ANOTHER void infinate 8 thread(and review)

this was one of my old infinate 8mrk1's i used to own,which unfortunately was hired out to somebody,who also blew up 2 crown macrotech series in the same rack on the same night.
i took it to abletronics ,an amplifier repair company in norfolk.to say the amp was f**ked was an understatement........
lewis from abletronics,who i believe will be joining this forum soon,has done a diary so to speak on the repair of this amplifier,and has also made very interesting points about its design "faults"
the amp was repaired at a price of £550 (was the most parts theyve ever had to replace on an amp EVER!) but is running better and more reliable then ever.

http://www.abeltronics.co.uk/repair.php?ID=void

theres the link
an interesting read........

lewis has done an excellent,proffesional job on this amplifier and i would highly reccomend him.dont be put of by the repair price on this amp,as it really was a new amp inside lol


Edited by Tiff - 16 July 2009 at 9:16am

Blimey, looks like a job well done! Nice to find someone who actually knows what they're doing :)

Tiff wrote: this was one of my old infinate 8mrk1's i used to own,which unfortunately was hired out to somebody,who also blew up 2 crown macrotech series in the same rack on the same night. i took it to abletronics ,an amplifier repair company in norfolk.to say the amp was f**ked was an understatement........ lewis from abletronics,who i believe will be joining this forum soon,has done a diary so to speak on the repair of this amplifier,and has also made very interesting points about its design "faults" the amp was repaired at a price of £550 (was the most parts theyve ever had to replace on an amp EVER!) but is running better and more reliable then ever. http://www.abeltronics.co.uk/repair.php?ID=void theres the link an interesting read........ lewis has done an excellent,proffesional job on this amplifier and i would highly reccomend him.dont be put of by the repair price on this amp,as it really was a new amp inside lol

Yep, that was a great read and it’s nice to see such an in depth repair from someone who knows their stuff.

 

I’ve always tried to make the best product I can and see no point in using a component that might save £1.50 but then could lead to reliability issues later on. In fact I believe you would have to be mad to want to use underrated components as the whole companies reputation would be put on the line and no one wants that.  I also know how important it is to have reliability with any piece of audio equipment, as the users track record is at stake. This is why when any piece of equipment comes in for repair under warranty a very lengthy investigation is carried out to identify the cause of the failure. The Vas transistors were known to be a possible point of failure after a few of the first run of amps developed problems. These were uprated on subsequent production runs and we also carried out a call back (which some might remember) for the first batch to have the VAS transistors upgraded, but due to it being very hard to find all the owners of the first batch of amps , some did escape the net. If the amp that had the repair carried out was still on 250 transistors then it was one that had not been back for the upgrade. 

 

I know it’s not an excuse and I’m not trying to make one, but unless the full history of an amp is known then it’s impossible to draw any conclusions as to why it failed. It’s possible that the amp might have been repaired in that past with unsuitable component substitutes or by a very incompetent repairman when the amp had run out of warranty. We will never know.

 

As to the choice of output transistors or rail voltages, I have to say that these are subjective things that are carried out at the time of design. Its possible to get any older amp and replace its output stage with newer transistors and change its rail voltage to suit and say that the amp performs better. How many people change the carburettors, air filters, exhausts and add dump valves to cars and then get better performance. There is nothing wrong with a box standard ford escort, but fit a few extra bits that have come about because of newer technology and the performance will be improved. Again its impossible to say that this or that choice of component is right or wrong. Some will say that a 1850 horn sounds better and is more reliable with a PD 1850, other will say the V18-1000 is the better choice. When it comes down to saying I changed this or that because it was wrong, I just read that as someone else’s opinion and not as fact. 

 

The Infinite 8 V2 does not contain one single component that was used in the mk1 version and use’s triple voltage rails instead of dual as found in the mk1 version. I’m continually looking to improve what Void produces and as I said before this means continually making small changes until things are the best they can be. The V2 amps had a head start as I learnt so much from the mk1 version. At the end of the day Void was a very young company when it produced the Infinite 8 mk1 and undertaking the design and manufacture of such a powerful amp was no mean feet. Void is many years down the line now and though continual research and improvement I’m very confident with all Voids products now. A fact born out by the extremely low failure rate of all Infinite V2 amplifiers.          

Looks like his assessment agrees with the common knowledge on these amps i.e. don't use it at full whack with a dirty or out of spec power input.

If your mate's managed to blow two crowns in the same rack on the same night I guess he'd want to do some investigation before using that power supply / distro combination again.

a mains tester would tell you what you're dealing with before plugging anything in.

a heavy and expensive mains power conditioner/UPS would help while you're running.

maybe a better solution is get a void infinite 8mk2 as it has better inbuilt protection