Do It Yourself

So it turns out that the lme49830 is pretty much a dynafet on a chip, with diamond buffers driving the fets. SO... combine with the semelab-tt lateral audio mosfets, and the result is something super sweet, and easy to build, about $50 in parts per channel. Combine 4 channels with my balanced preamp, and have one serious kickass thing guaranteed to drive anything, he6's and k1000's included. At about 2 orders of magnitude less distortion than that other thing. And more than 10 times the available output current. at... 20hz to 20khz... .1mw .05% thd (most of which is noise) 1mw .01% thd 100mw .005% thd 1w .0003% thd many watts <.0001% thd …

Does anyone happen to know a good place to get the parts to build one? Wanted to make one for my iPod Touch Thanks!

OK, so I need to replace a resistor on one of my ESL-63s so it matches up with the one Kent repaired. Kent sent me very detailed instructions that I think I'll be able to follow. Basically I have to unsolder a wire, unsolder a resistor, install the new resistor and resolder the wire. The rest is just disassembly that can be done with a screwdriver. My screwdriver skillset is pretty strong so I think I'm OK there. I'm looking for suggestions for a soldering iron. Currently the resistor swap is the only task on my DIY schedule. To be honest I doubt I'll be constructing CMoys anytime soon, but who knows? So I don't need the best iron ever but I want to avoid buying ju…

As stated in title, if I can build an interconnect, can I make a power cable? Anything special I need to know so that I don't burst into flames?

So I have done a couple of soldering projects and both of them have not turned out so great. Just wondering if there is a good online guide or some place I can look to get some decent tips. I know a lot of it just has to do with practice, but I feel as though I am missing out on a lot of the subtle little things that will make soldering in general a lot easier on me. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I'v decided to build a balaced M3 and I would like to see how others may have implmemented swithchable gain and different component choices. Thanks

Wasn't sure about putting this in the DIY or speaker forum, I suspect that nobody much minds anyway. I'm keen to put together a pair of big silly horns to go with my big silly stats. The obvious go-to options are the J-Low and the Kleinhorn, but tragically the Kleinhorn is a couple of inches too tall to fit in my room (and nothing like as simple to glue together). The standard J-Low is *small* enough to be built and then moved into the room through the door in one piece. But! I'm tempted by the notion of scaling the build up bigger and assembling it in the room (full height of an MDF sheet is 8 feet and my ceiling is about 9.5). Back of the envelope maths tells me that…

Could someone point me to a schematic for re-termination of a Jade with a Stax Pro plug? Thanks, Jim

I was impressed to see the great work done on these two sets of Stax Lambda Pro drives by Jazz over at Head Fi that I thought that his post should be duplicated here for members to see. Don't know how many times I played with my Lambda phones on my head to see if I could simulate Sigma style sound. Kudos to Jazz for two jobs well done. See JaZZ's custom made Stax Phones here...Homemade Headphones? - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio Jazz's comments below..... The idea of making my own housings for Stax drivers was born out of my experience with the Lambda and the Sigma Pro. Whereas the Lambda sounded too shrill (with the SRM-1 [?]) -- and …

Recently I built a set of 5 strand braid of 18 gauge Jena cryo treated wire for XLR interconnects. They sound great in my system. I have seen references that the Jena wire is considered pricey ($5 ft.) for copper cable. I am wondering is there is a less expensive alternative that still maintains the quality of the Jena wire. I would most like to hear from members who have listened to the Jena as well as any recommended alternatives. But if that is too restrictive, then comments on wire you have personal experience with is fine. I'd rather that the discussion focus on the sound quality of the various cables and bypass discussion of any other recent controversies wit…

Well, it took me a bit longer than I expected, but I finally finished my second TNT Flexy-based rack, this time going for a Double Flexy. Some pics, and as usual, they're pretty bad. I may try to take better pics during the day with better lighting. Few things to note after building two racks based on TNT Flexy design- At least in my area, Home Depot carries better quality MDF than Lowes. Lowes do, however, carry bigger sheet of MDF, making it cheaper (and easier) if you need to get many shelves, which I did for the Double Flexy. Having built both 4-legs and 3-legs version, 3-legs version is much easier to build. Also, 3-legs version is so much easier to…

This amp (plus the matching tuner and a Sony reel to teel) has been sitting at my parents house for as long as I can remember, completely untouched. I was finally curious enough to open it up recently and it is really something special in a vintage kind of way, a germanium SS amp with output transformers. I'm not sure how old this is but late 60's would be a good guess. Now it is about the same size as the larger Stax amps so no powerhouse but I'm a bit interested in hearing it. So here is what it looks like on the inside: Here is the back panel, DIN connectors everywhere plus the output transistors: It is a pretty neat layout and the assembly is bri…

I've seen posts here and there commenting on the difficulty of recabling the K1000, and it's definitely not something a novice DIYer should attempt, but I think most of the fear and confusion over recabling them comes from their unusual construction and lack of information regarding safe disassembly. I hope this guide will help clear up the process for advanced DIYers who are already comfortable recabling normal headphones, but wary about working on the K1000. A few notes before I begin... You should have your cable already built and ready to go before starting disassembly, so the K1000 is not left in a partially disassembled state, and complete the work on one ears…

This is something I've been playing with for a while, in short, I can change my K340 from sealed to vented so I have more range for tuning the bass. This picture shows how it's done. Sealed the back with a piece of plastic and taped it in good with electrical tape, but first I put a couple holes in it which I've highlighted with the arrows. How does it work? Well, you can plug one, both, or none of the holes with a small piece of blu-tack, and that'll change how the bass sounds. With the holes open there's more bass but it isn't as tight, you get a bass hump but it doesn't really go any deeper. Close up both holes and the bass gets tight, maybe a bit too tight so i…

Uh yeah, so I'm failing pretty hard at figuring out why the right channel doesn't make sound. I checked the DCR from each tab of the dynamic driver (which is hooked up to the electret, yes I did mod them so it's not run through the electret into the dynamic driver anymore) and it measures correctly, around 330 ohms. Measured from driver tab to tip/ring and it measures the same. The hell am I doing wrong here? I resoldered the tabs just to make sure, still to no avail, and it's always the right channel, and not the left.

I am moving Kerry's mini GRHV\GRLV GB discussion to its dedicated thread here. I also included JoaMat's mini T2 here to see if we have enough interest for a GB. The table will be updated periodically as more people participate. Apologize if I missed someone or something - just let me know so I can correct the data. I put down one set for those that have not decided on the number of sets they want. The plan is to have assembled GRHVxxx boards, rest of boards will be PCB only. See discussions on the PS in this thread. mini T2 build discussion in this thread. Construction notes: R3 and R2 determine the regulated voltage for GRLV. The …

Hi All: This is the build thread for the Kerry design PSU. I posted BOM and schematic with Kerry's permission here and will be posting more information including photos of my test build. My test build use the partially-assembled GRHV boards. I soldered in the the pass transistor and the resistors to set up my desired output voltage. The voltages, timer all tested as expected without load. Fire up your soldering irons and happy building! GRHVBase-v2-production.pdf GRHVBase-BOM - V2 production.xlsx

Hope you guys don't mind, but I'm taking the liberty to collect some info, links etc. here. 900V floating supplies 350V/us the cole slew (couldn't resist) seems to be happening in bits and pieces in multiple threads on multiple forums and there are some implementation issues which seem to be worth discussing...namely fitting all of this somewhat daunting amplifier into one case. I guess at some point Kevin decided to split the input and output stages- output board output schematic The output stage features the floating supply floating supply fboard floating supply schematic the input/driver board As of today the aim is to fit this all in …

Can't seem to find any info or examples of these in use, but someone here must have tried them. I have found that buffers on the output of a Muses electronic volume control works very well and had good results with Sjöström Audio diamond buffers but Kevin's little PCB's might be even more compact. Can anyone remember a thread or post where these were introduced? They are a very simple circuit and could possibly do with some extra PSRR with caps right on the power pins, they are so compact I have found a neat way to stack them, in the pics below is a quad channel balanced stack, all the PBCs are connected through the power pins, leaving the i/o's separate. E…

Now that the PCBs are finding their ways to us -Balanced Dynahi Builders-, I think that it's time for starting a build discussion thread for this beloved amplifier. The purpose of this thread is to create a place for builders to discuss all topics related to the build of this amp (parts, constructions, troubleshooting...), to share experiences and to consolidate the information and discussions about this project. Schematics of the Balanced Dynahi and the associated Power Supply by KG. Background information about the original KG Dynahi can be found here. Based on the preliminary BOM posted by Lil Knight earlier, an updated version for the Dynahi and the assoc…

Anyone have CFA3, GRLV, or headphone protector boards available for sale? Thanks!

I can't seem to find it as google returns no results from possible matches from this site, but I do remember somebody (think Kevin himself) discussing and posting a schematic of an updated mod to the SRM-323S to increase the output power to 450v, would be great if somebody or Kevin himself chimed in with the pdf and what needs to be removed and added in place in the 323S for MOAR powah. I've got a spare 323S lying around so want to give it a go. cheers

Seems like there have been a few new issues with the shunt psu and wasn't known prior to the group buy going through so I am going to be ordering boards for the KGBH PSU (ordering from pcbnet.com). If you would like a PSU board please let me know and I will start a list. Files that will be submitted are below: KGBH PSU Board: http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/boards/kgbhpsu2.zip LIST: jose: 2 psu JK47: 1 psu gwrskien: 2 psu n3rdling: 4 psu chiguy: 1 psu No_One411: 2 psu Knerian: 1 psu Arthrimus: 1 psu Wokstarr26: 2 psu VelvetX: 1 psu …

I have the boards from Justin (KGSS and BH power supply). I'm having some trouble locating a BOM for both, a circuit diagram and a parts overlay image. So far, all I can find is this: http://gilmore2.chem.northwestern.edu/projects/showfile.php?file=gilmore2_prj.htm Any kind souls care to point me in the right direction?

Schematics and photos attached! I got my belated Christmas present from Justin the other day, a lovely KGSS amp. Finally I got to hear my new Stax 007 Mk2 (Omega 2) in all their glory. Knowing that I was going to install my own Goldpoint 1 dB/step attenuators, and a Left to mono switch (to check headphone balance), I asked Justin to agree to construct a KGSS without wiring the input connections to the back panel or installing a volume control (yes, he did test and burn in the board). Leaving me with some fun to do on my own! The first thing I discovered is that the KGSS is extremely sensitive. I judged it has at least 15 dB too much extra gain, even with consumer (nomi…