Aleph 5 clone pass for Danilo Rea

“The first watt is the most important watt.” This has always been Nelson Pass’s claim (you can read the story here). And we start right at his genius. In addition to being one or perhaps the best living amplifier designer (opinion, for goodness sake, our own), with a full range of products(https://www.passlabs.com/) he has for many years already created an extremely active DIY community, which started back in February 1977 when he published in Audio Magazine the article “Construct A Class A Amplifier,” considered by many to be the founding act of modern audio DIY. The website passdiy.com collects all historical designs and was born in 2016(https://www.passdiy.com/). He is the only audio designer to do this, and with fervent determination. Just think of Amp Camp A an 8W single-stage power amplifier.

that is the quintessential DIY audio project: simple, inexpensive, sonically satisfying, and with a huge community supporting it. It is called Amp Camp because in its first version it was made in Northern California on the Brock ranch in the presence of Nelson Pass, who also contributed operationally by helping participants as they built their kits. In his intentions Amp Camp was to be a simple amplifier, and for that reason powered by 24V computer switching, so that it would not complicate matters for those who were new to the field and that the “camp” participants could take it home working the same evening. Now the Camp Amp, or ACA is found in many different declinations, the most common one, this one: https://diyaudiostore.com/products/amp-camp-amp-complete

To many more complex versions, including this one. Which involves linear power supply. Hi Fi 2000 builds the cases, for those who want to try their hand, you can find them at this address. In short, for Nelson Pass to share his designs is a habit-and a brilliant marketing gimmick-though we think he does it for the passion of sharing his designs.

Aleph 5

Nelson Pass’s Aleph series was born in the early 1990s after the founding of Pass Labs (previously Pass was with Threshold), with the goal of creating stable, pure Class A amplifiers with a simple circuit and sounding as natural as possible. The first model was Aleph 0, introduced in 1992, a mono power amplifier of about 70 watts that introduced the single-ended MOSFET class A philosophy applied to modern high fidelity. In the following years came several models such as Aleph 1, Aleph 2, Aleph 3, and Aleph 4, all of which shared essential construction, strong thermal dissipation, and a very smooth and musical timbre that helped make the series a benchmark in HiFi. Perhaps the most famous was the Aleph 5 itself, introduced around 1997. About 60 watts per channel into 8 ohms-it is still considered one of the best compromises in the Aleph series for sonic balance, reliability, and circuit simplicity. When Pass made the Aleph’s technical documentation available to the DIY community, many builders got to work. The allure of replicating a legendary amplifier with one’s own hands, perhaps with select components and a quality chassis, was and is irresistible to anyone with a passion for audio electronics.

Aliexpress, an inexhaustible source, but not easy to choose

Precisely because of the popularization of Pass, a number of clones of both Aleph 3 and Aleph 5 have sprung up on the well-known Eastern site over the years. Basically what changes is the number of Mosfets, in the number of 4 total in the 3 and 6 in the 5, with a circuit board that is practically the same. What changes a lot is the quality of the components and the circuit board, as well as the type of Mosfet, the