Do It Yourself

Please. Suggestions for a balanced SS amp to power LCD's. B22 seems to be the only one I can find. Thanks!

Anyone knows a source for Sanyo Oscon capacitors (SMD type) in the US who sells to individuals? So far I found Newark/Farnell (very expensive because of 15$ for shipping from UK) and BD Enterprise (who do not have in stock, what I need). Any other US retailers?

So, I had a bit of fun last night and experimented with stacking a small (valued) cap with a large valued cap to get extra WVDC capacity from the two caps in series. Works like a champ and it looks that my little psu scales up quite nicely. Of course, now I see where the danger lies, in that the sleeve of one capacitor can be near lethal to touch. Also, unequal values seemed to work better than a pair of equal values, which kinda makes sense. So, I started thinking... Would just strapping a pair of HV supplies, say two 400v supplies to make a single 800v supply be a better approach (or four 400v supplies to make a +- 800v supply, etc.) This way I can use 500v caps and …

I recently got a Nugget B22 that had been around so I gave it a good tightening and put it to work. Sounds great no issues there. However I have noticed that like the consumer PC speakers I have at work, it picks up Blackberry traffic and passes it through to the headphone. Has never happened to my KGSS in the four years I've had it. So the question. What causes that and is there any way to fix it?

as most of us know that beats studios require batteries to properly work. i got my hand on a pair of demo/Retail version of beats studios. these headphones arent wired to have batteries placed in them and the audio input ccable is hard wired to avoid theft. i got a good deal on these, with a spliced cable, what im trying to do here is wire them up so i can use them. This picture shows what the wires look like once stripped of the insulation. two wires one copper and one copper braided with a blue wire. inside the copper braided wire are two wires, one black and one blie, my guess is that these are for the external power source the green and red wires were wrapped i…

I wasn't really sure where to post this, a friend at work has a set of K701's whose cable has apparently crapped out, can anyone offer any advice on who he might contact to see about getting them recabled at a reasonable price?

Hello My little amplifier for my Stax headphones. First stage is based on ECC82. One triode per channel as cathodyne phase inverter. The second stage is 6N1P-EW with CCS, and power stage is with E80CC with CCS too. It was designed to work with my PC to drive Lambda Pro. So output voltage is not so big 308 V peak-peak, but it is enough for Lambda Pro.

Sorry to start a new topic on this, but I thought if I posted it on a previous thread it would get lost. The issue with the original power supply was that it was noisy at times. I had originally measured < 2 mV power supply noise, and 3 - 5 mV noise at the amp outputs. But on re-measuring, the power supply noise was > 5 mV with the amp output noise measuring around 50 mV. In fact, the noise measured before and after the regulator was similar. Thinking the regulator was noisy, it was rebuilt with new devices, without improvement. Since the current source (CCS) in the positive supply line should block noise from the raw positive supply, the likely …

In the past I've liked Neutrik's connectors best for RCA, but I haven't tried anything more boutique, yet. When it comes to binding posts, I'm pretty clueless on what is quality and what isn't. What is everyones' favorites?

Hey gang- When I bought my Hagerman Bugle a while back, Jim set the gain high so it would work with the DL-103. While the sound was excellent, I found there was too much hiss present in my setup, and went to a SUT + MM phono combo. Today I was looking at the Bugle and thinking it would be nice to get the gain lowered so that I could run it from my SUT and compare it to my Bottlehead Seduction. Can any friendly DIYer give me a rough idea of what would have to be done to get the gain on this sucker back down to stock levels?

I was looking around for something to bling my tubes around the base on the casework and found a nice and cheap way to do it for those little amps like the Starving student and CTH, EHHA and others with wee tubes. Looking around in Lowes hardware stores I found these solid brass Brainerd door viewers: If you unscrew the ends you end up with a pair of brass surrounds. One end fits the CTH and Ehha size tubes and the other fits the Starving student tubes so you'll need to buy two viewers to get a matching pair @ $7 or so each. When added to the case, you get this nice bling surround. They are pretty deep as you can see so you may need to trim them down depe…

I just bought a 1lb reel of Kester 245 solder online and the date of manufacture is 11/30/04. The website says that their leaded solder 'goes off' after 3 years. Given this is almost 6 years old, should I return it or not worry about it and just use it? Slightly reluctant to return it as Kester is not so easy to get locally here in the UK and I wanted to buy a decent/premium product for my first forays into serious (non-disastrous) soldering.

I got my Buffalo DAC yesterday. I'm having a few problems with the IVY stage, but when I've had it working correctly it sounds flippin' sweet. I do wonder, though, if I can do better for an output stage. Of course, there's the zapfilter, but I imagine using some nice transformers for the I/V conversion or maybe some autoformers would be pretty tops. Anyone have any experience on best sounding method for I/V conversion? Tubes? Opamps? Transformers? Simple resistor (and differences between resistor brands)?

Anyone have a LM337T they could pop into an envelope and send to me? Hate to place and order for a $.50 part with $10 shipping.

I have a spare cable for the Omega 2, which had broken close to an end to the phone, and I would like to make an extension cable with it. I also have a spare Pro bias female connector, which I had taken out of my SRM-727A when adding a normal bias out on it. I was wondering, how difficult would it be to use such connector on the spare cable, to make the extension cable I need? Should I use any particular care (with solder, for example) on it? Will it supposedly sound as good as the Stax 'official' one? Thank you!

I have several OPA627 and OPA637 in 8 pin dip. Some I ordered from digikey, some from ebay that could've been digikey samples and some from ebay that aren't. The problem is I acquired some when there were some fakes going around. I didn't separate one order from another and put them all together. I'm sure some are real and some are fake but is there a definitive way to tell?

Anyone know anything about these? How would these compare to Amb's regs, or even the micro GRLV? Someone asked me about them. I'm normally very leery of the shit that Partsconnexion sells (Bybee? Burson? etc.). https://www.partsconnexion.com/BELLSPX17-85570.html https://www.partsconnexion.com/BELLSPX79-85599.html

Toying with the idea for my Dynamite. Anyone hear the Goldpoint smd design vs the Dact? How about feel? Just put in a 4-ch Alps blue velvet pot, to replace a cheapo I had. I also put in pre-attenuation resistors cause I had the old pot turned to almost off for the levels to be right. Much better.

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…

Hi guys I opened my 313 to see what was needed and as you know there are two sets of RCA inputs but one is supposed to be a "Tape out" They are paralleled and have two little resistors between the connectors. What are these for? can anyone post a pic if they rewired to better chasis mount RCA inputs? Thanks

Hey all, I am planning to re-case my Buffalo DAC using a 2U 300mm deep Pesante case from the HiFi2000 case group buy that is going on. For this case I was going to get some custom panels made from Front Panel Express or Cam Expert. Being my first set of custom panels, I am opening my designs up to any and all criticism for the cosmetic aspects...... and if anybody is really bored and has the time, some super-quick checks that I haven't borked any measurements (particularly for the mounting holes) would be greatly appreciated. Firstly, what the design is going to entail...... I will be buying the SPDIF Mux from Twisted Pear. This includes a 4 position switch detailed…

Im interested in finding out as much about acoustic tubes and pipes as possible and so will be posting key and relevant information right here. I would appreciate any contributions around: -Who were the early manufacturers of piped sound translation apperatus, when did they first come out? -Models names and pictures? -Does anyone own a pair of headphones that make use of an acoustic tube, and are they any good?- whats your call on the worth of the tube?, will it go on... Cheers -Louis

It seems you bastards have finally led me to a trail of misery and pain and I feel I should repay you with dumb questions. I plan on this thread growing as my dumbness expands into more areas. I'll start with one question that's been bugging me for a little while.. Resistors. Does the power rating matter as long as they're not underrated for any particular circuit? I've seen 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 watt and so on. Does it matter as far as performance/sound goes?

DIY Gods, I'm trying to find out if there are any good but not excessively expensive 3-way rotary speaker output selector switches available that any of you DIYers may know about. I'll also want a regular 3-way rotary input selector switch but have no idea which are decent and which are crap. My plan is to eventually integrate a Stax transformer, headphone transformer and regular speaker outs in an amp and want to have a nice big selector knob for them. That way I can have one integrated amp that can run anything I'm ever likely to own and have ample power to drive any and all difficult loads. Any recommendations?

I see that Panavises are highly recommended by a number of you. What base/head combination would you suggest as an initial purchase? The circuit board holder looks great, but there doesn't seem to be much expandability. I was thinking the model 350 (tray base, wide jaws) might be a better option because it can take a wire holder. Do the wide jaws work well for PCBs? Is the soldering station useful? Thanks for suggestions!