Do It Yourself

Does anyone have or know where I can find a board that would let me mount a single or side by side Amveco PC mount low profile toroidial transformers? I'm just looking for a board that would have AC in and out going to terminal blocks and allow the use of standoffs. Amveco PC mount low profile 50VA toroidial transformers https://talema.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheets/70000K-72400K.pdf If not, I'd gladly pay someone for their time to lay out a board for me. Something like the pic in here

I want to shoot the audio out of the USB port on my Apple Express instead of the optical out. You tell me how. And none of this "it can't be done" nonsense. Thank you for your assistance.

Hallo Thar, I was just wondering whether you guys think it would be worth it to build a Sigma 11 PSU for my M3 (currently I have teh steps). I know that the Sig11 can supply more current and has tighter regulation, but would it make an audible difference?

I find myself in need of a sub - not room shaking high level bass but responsive low end. I have seen a few really good options about but they are all big cubes which have zero aesthetic acceptance from my better half. I thought of placing a low profile unit below the media rack and found a 3 inch long throw ( xmax still limited at 5.5mm ) and a horn loaded design which in theory should produce decent bass 25-100Hz. Anyone have any experience with subwoofers? My instinct tells me I need max surface area with large excursion to reliably produce decent low end but with the trend of things getting smaller in the modern world, I am open to accept that technology has succ…

Could someone post how to do this, or a link?

I have a Nice 20" Craftsman D.P. I bought recently. So I'm drilling (butchering) a computer case presently and the tapered chuck spindle keeps dropping off! I cleaned it up real well and have seated it against a blcok of wood with some pressure. Fell out pretty easy. I retracted the chuck and pounded it in with a dead blow hammer. Didn't help. Then took a small masonry hammer and some wood and pounded the crap out of it I thought. Still fell out. What's the super secret way of wedging that gadget in there!

Someone, who will remain unnamed here, got me interested in building a Megatron I got quotes back from the fab houses. If we can get 10 sets we can get the cost per board down to just under $40 USD (plus shipping from me to the participant). The PCB is 228mm x 228mm and will be 2mm thick with 4oz copper. I did some research and the only obsolete/hard-to-get part is the 4 2SA1968 which Kevin confirmed can be replace with KSA1156 mounted backwards. The board also uses 2 2SC1815 or MPSW06. I have a stack of the 2SC1815 so I am happy to supply them to the GB participants that need them (no cost). Please respond here if you are interested. Thanks!

Anyone here have experience with one of these? Price is right, but likely too good to be true? https://volumio.org/product/allo-stepped-attenuator/

never mind

I've decided to get serious about learning electronics. Tangent suggests this: The Art of Electronics 2/eby Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill Cambridge University Press, 1989 1125 pages, hardcover ISBN 0-521-37095-7 Would you agree with this or would you suggest something else? I also plan on getting the Tube Amp text that Birgir recommends. I just need to find it again someplace in the DIY threads. Edit: Would it be "Valve Amplifiers, 4th Ed" by Morgan Jones Birgir? Or maybe "Building Valve Amplifiers" also by Morgan Jones?

I started this chat for us general wood monkeys in the hope of getting some good tips on finishing wood. I've managed to get my stuff to a decent level of smoothness and nicely sanded without too many blemishes but some woods have a honking big and deep grain. What is a good method of filling grain to get a very smooth surface without the filler looking artificial? I've tried wetting the wood to raise the grain and smooth it down, then using wet sanding to help fill the grain with it's own sawdust. That's not too bad on the finer grain woods, the coarser stuff is still problematic. I tried some various generic wood fillers with little success, so any hints as to what i…

Hi all, I'm going to do a board run for Dr Gilmore's latest projects (KGSSHV, Dynahi Rev A and DynaFET) so if anyone is interested, please sign up here. The KGSSHV will be the latest revision. Board set would be 2x amp boards and 1x PSU board. The amp boards are now mounted on side heatsinks. http://gilmore.chem..../kgsshvps8e.jpg http://gilmore.chem....gsshvampv7s.jpg The Balanced Dyhahi Rev A and DynaFET will share the same PSU. One PSU is enough but due to the symmetry, 2 would surely look better Board set would be 2x amp boards and 1/2x PSU board(s). http://gilmore.chem....u/dynahibal.jpg http://gilmore.chem....ynahifetbal.jpg http://gilmore.chem....…

I bought this Audio Note Kits HE-6 headphone amp and had it built by a well known Audio Note kit builder, digitalpete. The amp sounds great with planar headphones but I have a problem I need help with. The volume control has a terrible scratch noise when adjusting the volume while music is playing. It will also produce the scratchy noise when the volume control is even touched while music is playing. When nothing is playing the sound is there but barely audible. I emailed digitalpete and he wants me to ship the amp back to put in a new volume pot. In looking at the khozmo volume pot it looks like there are only 11 connections to solder and all are easily accessible so…

Has any one of you done something like this, accommodating a pair of RCAs and a pair of XLRs, with the appropriate switching for these? I know I'll get told to just use the Neutrik or whatever RCA->XLR adapters for this, but I was thinking about doing up a PCB with a pair of something like the Neutrik NC3MAV/FAV and a pair of RCAs. Has anyone ever used the vertical Vampire RCAs (pcb2f/s)? They don't list any dimensions or PCB layout for these, but just wondering height-wise if these could work well? I had thought I would probably use relay switching instead of a mechanical switch, as the 4PDT are a PITA to wire up, but I suppose just going into a board with c…

Does anyone have measured dimensions for the Cardas GRFA DBL RCA jacks? I am trying to do a PCB and case layout, and Cardas doesn't give quite enough information away to actually accomplish this. Even better, anyone have an Eagle part library for these? Drawings for an alternative part from another manufacturer (Vampire?) that is of decent quality would be fine, too.

Here a video guide I made on how to make a LOD, hope it will be of some help to some.

I'm modding an Adcom CD player for a member here, installing a pair of Colin's I/V boards (player is balanced), and am debating on how and where to connect ground on these to the main board and power. These boards have on-board shunt regulators, so I am tapping power from the main filter caps right after the rectifiers for the 2 +/-15V power supplies for the analog section on the main board. AFAIK, it is usually not a good idea to connect more than 1 ground per board. The options I see are: Ground the boards through the power connector Ground the input of the boards Ground the output of the boards Currently, I am leaning towards #1, thinking that noise from the shunt r…

Last year I built a pair of balanced cables to go between my Theta Pre and Classe amp. After they broke in, I was really surprised how good they sounded. I used DH Labs Pro Studio and a set of Neutrik connectors. The ground is connected at both ends. I've read that sometimes floating the ground is not a bad idea. I now realize that I could probably live with this cable for a while. Yeah, I like it! I also need to move my gear from it's current location (in between the speakers) to it's new home, in a rack along the wall and off of the damned floor. New rack is in the works. Anyway, I ordered a nice 50 foot section of DH Labs Pro Studio from Parts Connexi…

Standalone HDCD decoder? digital in and out, nothing fancy. PMD100 chip inside. Any thoughts? Maybe even an upsampler too as another function...

Is it too ambitious of a beginner project to try and do like, a BantamDAC and Mini^3 or Pimeta in a single enclosure? Note that my experience with casework and surface mount soldering is zero, not even having made either standalone. I think the casework is going to be the hardest part of this, based on what I've read from past DIY stuff, and I guess the question boils down to "is the casework for two-in-one a bad idea to do before doing a single?" if I'm not mistaken.

Yet Another XLR Question... Building my first balanced amp, some connection questions: What do you do with the shield? Reading the RANE app notes seems not appropriate for parts of this, since I am using 4-pin XLR, and the 3-pin standard has pin 1 as ground. I am reworking the previous 4-conductore rewiring my phones right now, and chopped the previously wired 1/4" plug cable part way to wire in a 4-pin female/4-pin male (the male will be the main phone connector into a 4-pin female on the amp), turning this cable portion into an adapter for when I want to use the phones from an SE amp. The main cable terminates at the phones in a 4-pin mini XLR, in which the …

Has anyone built this balanced beast and tried it out?

I have been using https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_iJFfZStuVhSE5nOHBVdTByR1k to access the stax gerber files for sometime but when i tried to today the folder shows up for literally a second in my web browser and then automatically redirects to the google drive trash folder and the web page freezes up with 100% cpu usage for the thread. I can access the schematics and spec sheets google drive folder without issue. I get the same behaviour with both google chrome and firefox. i don't know who to pm directly about the google drive issue so im making this general post in the hopes someone could investigate fix the issue. regards James

I'm quite excited about the new updates regarding the Mini? portable amplifier. http://headwize.com/ubb/showpage.php?fnum=3&tid=6936 Specs and technicalities aside (which appear positive), I'm quite surprised by the size of the amplifier. Quite small and cute if you ask me.

Twisted Pear Audio (Russ and I) are holding a raffle to raise money for Doctors Without Borders relief work in Haiti. I have set up a page on our site here: Relief Raffle for Haiti The Grand Prize for the raffle is a complete kits to build a Buffalo II-based digital preamp. This consists of a BuffaloII module, IVY-II I/V Stage, Placid power supply kits for both, an S/PDIF Mux kit, a Volumite Kit for the BuffaloII, and a pair of transformers. We are also giving away the following runner-up prizes: An Opus S/PDIF (or USB) Dual-Mono DAC Combination A COD S/PDIF (or USB) Dual-Mono DAC Combination A Ventus Headphone Amp Kit Each raffle ticket is $10. 100…