Do It Yourself

So I have a Bijou built by dBel84 (Don) and am curious about the negative feedback. With the pot turned all the way down (7 oclock) it seems to have no negative feedback and is perfect for my AKG 340's . As you turn the pot clockwise you get less and less sound. Am I supposed to turn the negative feedback up when using Grado's and Ultrasones ( I know everybody at head-case loves Ultrasones) If I turn it up too much it seems to loose a lot of the lushness of the amp. I am still trying to figure out the best spot for my low impendence phones. Anybody got any advice? Chris

Has anyone tried to better this thing ? Any ideas?

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 …

Kevin, While surfing I came upon these instructions for Balanced Power Transformers. http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/catch2.htm I was wondering what your thoughts were on his directions? I also am curious about his comments about Toroidal vs I-E and how I shouldn?t have used a Toroidal. His Comments Thanks Yikes

Bought a piece of Rosewood and churned out a couple of woodies. It is an amazing specimen as far as wood goes and I hope to use it again in the future; it had a brilliant graining that shines up pretty nicely if I do say so myself. The cups on the left are a commissioned SR225 woody, and the big 'un on the right is my D2000 that some of you might have seen over on the other site. Hope to try out Cocobolo for my next project, just not looking forward to the cost :/.

Is there a general preference?

Hi folks, my friend bought a power amp from a small manufacturer locally, it's single ended, non-feedback, discrete stuff, two big toroidal trannies inside (450W each), diamond output stage, using 6 pair of 2SC5200/2SA1943, output power is about 100w @ 8ohm, here's the FFT result they send us, gosh, there're lot of distortion between 90 - 900Hz compared with 1k - 20kHz (but, there's still a peak at 2kHz), what reasons do you guys think that may course these distortion? How do we tweak it to make it lower distorted in those area?

could anyone grab a few meters of surgical silk for me? I'd like to use it as a turntable belt... I know there are doctors in the audience

Hello, I'm looking to build a gamma2 DAC, but shipping costs from all the different vendors makes it very expensive here in europe. If anyone is getting parts for this soon, would it be possible to order double the parts and ship them to me? I'd be very thankful for this! Regards, Manuel

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

My HD-600 is one of my workhorses and I love them. Lately I have been having trouble with the right channel going in and out. I think it might be a bad contact with the wire but I am not sure. Any suggestions or anyone willing to take a look at them for me?

These caps are extremely transparent in the many uses I did. Both high voltage 600 and 1000 volts I’ve used them in dc blocking and seem to have a neutral sound has anyone tried these in Amps and pre amps I’m curious to know what others think I’m not a fan of anything oil as I feel they color the sound. In addition in stat amp builds 400 vdc seems on the edge of max range why don’t builders use 1000 vdc rated caps ? ABD0000C255.pdf

I don't know what's going on, but my solder just isn't flowing. It's Wonder Solder 0.031" and I tried every temperature from 390F to 800F, it melts but just blobs on the iron and stuff. I was able to desolder some previously connected wires, but I can't tin my new ones. I'm thinking the solder is bad (I bought this new since I used up the last batch of Wonder Solder I had is used up) but any other insight is appreciated. I'd really like to get going on these projects I've had on hold for too long.

http://korgnutube.com/en/ SMD tube?

after looking at swt61's thread on his custom TT i've decided that's my next project. i'm a begginer audiophile with woodworking experience. what components do i need to make a turntable? how much will it cost for a decent/beginner TT build and how much will an even more decent one cost? what are some options? is it just motor, bearing and platter, and arm that i need? i've got wood. andreu

33 Step 100K Stereo Volume Control tube Preamplifier - eBay (item 150423738955 end time Apr-13-10 19:23:07 PDT) No personal investment, but Craig wanted to know so I thought I'd ask

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?

Anyone here built a Faraday cage? Strikes me as pretty easy. I've got some sort of RF source in my vicinity here at work, and am tempted to build one for my audio equipment. Basically, it needs to be (a) made of conducting metal, ( continuous (all conducting materials must touch each other) and © ventilated (so heat doesn't build up). Does it need to be grounded? I am not sure I understand why if it does.

Any recommendations for one, used and cheap preferably? (I know, non-HC). I was looking at a couple of B&K 4011s or maybe an HP3311a? Other? Or am I better off using a PC with my mAudio box and a program (can't remember which one I have, but it isn't bad).

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?

Hey everyone, I am in the process of developing a headphone for the Brazilian market, and thought I could use some help of the many knowledgeable people here, especially regarding the acoustics. Some background info on it: it's not going to be a high-end headphone, but one that has style, nicer choice of materials and decent sound quality, compatible with the $150-200 price that we hope to sell it for when it's done. I think something like an M50 but more stylish and with better materials would be a good analogy for what we're trying to achieve. I'm not sure it's possible, but that's our goal. The problem is that we're just a group of 4 people, with no enginee…

Ok, Not exactly a huge mod but it's made a huge change to how they sound and they sound ferkin' awesome. I imagine it's somewhere between the SR-Lambda and SR-Sigma and definately has many of the Sigma qualities I've read about with, seemingly, none of the drawbacks. Deeper well rounded bass, smoother highs and a very nice midsection. The soundstage now rivals the K1000 at the angle I normally listen at. Despite the extra distance from the ears there's very little drop in volume and they go really loud in a spectacularly full way. I lined the inside with felt to dampen reflections and used very strong, pliable mounting tape to fix the wedges in place. The seal is perf…

I am looking for a nice metal enclosure for a summer tube amp project. The requirements: Size: Approx 12 X 12 X 3. This is a bit flexible, and it can be oddlong as well. Material: Metal Color: I would prefer black Cost: I'd like to keep it about $50-$75. more toward the low end, though.

Colors Sovietized for effect * this should be in DIY forum

One of the tweakier things I've done. My twin brother is back in the states for a month and brought a couple of pairs of KZ ZS-6s with him that he has had for awhile. He had previously talked me into buying a pair of KZ ZS-10s, but I found them unlistenable due to their excessive high end. A few months ago, I had run across a post on diyhifi from Thorsten Loech (aka, Kuei Yang Wang) regarding some mods he had done to these. These are apparently a clone (looks-wise) of Campfire Audio Andromedas, which he apparently liked. Patrick (EUVL) on diyaudio also did this and seemed to like them, so WTF. Like I need something else to do right now. I sent a link to this to my brother…