*** The DIY Audio Thread ***

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About time this place deserved a permanent place for us bonkers DIY'ers to talk about new designs, new builds, completed builds, and SHOW THEM OFF.

Il start with my Millett MAX amp. No internal pics yet as it is a ***** to take apart, but a few outside pics from my state of the art 4Mp camera:

KING OF THE CASTLE (in borat voice)

The bum shot

Nichicon KZ caps in the PSU section, its got an AMB e12 muting circuit, some toshiba BJTs I can't remember what model they are, black gate NX capacitors at the critical output positions, and old school VIT-Q paper in oil caps in bypass positions.

It's setup for Grado's and sounds very very sweet indeed. The black gate burn in was interesting as it sounded great after a while, then weird for a bit, then great, etc repeat, but now with a few 100 hours on it, it sounds very very nice indeed.

All you need to know over at http://www.diyforums.org/MAX/MAXoverview.php

 

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My 99.9999999999999991% silver stereo interconnect build. Got some 0.5mm silver wire from pete (Zanash), teflon tubing, pvc tubing to wrap around the teflon in a sprial configuration, and yarbo silver plated plugs. All covered in cotton. Build is here:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f6/how-make-interconnect-step-step-pics-50729/index61.html

and here are some pics:

Cable sounds great, but haven't had the time to compare to the mark grant LV61S it replaces. Cost was about £80-90 and is enough to make 5.5m of single cable, so for stereo peirs Im making x2 sets 0.8m cables, 0.5m pair, and a small 20-30cm pair to use as bi-amp jumpers or to connect the millett max to the new equipment switchbox I still need to build.

 

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Sweet, totally forgot the LD acts as a pre-amp. Good sound ?

O and loving the silver IC, same chris venhaus double helix design as I used, and cotton it seems

Im putting blackgates in my cd-player next and am sorting out something special and very unusual for speaker cable. Just need to source the bits from all over the globe

 

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what a monster i really want to build a taped horn, but thats pushing it when i live in a flat now. frankly i only have these concrete floors to thank for the fact that the neibours havent complained about my sealed 15" yet....


...although saying that the guys upstairs are playing dance music and shouting right now they dont want to start an SPL contest with me, not at 1 in the morning the GF has to get up in 4 hours and im amazed it hasnt woken her yet.


.....that tapped horn might be getting built yet.....

I say........................... BUILD IT

Fantastic build there, a true piece of DIY art. Forget artists and their frozen dogs, or man in bear suit walking around an office, build some DIY audio and submit it as art.

Im scared to go back to subs after the booom booom of the poor logitech z5500 sub, but it did the job for movies, and is now hooked up to the rents sky box an brothers 360, so does a stellar job there.

 

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I am doing an order from vt4c.com. The shipping is quite expensive. Does anyone want to share an order with me?

No not atm got lal my bits for upcoming builds, excpet cable and sheething for my SR-60 and ksc075 re-cables.

vt4c are great, english not that great, but I asked him/them to mark down my package as gift and $20 to get around the customs charges. I bought 6 pairs of the solid silver cmc rca sockets and lots of cotton.

 

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Millet student amp looks ace, I built its big brother the hybrid MAX, and spent about 150-200 on it by the time I totted up all the costs. But no expense was spared for Blackgates, POT and N.O.S caps. SOunds lovely with grados though.

 

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That starving student is sooo cute. Awesome job there

 

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WOW Adam that looks lush. Black case with silver knobs / feet rock.

O and i bet it sounds ok too

Moving back with the parents soon so will the space and equipment to do a few small projects. Might even try a DAC out and see how it compares to the modified output stage on my emu 0404 PCI. WOuld never try it on my CD-63 as I have already spent £200 on bits to make the analogue output circuitry sound stunning

 

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Mouser will use DHL once the parcel gets over onto UK shores and you will get charged the customs fees by them. Ordered my millett max bits from mouser as it was easier with the BOM listed and the exchange rate was better back then (around 2:1), but the DHL charges were about £25 on a £150+ order

 

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ok, you now no there is a fault. Those fets are dead if they were in the wrong way round. I suggest you check the other fets for shorts and replace as necessary. do this whilst the amp is off.

This is good though - first step of troubleshooting is finding the issue.

And great experience too. Put some transistors in the wrong way round when I first powered up my Millett Max. One chaannel didn't work properly, but soon found the fault after some guidance and all worked perfectly.

But damn that's a lot of components on that headphone amp