Visiting Swordfishy (aka GregH2)

For those of you who have built a Fetzilla, you might be interested in my visit to Greg (aka Swordfishy and now GregH2) who lives on the outskirts of Brisbane. Greg was one of the main developers of the Fetzilla amplifier.

Greg along with his dogs. All three were very friendly.

Greg's paddock.

The BMW.

The Buick engine that eventually will go into the BMW.

Greg's version of  the Fetzilla.

Listening to Greg's system. The speakers are Yamaha.

Greg's Fetzilla is a little different from the version that we all built with the boards from Hugh. One obvious difference is that he uses a larger value inductor which he reckons produces a more relaxed sound. In addition Greg's power supply is not on the board.

We started off listening to a Dayton class T amp from Parts Express that cost about $100. To be honest, I was not that impressed by it though the bass was good. There was just no 'air' about the instruments and singers. Greg then hooked up his Fetzilla and the improvement was very dramatic. The 'air' was there and the bass was much tighter. I had bought a friend along who is not interested in hifi at all and even he immediately could tell the difference. We could have listened for hours but it was time to go. I can't comment on whether it sounded different to my Fetzilla but if there is one factor in common, it would be that these amps are very easy and very satisfying to listen to.

Before we got into the listening session, Greg took us down to the basement where he had stored his Tesla coil experiment that he built when he was 15. He wound the coil by hand.

Giant transformers.

That is one humongous variac.

We really enjoyed our time at Greg's place. He has a couple of ideas for future amps and hopefully these will come to fruition.