Do It Yourself

Hi, Has anybody got a great idea for a really good power cable that's under about $50 in parts cost, including connectors? The new Woo needs a power cord. At the moment, it's attached to the wall with a spare 14/3 Belden. My past thoughts on power cords have been pretty basic - for-real adequately sized conductors and shield the living bejeezus out of it. I've had good luck with some nice star-quad plenum wire with the safety ground on the outside, a la the recipe on TakeFive Audio. I pulled one of those cords out of my living room system and tried it on the Woo. It was lovely. But nowadays everybody's into braiding everything. I've made some very nice soundin…

Has anyone ever looked at, or used these On Semi parts? Look interesting to me. (Mouser part numbers below): 863-MPSW56RLRAG 863-MPSA56RLRAG 863-MPSW06RLRAG 863-MPSA06RLRAG The "W" devices are rated to 1W @ 25C in free air.

I'd like to make an xlr (2 x 3-pin) to 1/4" female adaptor cable for use with my 4-channel balanced beta22. This is so I can try some headphones without having to re-terminate them first. Is it going to be safe to wire : left xlr pin2 signal to tip right xlr pin2 signal to ring left and right pin3 signals to shaft ?

For the moment I have the beta and the EHHA amps, two boards each but only one Sigma. Until I get another sigma they are going to share. The sigma has four outputs, enough for the boards. Now, if I want to run both amps together is there any reason not to? I can switch on the heaters before the amps to warm up the EHHA. Any problems so far? Not ideal but I'm not worried about ideal at this point, just functionality. There's also the option of running the sigma output pairs through switches to turn one or the other pair off. Any thoughts on the best and safest way to do this or is what I suggested first fine?

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?

So I am just about to start building an M3. I have several questions and was hoping to clear them up here. If these questions have already been answered feel free to point me to another site/thread. I think M3, M^3 and MMM are too short search terms but I got nada in thread titles. My plan is to build an M3 using the AD8610s, with adjustable gain. I would like to use switch-controlled digital potentiometers for both the gain and the volume, but I haven't finished designing that circuit yet (and I also haven't found a readout LCD w/ microcontroller mini board suitable yet) so in the meantime I am going with an RK27 for volume and a gain of 8. I only have low impeda…

Well as Ti said it "the cat is out of the bag" so I thought I'd put it here: AMB and MisterX are working on the y2, an add-on board to the y1 that adds ASRC, WM8741/2 DAC to the y1) There is a thread about it on HF's DIY forum. Link

I forgot to order the fusedrawer for a DD12.9111.1111 shurter IEC inlet. The part number I'm looking for is 4301.1405 Does anyone have one of these fusedrawers they don't need right now? If not is anyone placing an order with mouser soon that could order this one for me? The mouser part number is: 693-4301.1405 Thanks in advance, Manuel

Am I the only one to whom this is new? Parts Connexion

I have a strange question. I'm running to an issue paralleling four 2SK170/2SJ74 JFETs where the noise from the degeneration resistors is something I'd like to overcome. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a scheme where at most a single sources resistor is used (i.e. all the sources are tied together before this) and some sort of a a servo arrangement is used. I'm looking for a way to avoid super tightly matched devices as well. I understand the scheme used in the Xono and say the Vendetta phonostages, as well as a number of the Borbely designs, but these aren't exactly what I want. Feedback is acceptable as well.

just finished one of these at school. Soldering, Learn how to Solder Kit worked after the first try. no solder bridges. no bad contacts. no cold solders. gentleman who runs the e.e. lab guided me and got me started and said that i could take on a project that has a printed circuit board. as with all else, he said i will learn good practices as i make mistakes. i have started looking into a speaker rig. the drivers are fostex 206e (96db efficiency) so i figured a couple of watts will suffice. the listening volumes will be fairly low. for the 206e drivers, this amp seems to be thrown around on diyaudio a lot for reasons of synergy or what have you. Zen Triode…

For what is to become the ultimate headphone stand... http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/headstand1.jpg http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/headstand2.jpg I'm looking for more of the 2 piece tube clamps pictured. 1.5 inch diameter. These have to be a stock item somewhere, i just can't find out where.

Hello Board Im working on a shitty little amp that assuming the stars and plannets are in alignment will be at canjam. at the moment, not 1 part has been soldered but the casework is done and being painted.... Now that I have cursed my project by admitting that it exists: The case (a cheap "BUD box") that I am painting with hammer-tone paint, because it will (hopefully) mask some of my horrific screwups with the drill and could not ever look even close to as bad as a naked BUD box. I painted one corner of the top a little thicker than the rest, should I worry? Im going back for coat #2 in about 45 min... Thanks Ari

I recently sold my Stello DP200 to laxx, and upon taking delivery, he told me that there is a problem: the headphone jack does not work. He tells me that he feels no physical resistance when plugging the headphones in, and there is no volume. The Stello is supposed to mute the pre-amp outs when headphones are plugged in, but laxx tells me that even with phones plugged in, the pre-amps still work. My first thought is that in the shipping process, the headphone jack became dislodged from the chassis such that it no longer grips the headphone plug completely. Does this sound plausible?

My DAC has only one dual RCA output. I would like to use it with both of my speakers and headphones amp (but not at the same time), and don't want to disconnect and reconnect the RCA cables. If I add another dual RCA output by connecting them parallel to the existing RCA output. Would it be any problem?

Time to make some cables. I want to cover them in the soft nylon stuff. What sizes would I need for the following: 1) 4-conductor 22 or 24 AWG braid 2) Over regular Mogami Thanks!

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…

This might be of interest to some here: Audio Origami - ReWires I will try this project sometime in the next two months or so, after I have played enough with the Thorens I just got to start my 1st vinyl rig. Just wanted to throw this out there for those of you who are itching to try something new. I have also read up on the DIY Altmann TT, but I'm guessing that's been discussed here before: The Altmann DIY Turntable And then there is the HDD mixing turntable: HDDJ: Turning an old hard disk drive into a rotary input device Well, plenty of projects to choose from!

Hey guys, I need to put together a wallwart for a project I'm working on. Is there any place that sells empty wallwarts you can put your own traffo in? I'm looking to get a 24-36vac center-tapped output. Any suggestions on a plug with three contacts to use for it, also? -edit- found an empty shell and a suitable traffo at jameco. Any ideas on a plug?

Yes, I know I have it backwards, but that's intentional -- and the question. Is there a way to modify the ER4s to give it ER4p capability? Say perhaps by splicing it above the resistor and having two plugs, one of 100 ohms, the other of 27 ohms? Or perhaps by putting a resistor in parallel instead of in series? (Not sure why you would do this, unless you really didn't want to throw away that resistor.) And then it would be what, 37 ohms, right? Yes, I am looking at Fitz' ad.

What is it that generates a pop/crackle sound when a stepped attenuator traverses steps ? this is happening with my left channel goldpoint stereo volume attenuator, the matching right attennuator in the same amp is unafflicted by this odd effect. One differance I can see between the two attenuators is that the unaffected one has wires linking to chassis ground (xlr pin1) other wise they seem to be wired the same. left -pop/crackle right - no pop/crackle n.b. the loudness of the pop/crackle generated when traversing steps increases as the attenuator knob is turned further clockwise. While on a step both attenuators perform the same. The actual volum…

So my mostly completed Beta 22 arrives tomorrow and I'm taking the day off to see if I can get her finished. What does that mean to you lot I hear you say? Funny you should ask.. I'll need all hands on deck guiding me through the precarious operation to bring life to my baby. I'm still not sure what's connected and what's not or how much work is left to do so I'll need some guidance on how not to blow it up Stay tuned... tomorrow will bring pics and questions

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…

Hey guys, I ran the schematic of my moth to dsavistk and he offered some recommendations for a couple of places to upgrade the caps. Looking for 33uF 450V high quality cap, film for sure. They are cathode bypass caps. Right now there is a solen polypropylene in there, the only thing I could find which may be an improvement is the Obbligato film in oil cap, they have a 30uf and 70uF 630v. All of the really really nice film caps are around the 250v range, which I think might be risky in my amp as the schematic says for 450v, but the actual amount of voltage across that point is probably closer to 250. Also looking for a 220uF 500v cap upgrade as well that I beli…

So the optical in on my north star broke. The little plastic piece that swings up when you plug in the optical cable snapped off at the NYC Meet and I can't find it. So now when I plug in an optical cable, there's a lot of play in the jack. It works, but the cable can come loose very easily. What a stupid design. Has anyone had this problem before? Any suggestions how to fix it? In the alternative, if I decide to use the Coax input on the north star, I'd need something like the M-Audio transit to convert the optical out from my iMac, correct?