Tundra Mono 3

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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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Can’t wait to hear them 👌👌👌
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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So Tundra Mono 3 number 001 and 002 have been shipped to the United States. My hope is that they will arrive in time for Axpona, which is a bit tight if the customs decide to hold them for long. But here's hoping!

There is so much to write about this project. Pardon me for only skimming through the major events.

They were supposed to be ready more than half a year ago, but things got in the way, like a sudden move of the lab and more importantly repeated delays of the casework and shortage of components.

The delays deepened the project, as I started obsessing about details and thinking of combinations I had not tested in practice. I also thought of more precise ways to measure, select and sort the components, something that would have been impossible to manage without my intern Oscar happily spending months redoing all the transistors and some of the other components as well. I repeatedly rebuilt and evaluated prototype 00A and 00B, letting them compete against each other. I arranged hierarchical tests of contradicting construction details and redrew the circuit board after each conclusion. There's a fine line between burning passion and unhealthy obsession, and I was over the line more than once.

Luckily I am not working alone. I've got advisors and test pilots, who provided invaluable feedback. The guys and gals at Mitac, who make the circuit boards and assemble my products, suggested changes that improved both musical performance and accuracy in assembly. All the details finally fell into place. I think that I have taken this circuit, which is now ten years old, to its final incarnation.

Last Saturday at midnight we listened to Tundra Mono 3 number 001 and 002, comparing them to prototype 00A and 00B. I had collected the ten first units on Friday and finalized 001 and 002 on Friday evening and Saturday. Didn't play a single note on them before my listening panel arrived and I was terribly nervous. To my delight and relief, 001 and 002 confidently walked over the prototypes, whom in turn had previously walked over Tundra Mono 2.2.

There are many ways and angles in how to describe the musical differences between older Tundra Mono's and Tundra Mono 3. One thing that stood out is how the new version feels unlimited and thrives delivering music all the way up to its maximum power output. We ended up playing for hours at level 80 from Källa, which in retrospect was too loud for my ears, but I didn't notice any discomfort at the time. The rendering of the music felt effortless. It later struck me that I could have bypassed the Superkikkin preamp and just connected Källa straight into 001 and 002... Maybe next time!

Tundra Mono 3 is severely limited in numbers due to shortage of components. I've tried hunting them down with the help of scavengers, but got screwed on a 500 pcs shipment where not a single unit could be used, as they all measured right at the edge of the stated tolerance of the crucial parameter. Fully functioning but useless for Tundra Mono 3. The hunt will continue, but so far 78 circuit boards have been completed, of which at least 50 will be used for new units. The remaining 28 will be used to upgrade older units, but I need to test this thoroughly to make sure they perform as well as brand new units.

Tundra Mono 3 became a lot more expensive than I had expected and hoped for. My gut reaction is to always price things as low as possible, perhaps because I can vividly recall the days when I as a student tried saving up for the HiFi that I dreamed of. But as I can't change the figures in the cost sheet, it is what it is. Tundra Mono 3 is designed and built in Sweden, to a level of precision I have never been close to before in an amplifier.

Tundra Mono 3 will cost around SEK 49000 or EUR 4900 incl VAT a piece. I think Thomas O'Keefe can later fill us in on pricing in North America.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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Very exciting news indeed Fredrik. Congratulations for reaching the finishing line! Now when are the first units shipping to the UK? :-)
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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That was a interesting read, Fredrik
Seems you have stretched to get the most out of this new Tundra 3.
Be careful though, stay in healthy territory; Einstein lost his mind on the way…

It’s a pity that sourcing the components is such a pain and driving up the price.
Can you PM the upgrade price for turning a 2.2 into 3?
If the test units bettered the 2.2 and the first finished units bettered the test units, I can only conclude that it is indeed a “big” (final?) step to musical thrill
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

Post by sunbeamgls »

Congrats Fredrik, looking forward to hearing them.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

Post by Hermann »

I think many will be curious to hear the new Monos. After Fredrik has enthusiastically described some of the details and the musical experience, we can look forward to something unusual. The Tundra Monos 2.2 are generally considered to be slightly better than the Tundra Stereo. How good will the Monos 3.0 be then. Considering how quickly Tundra Stereo blew away my ECS Monos, which in turn outperformed a NAP500, what can we expect? In any case, I am extremely curious.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

Post by ThomasOK »

That is all very cool to hear, Fredrik. This should make for an even more interesting show.

My feeling is that the Tundra Mono 2.2 is actually a significant upgrade over the T2.5 stereo. The comment that the Tundra Mono 3 prototypes A and B were quite a bit better than the 2.2s and that the final 001 and 002 are that much better than the prototypes is very exciting. The US price is $6495 each and the Canadian price is $8695 each. It sounds like a deal to me for the level of performance we are talking about.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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I would like to know how much to upgrade v1 to v3?
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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lejonklou wrote: 2022-11-08 22:11 New ones won't have any LIGHTS OFF switch at the rear, while the upgraded ones will keep theirs.
Is there a sound/musical reason for this? I really like to be free of blue lights. Or any other colour...
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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lejonklou wrote: 2023-03-28 22:24 It later struck me that I could have bypassed the Superkikkin preamp and just connected Källa straight into 001 and 002... Maybe next time!
I am curious about this, Fredrik!

BTW, did Superkikkin replace the Sagatuns? They are no more on the latest pricelist.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

Post by mrco99 »

Sagatun preamplifiers have certainly not been discontinued but have been out of stock for some time for the Benelux, German & UK market.
We can't say when they will be available again, so decided to remove them from our pricelist for the time being to avoid recurring inquiries.
Last edited by mrco99 on 2023-04-03 06:26, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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macrotech2 wrote: 2023-03-28 22:47 Very exciting news indeed Fredrik. Congratulations for reaching the finishing line! Now when are the first units shipping to the UK? :-)
Thank you macrotech2!

Not sure when the first pair ships to the UK. The UK distributor Hexagon has a bunch on order, but I don't know which pair goes where. So far 001 to 004 have been built, they take quite some time to complete.
Sopper wrote: 2023-03-29 07:04 That was a interesting read, Fredrik
Seems you have stretched to get the most out of this new Tundra 3.
Be careful though, stay in healthy territory; Einstein lost his mind on the way…

It’s a pity that sourcing the components is such a pain and driving up the price.
Can you PM the upgrade price for turning a 2.2 into 3?
If the test units bettered the 2.2 and the first finished units bettered the test units, I can only conclude that it is indeed a “big” (final?) step to musical thrill
Thank you Sopper! I will spend some quality time with the kids over Easter, hope to wind down then and get in shape for Axpona.

I don't yet have the upgrade price. I am waiting for production costs and need to build at least one pair, making sure they perform as well as expected.
sunbeamgls wrote: 2023-03-29 13:48 Congrats Fredrik, looking forward to hearing them.
Thank you sunbeamgls!
Hermann wrote: 2023-03-29 14:18 I think many will be curious to hear the new Monos. After Fredrik has enthusiastically described some of the details and the musical experience, we can look forward to something unusual. The Tundra Monos 2.2 are generally considered to be slightly better than the Tundra Stereo. How good will the Monos 3.0 be then. Considering how quickly Tundra Stereo blew away my ECS Monos, which in turn outperformed a NAP500, what can we expect? In any case, I am extremely curious.
And I am very much looking forward to your impressions, Hermann!
wonky1969 wrote: 2023-03-31 17:02 I would like to know how much to upgrade v1 to v3?
As mentioned above, the upgrade price is still unknown and it will take a while until it's been figured out.
David Neel wrote: 2023-04-01 12:44
lejonklou wrote: 2022-11-08 22:11 New ones won't have any LIGHTS OFF switch at the rear, while the upgraded ones will keep theirs.
Is there a sound/musical reason for this? I really like to be free of blue lights. Or any other colour...
The reason is that they sound better with the lights on. Why that is the case is a bit mysterious and dates back to the first Tundra eleven years ago. Substituting them for any other load of similar current sounds worse, so the only way would be to have a second pair of LEDs inside the case, covered in black so that they're invisible. Assembling that so that the switch goes to either internal or front LEDs was considered unnecessarily time consuming, so we decided to skip it. Upgraded units may however keep the rear switch that turns off the lights.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

Post by macrotech2 »

So two small pieces of black tape required then David. A small price to pay I think!
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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macrotech2 wrote: 2023-04-02 15:55 So two small pieces of black tape required then David. A small price to pay I think!
Actually, five! Two for each Mono, and I'll fix the Radikal as well.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

Post by Sopper »

David Neel wrote: 2023-04-03 11:19
macrotech2 wrote: 2023-04-02 15:55 So two small pieces of black tape required then David. A small price to pay I think!
Actually, five! Two for each Mono, and I'll fix the Radikal as well.
I used “lightdims” for that purpose, just a little neater then just tape
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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Sopper wrote: 2023-04-03 11:29 I used “lightdims” for that purpose, just a little neater then just tape
Thanks! Ordered...
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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OK, so now the first three pairs of TM3 have shipped.

One pair has arrived in Michigan and will be with us at Axpona in Chicago this weekend.
One pair is in Hermann's system and for those of you who haven't already listened to his clips of Tundra 2.5 versus TM3, here they are: viewtopic.php?p=69223#p69223
One pair shipped today to Hexagon Audio in the Netherlands.

I'm sorry to have to take a break as I go to the United States for a week, but production will resume when I'm back. Although Oscar will hold the fort, I will continue building these myself until I'm confident someone else can do it at least as well.

One detail that I mentioned earlier was that I had some new Thermal Interface Materials (TIMs) to evaluate. I thought I'd be done with those evaluations in a week, but thanks to other delays I had several and that turned out to be a good thing. The most musical of the materials, which in practice also turned out to be the best conductor of heat, is a phase change material. That means it melts under the transistors as the temperature rises above 50 degrees Celcius.

At first I didn't think this TIM sounded the best. It's not only a matter conducting heat, it also needs to mechanically dampen the transistors in a way that sounds right. As high currents flow through the transistors, they vibrate so much that you can actually hear the music in the heat sink. I don't recommend you try this at home, as it's advisable to have a silent load to replace the speaker (for instance a high power resistor), otherwise you may turn up the volume so high that you damage the amplifier, which prefers to have a load to deliver all the power to. You also won't hear much from my amps, as the heat sink is very non-resonant (a solid kilogram of pure copper with no thin flanges) and the transistors are optimally damped by a precision torqued spring-loaded compression against the TIM.

[Actually I have at times wondered whether the damping could be qualitatively evaluated by listening to the heat sink with a stethoscope, similar to the "tap test" Thomas has done on all the LP12 plinths he's evaluated. But as it's much easier to evaluate the TIM and its optimal pressure by listening to music, I haven't explored that idea.]

Anyway, the melting TIM at first didn't quite convince me, although it was apparent that it was a fantastic heat conductor. I thought it must be due to the damping properties, so I tried adjusting the compression when the amplifier was warm instead of when cold. This revealed that the compression had been far too high and that in its melted state, it required less compression force. After this discovery, the phase change TIM walked all over the others.

So each Tundra Mono 3 is run warm for a couple of hours and very the last thing that's done before the lid is closed and it gets evaluated by ear is that the compression force between transistor, TIM and heat sink is adjusted.

By the way, it's interesting to note that some of the expensive TIM's that aim their marketing towards the consumer computer market (to for instance improve the cooling of your graphics processing unit) are not as good as their figures claim. I'm not going to mention any names, but a top performing TIM from one brand, which has figures suggesting around 50% higher conductivity of heat than their second best performing TIM, actually performed worse in terms of heat transfer in my tests. Even though I tried different compression forces (which you're likely not able to do in your computer), their cheaper and supposedly second best TIM transfered heat better. And both of their high figures appeared vastly inflated compared to the TIM's aimed at the industrial market.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

Post by Arjen »

Fredrik, do other devices like phono’s, Kalla and other amps than Tundra have your same concern with TIM’s as this Tundra Mono 3? Just asking, It’s not my expertise, only read some on Wikipedia….
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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Arjen wrote: 2023-04-11 23:02 Fredrik, do other devices like phono’s, Kalla and other amps than Tundra have your same concern with TIM’s as this Tundra Mono 3? Just asking, It’s not my expertise, only read some on Wikipedia….
Thank you for the excellent question, Arjen!

The biggest importance of TIM is in power amplifiers (and integrated amps like Boazu, as it also contains a power amp). This is because they deliver all the power to the loudspeaker and that power varies with the music. So in addition to listening to the music with a stethoscope on the heat sink, you can also watch the music with a thermal camera pointed at the output transistors and the heat sink. With each bass note, there’s a wave of heat from the transistors spreading out in the heat sink.

If the TIM isn’t efficient, the temperature in the transistors will jump up and down with the music and this change in their temperature changes their characteristics. The change in characteristics can be heard in the music as “effort”. The bass notes will be less clean and dynamic and they will also affect all the other notes. If the TIM is efficient, the music becomes more effortless.

In the phono stages and pre amps there is no TIM at all apart from in the switching power supplies. The necessary cooling is usually solved by using the copper in the circuit board (which the components are soldered to, so the thermal coupling is very good). And by keeping things that generate heat away from components that should preferably be cool. Tiny heat sinks can be mounted on components if necessary, but they rarely require any TIM.

Källa needs some cooling of its power regulation and of the processor. The power regulation generates a very steady amount of heat, so it doesn’t fluctuate with (or affect) the music as in the power amps. Therefore the effectiveness of the TIM only affects the steady temperature of the regulation - if it’s less efficient the regulators will run a little warmer and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. So the most important difference between the TIMs tried in Källa turned out to be their mechanical dampening properties. The best sounding one was not the most efficient in terms of heat transfer, but the one which made the regulation sound most “relaxed”. It’s funny how those regulators need certain conditions to sound best, even though their job is very steady and circuit wise far away from the dynamic music signal.

The heat sink on the processor is glued with a thermal glue. I didn’t really notice any musical difference between the best thermal tape, a good thermal glue and very expensive epoxy with lots of silver particles. But the tape is not reliable over time, so we decided to glue the heat sink.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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Can’t wait to hear them at home
Still raises the question if there will be an upgrade path from TM 2, when will it be available and what will the price be?
I’m sure some of us can’t cough up the €€ $$ ££ right away for a new set of TM 3, I’m among them.

And if the difference is as big as heard in Hermanns clips, we all want to plan ahead and see in what way and time path we can get our hands on this final upgrade to reach musical heaven

It’s not that I’m bored with my set now, don’t get me wrong 😇
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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If my understanding is correct the parts are already being constructed (if not already done) so it shouldn't be too long before they are available. The problem with pricing is that Fredrik has to upgrade a pair in order to 1) make sure the perfromance is where he wants it to be, 2) see if any changes need to be made in fitting the new parts in the current cases, 3) evaluate any changes that might be necessary and 4) determine how much time the upgrade takes as that is a significant part of the price. Once that is all done we will know what the upgrade costs. But Fredrik also has a significant back order of the TM3s to complete the builds on, a number of which I am waiting for, as I'm sure is Marco. So it may be a little while yet. Patience is a virtue and Fredrik is a busy boy!
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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Tundra Mono 2 vs Tundra Mono 3 clips:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3233&p=69449#p69449
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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Sopper wrote: 2023-04-23 10:36 Tundra Mono 2 vs Tundra Mono 3 clips:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3233&p=69449#p69449
Great clips Sopper! It’s terrific to have such a wide selection of musical angles and expressions to choose between.

Something that I perhaps need to mention in the manual is that Tundra Mono 3 needs a lot of running in before it opens up. The new output transistors and the melting thermal interface material need more time to settle than virtually anything I’ve come across before.

When they’re brand new, it sounds good up to a certain volume, above which the music appears to become strangled. Gradually that ceiling lifts and after about a week you’ll find you can play ten steps louder. And then follows a sense of unlimited effortlessness.
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Re: Tundra Mono 3

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lejonklou wrote: 2023-04-23 14:54
Sopper wrote: 2023-04-23 10:36 Tundra Mono 2 vs Tundra Mono 3 clips:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3233&p=69449#p69449
Great clips Sopper! It’s terrific to have such a wide selection of musical angles and expressions to choose between.

Something that I perhaps need to mention in the manual is that Tundra Mono 3 needs a lot of running in before it opens up. The new output transistors and the melting thermal interface material need more time to settle than virtually anything I’ve come across before.

When they’re brand new, it sounds good up to a certain volume, above which the music appears to become strangled. Gradually that ceiling lifts and after about a week you’ll find you can play ten steps louder. And then follows a sense of unlimited effortlessness.
Thanks Fredrik
It was quite a rollercoaster with lots of frustration
Make sure to say they need at least 100 hours to burn in and settle
During burning in, loud volumes are harsh and no grip on the music

After burning in, all of a sudden the magic happens
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