*** The DIY Audio Thread ***

Yaka said:
that looks great, how much better is it sound wise to the SS?
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Have been properly listening to it this morning.

It's a huge improvement over the SS, much better imo. The sound stage is HUGE and the gain can be adjusted on the bottom so it's nice and low for my Ultrasones.

The sound is extremely detailed and bass is very accurate. I love it so far.

I've got the stock driver tubes back in it now though as the EF91s gave the low end bass distortion which apparently is a well known problem with low impedance headphones and them tubes, so they're being swapped for some EF95 by the person I bought the tubes from, so can't complain :)

It runs extremely hot, but that's always expected with tube amps.

p4radox said:
Very nice Justin. How much did she cost?
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It cost me £130 second hand, including upgraded power tubes. Bargain :)
 
Hey guys. Could one of you point me in the direction for a complete starter?

I'm very interested in this sort of work but obviously don't want to jump in the deep end first. I'd just like to research it a little before I do anything though.

I've worked with breadboards before but I don't think this applies... (as I recall that's what they were called)
 
LeJosh said:
Hey guys. Could one of you point me in the direction for a complete starter?

I'm very interested in this sort of work but obviously don't want to jump in the deep end first. I'd just like to research it a little before I do anything though.

I've worked with breadboards before but I don't think this applies... (as I recall that's what they were called)
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The CMoy headphone amp is the perfect place to start.

Here's a useful link:

http://tangentsoft.net/audio/cmoy-tutorial/

For help and guidance, the folks at the HeadFi DIY forum and those at DIY Audio are very helpful.


edit: if you've worked with breadboards then that's definitely good experience. It's easy to prototype the CMoy on a breadboard before putting it on something more permanent, and it gives you chance to play about with the gain etc.
 
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Justin said:
Got my Little Dot Mk III today, stuck some Mullard EF91 M8083 driver tubes (matched military pair) in it, it sounds absolutely fantastic from the brief amount of time spent listening. The tubes were NOS so they're burning in right now with some white and pink noise.

Looking forward to having a good listen tomorrow.
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Hi Justin, I'm considering one of these to run a set of HD600's from my Asus Xonar Essence STX analogue outs as I feel it will better the onboard HP amp by a margin. That and the fact that I miss rolling tubes etc.

I know it's early days but let me know how it's sounding as I have heard some very good reports on this and the MK IV.
 
p4radox said:
The CMoy headphone amp is the perfect place to start.
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Thank you very much, p4radox. I've got 2 amplifiers that were store bought, a marshall electric guitar valvestate amp, which I'm not touching the inside until a valve blows or it just doesn't work.

The other is an acoustic solutions transistor amplifier, mainly for DVD etc.
Only has two speaker output left and right though, but I think it's too big to start off with.

What you said is perfect. That shop yarnell sounded like a good place to shop. I was browsing it earlier, thanks again. :)

Edit - Just more information on my background, I did technological studies at high school which had me working with bread boards just simple light up a diode using the correct resistors, had to figure a resistors restitance just by the bands on the body of it. I can remember it briefly a refresh will bring it all speeding back, I also took physics. Grade 3 and 2, I don't know the English equivalent. Sorry. :)
 
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Yaka said:
there are other versions/mks of the little dot? just curious but anyone know what the differences are?
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Yup, there's many different ones.

Little Dot Mk I is portable, Mk I+ is hybrid, Mk II is an all tube single ended push pull, Mk III is basically an upgraded Mk II++ using high quality components, Mk IV is an upgraded Mk III and the Mk V is solid state.

Most of them can be used as pre-amps too.
 
speedyj said:
Hi Justin, I'm considering one of these to run a set of HD600's from my Asus Xonar Essence STX analogue outs as I feel it will better the onboard HP amp by a margin. That and the fact that I miss rolling tubes etc.

I know it's early days but let me know how it's sounding as I have heard some very good reports on this and the MK IV.
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Any update on this please Justin.
 
I have finished populating a CTH (compact tube hybrid, by alex cavalli).

This thing is tiny, and makes very few comprimises. Its not such an easy build, its very tight and i guess the density makes it prone to builder errors. I havent fired it up yet so we shall see if i made any!

Phone for size reference.

dscf1054g.jpg
 
speedyj said:
Any update on this please Justin.
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Don't know if you saw this reply:

Justin said:
Have been properly listening to it this morning.

It's a huge improvement over the SS, much better imo. The sound stage is HUGE and the gain can be adjusted on the bottom so it's nice and low for my Ultrasones.

The sound is extremely detailed and bass is very accurate. I love it so far.

I've got the stock driver tubes back in it now though as the EF91s gave the low end bass distortion which apparently is a well known problem with low impedance headphones and them tubes, so they're being swapped for some EF95 by the person I bought the tubes from, so can't complain :)

It runs extremely hot, but that's always expected with tube amps.
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Still waiting for the new tubes to arrive, but still very pleased with it so far. It sounds fantastic :)

It will power the HD600s really well, as the gain is adjustable and can be set high for the Senns.

Separate dedicated amps are usually a lot better than onboard ones so you will likely see a huge improvement.
 
Will update when they arrive, but the EF91s are best used with high impedance phones. You shouldn't get any distortion with them with HD600s. It's a shame because they sound really, really nice apart from that.
 
guys i am trying to make a cable. a mini (3.5?) to phono so i can use my iphone lod with my starving student amp. but i have problem at the mini end how do i find out which tab is left and witch is right? one of em is copper while the other silver
 
Some nice tubey goodness in this thread! ;)

Are any of you guys with Class-D amps getting any hiss? With my Amp9 Basic, I'm getting some hiss on my tweeters. I'm thinking this may be because I'm running my speakers bi-amped with no passive crossover... Today I've done some experimenting:

29042009152.jpg


Today I slapped a 7W 10R resistor in line with my tweeter and the hiss vanished! I was originally running my tweeters at -6Db, so I've now boosted them to 0db and it sounds balanced again but this time with no hiss!

I'm very happy, but I was wondering if there's any downsides of doing this?
 
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