regarding PL amps on the net it's crazy. This is definitely the place where the most accurate info is thrown about.
 

demonx

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#14
Ok so here's the background. I've had my amp and preamp for about a year and a half. I did a few things to it like re-caping the control board and adding a speaker protection circuit. I became aware of the White Oak upgrades by watching amps on ebay. Now we are jumping ahead to current time. I pestered the spouse for the control board rev-E kit and the power supply capacitor kit for xmas. So I get the kits and have the week off and jump in head first. You know that part where you are supposed to thoroughly read all instruction, was out the window. I didn't start asking questions until I couldn't get the bias to set right. Not terrible but definitely on the high side. I think that was probably not so much my fault. Joe sent me an update to fix that. I completely spaced on the part where I was supposed to replace all the output transistors. I ordered those from Joe and they arrived today. I headed to my favorite local electronics store for mica insulators which are the kind that I prefer. I believe the heat sink grease works better and don't care about it being messy. I figure you can't see it with the covers over the transistors anyway. So I get there and they only have 2 for $1.50 each which is both disappointing and over priced. So now I've ordered them from Mouser for $.19 each. In week or so and I'll have the rest of my parts and be back at it. My next PL project will be to re-cap my PL 2000 preamp. Does anybody make a kit for that? :happy3:
I'm updating my original post. I now have all the parts to finish my build. Hopefully I'll find time this weekend. :happy3:
 
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