Llano Design Trinity 100

This came from a shop that could not repair it. It looked to me like the tech had no idea what the problem was or how to fix it (or how much it was worth). I got this for a price that I would have readily paid for the chassis alone!

There's enough written about Randy White and his amplifiers on the forums that I do not need to go over it. Since there is no technical support or information on these, I thought I'd put together some documentation. I have known of techs being afraid to repair these amps, so I hope this will allay some fear of working on these super-rare botique amps.

I would note some things I've learned, having gone over one with a fine tooth comb:

The most propogated misconception is that the tubes are auto-biased. There is no autobiasing circuit. The biasing does not change for any tube. What does change is the heater supply voltage. Because the heater current is limited to 450ma or so, it will run a 12V or 6V heater just the same. This is similar to how old tube testers work.

The bias works for all tubes, but no tube will be biased optimally. This amp was not made for any one tube, but for all of them. Another way of putting it is that this amp was not really designed to sound good as much as it was designed to accomodate a bunch of different tubes that may sound good in this amp.

This is not a Krell-killer, nor can it compare to Lamm or Mark Levinson. This is a rudimentary design with a crude layout - please see the schematics. This amplifier simply cannot do the things the other ones can - this is just inherent to the design.

Be sure to check everything. My amp had an unsoldered bias trimpot - Mr. White missed it while assembling the amp. It is very easy for us to be blind to our mistakes without peer review or quality control. There is always a likelyhood that hand-made audio gear (or any hand-made thing) will contain a defect of workmanship.

Here is the documentation I generated:

Llano Design Trinity Owner's Manual
This is an unofficial owners manual. There was no such thing when this amp was built and sold, so maybe this can be a useful for current and future owners.

Llano Trinity Hybrid White Paper
This is the original Trinity Hybrid white paper.

Trinity 100 Schematics

More Llano Trinity 100 pictures
High resolution detail images showing wiring, construction, parts, etc.