TDA 2050 amp photo's & mp3

[RLBJR65]

Thanks Pete, thats exactly what I was thinking Got the iron, a 2040, decent speaker and a nice sturdy combo cab. If I knew it could sound that good I'd have taken it apart long ago. Now I need to look at the board to see if I can strip the stuff thats not needed and scab in a jfet pre amp w/ tone controlls so I can fill all the holes. Hmmm might be easier to make a new board.

Will the 20*0 pins fit in 5 holes straight in a row on perf / vero? I seem to recall they almost fit but not quite

[MartyMart]

Will the 20*0 pins fit in 5 holes straight in a row on perf / vero? I seem to recall they almost fit but not quite

Not quite, I did get my 2050 pins in 5 adjacent vero holes, but had to do a little straightening of the pins.
I was playing it again today and have to say that I'm blown away, even on a single 18v supply !
Sounds FAB.
MM.

[RLBJR65]

Thanks Marty, I'm going to try and work up a pcb layout tonight using DIY layout creator. I'll just make those pads a little over sized.

Thanks for the schematic too!

[petemoore]

I was playing it again today and have to say that I'm blown away, even on a single 18v supply !
  The amp that gets built is infinitely better than the one that doesn't.

[scaesic]

how does it compare to the original park?

the park used a tda2030 too.

[MartyMart]

how does it compare to the original park?

the park used a tda2030 too.

IIRC.....
It seems to be louder and more "gutsy" than the original was, though it's been an empty shell
for quite a few months - intended for a small valve combo, using thw Park chassis.
With a decent preamp, such as an English channel etc - it 's in a different league from the original.
MM

[scaesic]

iv been looking for something to replace my park with too.

i have the exact same amp, i plan on stripping it down to bare bones and using a mosfet boost as a pre into some sort of power amp. i may use the tda like you did.

do you reckon itd be easy enough to canabalise the power supply/heatsink from the original?

[Phorhas]

I have a 3.2 amp traffo, with 230v primary and +/- 15v DC taps, so perhaps I'll try another that way and
see how THAT sounds !  icon_wink

Marty, what Traffo is that exactly?

P.S - why build an SS amp when you can pretty easily build a cool 5 watter all tube? (not to insult or anything, I'm just interested on why not go for valves...)

Thanks

[MartyMart]

Marty, what Traffo is that exactly?

It's a chunky PCB mountable traffo from RS ( UK RS not radio shack !! )

P.S - why build an SS amp when you can pretty easily build a cool 5 watter all tube? (not to insult or anything, I'm just interested on why not go for valves...)

Been there already : http://www.pbase.com/martymart/se5a_build
My Park shell will house a "Heavy watter" 1.8 watt valve amp when it's done !
For now, the TDA is quite a good sounding unit - perhaps it will stay in there !!!

iv been looking for something to replace my park with too.

i have the exact same amp, i plan on stripping it down to bare bones and using a mosfet boost as a pre into some sort of power amp. i may use the tda like you did.

do you reckon itd be easy enough to canabalise the power supply/heatsink from the original?

The TDA2050 is more powerful and so will get hotter, while the power section may be fine, you'll need a heatsink at least
twice the size !!
I would also choose a nice pre-amp rather than just a boost, perhaps a Dr Boogey or English Channel would use up the
Parks "knob space" quite nicely

MM.

[Phorhas]

Gottcha

What about that Traffo Xforme r?

[MartyMart]

Gottcha

What about that Traffo Xforme r?

see inside above post !

[petemoore]

  I think MM is using a WW, single ended supply...look for a WW with 18v and the biggest current rating or...
  See GEO, Power supplies for effects, and build one with plenty of current and a split supply

[scaesic]

Marty, what Traffo is that exactly?

It's a chunky PCB mountable traffo from RS ( UK RS not radio shack !! )

P.S - why build an SS amp when you can pretty easily build a cool 5 watter all tube? (not to insult or anything, I'm just interested on why not go for valves...)

Been there already : http://www.pbase.com/martymart/se5a_build
My Park shell will house a "Heavy watter" 1.8 watt valve amp when it's done !
For now, the TDA is quite a good sounding unit - perhaps it will stay in there !!!

iv been looking for something to replace my park with too.

i have the exact same amp, i plan on stripping it down to bare bones and using a mosfet boost as a pre into some sort of power amp. i may use the tda like you did.

do you reckon itd be easy enough to canabalise the power supply/heatsink from the original?

The TDA2050 is more powerful and so will get hotter, while the power section may be fine, you'll need a heatsink at least
twice the size !!
I would also choose a nice pre-amp rather than just a boost, perhaps a Dr Boogey or English Channel would use up the
Parks "knob space" quite nicely

MM.

the reason i was thiking about the mosfet boost was i want it for clean jazz tones, i had a look at the polytone schems, reckon i could pinch the tonestack just after the pre and stick it after a mosfet boost instead? i was thinking about sticking in two graphic eq's pre and post.


http://www.murchmusic.com/Polytone%20Info/Schem1.JPG

[MarcoMike]

OT,  I had the same Park amp... actually I still have the cabinet&speaker somewhere in my garage... When I saw your picture I had some kind of dejà vù ...

[scaesic]

oppinions?

[Mark Hammer]

Just in case people forget, there is the generic TDA20x0 board project over at GGG: http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_20x0_amp.pdf

The pinouts for the 2030, 2040, and 2050 are identical.  You can make yourself a couple of boards, stuff 'em with your choice of chip and power 'em with your choice of PSU.

Given how cheap and compact these amps are, let me once more put in a plug for the idea of a compact bi-amped combo amp.  These days you can score all manner of subwoofers dirt cheap.  Stick a 4" or 6" subwoofer facing downward or sideways in a combo cab, in tandem with an 8", powered separately, and you may be able to achieve the sort of big sound (albeit at more modest volumes) you'd get with a 12", or 15" speaker in a bigger cab.  Since you're not trying to achieve flat frequency response, you can simply split your preamp output and feed the full signal to the power driving the 8" full range, and run the other output to a simple lowpass filter and into a separate power amp module driving the subwoofer.  Heck, those of you guys dickering with 5W single-ended tube amps might also consider feeding the preamp output to a SS power amp and subwoofer in the same way.  There may be plenty of reasons to want to use tubes for most of the frequency spectrum, but my guess is that in the world of distorted guitars, you probably would not notice the difference between tube-amplified and solid-state amplified content under 200hz.

Incidentally, no reason why it HAS to be in the same cab.  Rivera has their line of Los Lobottom powered subwoofer cabs to augment the main amp.  T'would be an easy affair to have a small sealed subwoofer cab with a 4, 6, or 8" in it, fitting the footprint dimensions of the small combo amp.  Pack a PSU, 30W of extra bass power, a 2-4-pole lowpass filter, a line input and volume control, and all you need is a line/preamp out from any amp to add a little more chest-shaking oomph to your tone.

SCAESIC,
You probably need a little more gain in the front end, unless you planned on running the proposed amp from line-level signals.

[scaesic]

SCAESIC,
You probably need a little more gain in the front end, unless you planned on running the proposed amp from line-level signals.

i was planning on using the amz mosfet boost. good/bad? im not sure if the mosfetboost is the best thing to use for jazz tones. also, im not sure whether to have the mosfet boost before or after the tonestack. i quite like the idea of having toneshaping pre and post though.

[Mark Hammer]

I'm looking at it purely from the standpoint of how much gain is applied, and distributed across the signal path, in the typical amplifier that sticks a power-amp chip at the end of it.  The intent is not to achieve any sort of particular tone, but rather to simply assure that the signal applied to the input of the power amp stage is of sufficient amplitude to achieve the best S/N ratio and maximum clean output possible.

Power amp chips will want a line-level signal.  After all the assorted tone shaping has been applied to the guitar signal in the suggested circit you posted (and there is nearly always passive loss from that), will there still be enough guitar signal left to do that?  Maybe, maybe not.  Of course, from the amp's point of view, it doesn't particularly care if that level-shifting of the signal happens after the input jack or before it, just as long as it happens somewhere.  Given that gain is multiplicative, if you have a gain of x3 here and there in the amp chassis, and stick a gain of x10 and x3 here and there ahead of the amp, you may well end up meeting those specs.  I'm just encouraging you to keep the entire signal path and gain structure in mind so that you can get the amp to do what you want it to do.

[Ben N]

Bucks, Marty?? Don't you mean, oh, I don't know, quid, or something? 

Nice job on the amp, and thanks as always for sharing.

Ben

[dschwartz]

mark: i´he build it with the GGG layout...with the TDA2050 it exploded!!!

tda2050 its not mentioned for that layout, so i recommend making the datasheet circuit...