*** The DIY Audio Thread ***

[p4radox]

Dudes.. how much are these projects costing? Was looking at headphone amps and they're expensive to buy. Would building one work out cheaper? It'd be fun to try

My headphone amp cost me a lot more to build than to buy one. Components are much cheaper for the bulk buyers.

I built it for the fun factor, and it was definitely worth it.

 

[Kanifee]

You tend to find the people that build things cheap in this hobby are harden veterans with stockpiles of quality components, My stereo amp cost me around £100 without a case and i could proberbly buy one as good for the same money but the enjoymant of learning/building them is priceless and as any person that builds these will tell you, there is no rush like the first time you hear your amp produce music.... its amaizing the rush you get.
This hobby if all are hounest is not for the penny pinchers, when advised to spend £15 on a capacitor which may be one of many many caps it does take a lot of justifying to your self but you know the rewards you are going to get when you are done.
It may just be me but you tend to have a little more respect.... maybe respect is the wrong word, interest, interest is the word, you tend to have a lot more interest in the music you lsiten to because you have more of an understanding in what is actually going into giving you that crisp clear punchy sound and that it was you responsible for it.

Im going to stop rabbiting now, this is a great hobby, my advice would be to give it a try. After all if you wernt spending money on this and researching/building the actual thing youd only be spending the money doinf some other pointless effort to ammuse yourself so it's money spent any way, you wont be dissapointed trust me!

 

[p4radox]

Damian, have you got your DAC yet? I'd be really grateful if you could keep me updated on any issues you have with it. I'd also be interested in any details you have on the bundled transformer. They've conveniently blocked out the details in the images on ebay. I'm wondering if I'd be able to use that to power my Tripath board as well as the DAC...

 

[ChrissyT88]

Some of these projects look great! I have been thinking about getting a new amp and speakers recently, but how do these kit amps (eg the amp6 kit mentioned by p4radox/Mike) to £200 amps by NAD, Cambridge audio etc Is the quality much higher (or much lower...)? More importantly, how would they compare to my current Dennon DM-31 micro hi-fi i am currently using as an amp?

[On a side note, p4radox, i read you DIY headphone amp a few weeks ago and was very interested, so gave it a go! Whilst i suspect that i will probably never actually use it that much, it was a great learning experience and sounded good to boot. You may have started me down the long and expensive DIY audio road...]

 

[Kanifee]

This is what i was greated with when i got home.

Ill be ordering in all my parts as soon as i can, im just waiting on the parts for my shigaclone and i can get started on this, i didnt get a transformer with this one but i will keep you up to date of how things go paradox, are you thinking about ordering one of these bad boys?

 

[p4radox]

Very nice.

I want one yeah, although I'm going away for two weeks on Friday so it'll have to wait 'til I get back.

Were you expecting a transformer with yours?

edit: how long did delivery take?

 

[Kanifee]

Hi p4radox, i opted for the one without the transformer, they reckon a good tranny can make all the difference to audio quality so id rather invest a little more in to a good one, pricing them for this i found it will be about £7 for a decent one, ill be ordering it as soon as i have a big enough order ready though i am needing another tranny for my shigaclone so shouldn't need to much more.
Delivery was really good from the seller i got mine from, i ordered it on the 14th of this month and it arrived yesterday so it isn't bad.

 

[p4radox]

Sounds like a good plan.


I was thinking of going with this:

http://uk.farnell.com/9530932/electrical-circuit-protection/product.us0?sku=multicomp-mcta300-30

to power the DAC, a 41Hz.com AMP10 and a CMOY headphone amp all in one box. Expensive, but the AMP10 might pull peak 300VA depending on the load.

 

[adamau5]

go better than a cmoy - put a mini3 v2 or even a soha / mini millet.

 

[Kanifee]

Should be a nice piece of kit though im not sure weather a single toroid would be a good idea, 3 smaller ones would produce better sound quality, ill check the specs on the amp 10, do you have the specs for your headphone amp?

I was thinking about running 2 amp10 each bridged for 200w mono blocks for each channal, would be a tasty amp to say the least, still is an option if this lad over at DIT Audio doesnt pull hi finger out of his *** with the pa150 boards for the lm3886!

 

[adamau5]

soha would require a 15v CT dual secondaries. it pulls naff all current so 15va would be ample.

A mini v2 runs off batteries so may not be suitable.

200w per channel - sounds like you will have enough power! electricity bill may not be so nice though!.

 

[adamau5]

3hrs and £33 = point to point mini millet hybrid.

 

[MikeHunt79]

^ That looks rather good, how does it sound? Does it have a knob so you can adjust the amount of tube saturation? I'm a toob noob.

 

[adamau5]

sounds very good for the money. probably the best bang for buck amp you can build.

I have a enough parts to put together a kit if anyone is interested (at cost + postage). Only thing to bear in mind is i had some bits an bobs before hand (e.g caps).

no NFB pot (or tube saturation). This amp design is by Pete Millet, he has used a novel method for biasing the mosfets (on the big heatsinks) with the tube heaters. Its a simple circuit that works wonders.

 

[Kanifee]

Reporting back with my Shigaclone project, I must say im pretty impressed with it as well, at this very moment im listening to Jeff Waynes war of the worlds and its pretty special.

Hear is some pics for you all.
hear are some of the mods that have been made to the unit.

Hears some of the new caps in place, some blackgate and Elna caps.

Resistors in place on the digital out, had real problems untill i implemented these.

And hear is the new crystal in place, i want to try an external crystal as soon as i can as the right one is supposed to bring pretty special improvements to the unit

And hear is the unit on its test bed, im not going to construct the case untill i make them for the rest of the stuff im building, my amp and dac and pre amp so they all fit in together

Here is the new PSU ive built, i used a point to point as it saved space and blackgate caps i had to source from canada to save on money, over half price including delivery to what they would be hear..... crazy i know. i cant use this until i get my center tapped transformer though that should be next week, this is also supposed to make improvements to the unit!

 

[adamau5]

crickey! that is going to beast to case up. What are you going to use?

Also, are you using its own DAC, or using the ebay dac.

Have you listened to the ebay dac much? how does it sound.I ordered one last night, and read up about the mod to restore its 192 ability. The reason these are so cheap is a manufacturing fault limiting it to 48 khz. This is can be solved with a cut trace and a bridge.

 

[Kanifee]

Im bypassing the onboard DAC and using the spdif in on my audigy 2 at the moment, im buying a tansformer for the the DAC this week so i can get that up and running for some before and after tests of the mods that need done, if you have been reading up over at DIY audio youll have seen me, my user name is Kanifee over there.

Im going to be using heavily modified modushop cases for all my cases, all the same dimensions, with silk screened and engraved front and back panals in anodized black. I have in mind a couple of other little tweaks to make them look a bit more unique but ill have to see what i can get done when it comes to that.
I need all the projects complete before i can case them up and that means getting the pre amp built and amp after the DAC and cd player, Things will still be changed on the cd transport so that it sounds best with the DAC and vice versa.

Im not looking forword to buying the amp kits, if im forced to go for the Amp10's its going to be aroun £160 for the amp parts and toroids alone, if i manage to get the PA150 boards for the Lm3886 the budget is open ended really so that could be nasty aswell, as for a preamp all i know is i want a 24 step attenuator and an input selector, im not sure if im going active or passive though passive seems like a bit of a waist of a pre amp in such a system. Im also toying with the idea of buying a DAB Digital radio and gutting it to put into a matching case though i dont want the hifi to stack too high and im allready into 4 units a radio would make it 5 totaling around 19 inch's in height with feet attached.

And after all that ill need to upgrade my speakers from these modded eltax monitors, there decent speakers and i changed the drivers in them as i blew one, im hoping to make mt own but my woodwork skills are abismal so ll have to see, if not its a fair wedge on a pair fo speakers to pair with a 150-200 watt amp damn this hobby bleeds you dry

 

[adamau5]

nice -I use modushop. We are the envy of the americans being in the EU.

Out of interest are you using the german front panel express, or getting modushop to do the milling etc?

I ordered the dac with encapsulated transformer. I will probably build a usb > spdif, or see if i can use IS2 to feed the dac from my pc. I will chuck in some better output caps (probably wima mkp bypassed - dont know whats on the dac as standard.)

 

[Kanifee]

Im gonna use the german site, you get a lot more freedom to do what you want, it isnt cheap but i think it will really give the project a sleak pro look, im gonna try and incorporate a blue lighted theme into all the front bezels. The pre amp will get a blu lit surround around the volume knob and the poweramp will be a plain black bezel with a single blue LED in the center, ive allways thought that looked pretty cool, the CD transport Has a blue LCD read out once the 5v is hooked up and the Dac will have some sort of piece following trend with the rest. I also would like an integrated Ipod dock but im getting well ahead of my self with that

Standard caps on the Dac are pretty pants from all accounts, im opting for wima bypass caps and oscon as well though im gonna pick up some tantalum's as they are really cheap for what they are and should be good to experiment with. And try and get some Blackgates for the power supply section and power supply itself, the psu does come with rubycon caps but they arnt BG's.

 

[adamau5]

ipod docks are easy. I will dig out a link, you can buy the female docks for a couple of quid, then its just a case of some careful soldering (pins are small!)- I have built a few. You would need a source selector though.