Do It Yourself

We have lots of info on good parts, but I can't seem to find good tools. I don't mean multimeters and soldering irons, I mean the guys that do the hard work but go unnoticed, like helping hands and wire strippers. In my experience, the standard helping hands thing from PartsExpress is a little flimsier than I'd like, and I don't know how to determine a good wire stripper since I only have the one from a group buy with not enough sizes. Feel free to throw in whatever cool tools you like too, because what is a man without his tools?

Someone has emailed me looking for someone to build a regulated 12v power supply that will work in france, along with the cable to make an apogee AD500 work from it. I can provide contact information, etc.

Interesting thread that has popped up from some recent controversy in Stereophile surround the Halco amps. A few heavy-weights are in on this discussion, so it should be interesting! http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1404200

with that video of a home made tube going round these days... (and it turns out that guy was someone i worked with back in the midwest hifi days 30 years ago) I figured i would show a picture of a tube i made by hand in 1976 (at zenith) Has a couple of bugs in it. (actually a bug and a butterfly) http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/tube1.jpg http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/tube2.jpg Proving without a doubt that i was nuttier, longer than just about anyone. (made from picture tube necks)

Anyone willing to make a Xhadow XLR chassis mount for me ? I am thinking of an aluminium plate (the depth of a gender modules' thread), A threaded tunnel in its? centre to accept the gender module and two or more bolt/screw holes near the edge to allow attachment to a chassis. a disassembled XLR connector is shown http://www.takefiveaudio.com/mall/images/zoom/601_2.jpg the shiny piece with the white core and gold screws in the back of it is a gender module. If anyone spots a design flaw please point it out. I?ve e-mailed Chris Sommovigo at Xhadow and the edited highlights of his reply were : I?d like to get 4 of these mounts so I can have Xhadow XLR c…

scroll down for video

Im making this for my friend who is deaf in one ear. Its my first time making one of these and i would like to confirm that the wiring would be as follows IL1 IL2 IG IR1 IR2 on the input side then on the output side would be OL1 OR1 OG OL2 OR2? Sorry to ask such a newbie question but i would really like to make this work for him so that he can enjoy good music.

I did a front panel and i want to order a case with it. I opened the order program and selected the Housing Profile 1. It only allows me to define the length. Does that mean FPE will follow the width and height of my front panel? Is that the true price of the casing? Anyone tell me how to get the case? I'm exploring my options. I have lots of solid wood and i was thinking of casing my b22 with it but im worried about the heat dissipation. I've been putting the casework off for a long time and i want to finish it before the bijou comes.

Has anyone had any experiences with the Furutech FP-682 or FP-681 http://www.thecableco.com/product.php?id=4201 I'm wondering whether the rhodium or gold version of these are any improvement over the Neutrik or Switchcraft alternatives. This is me window shopping connectors for a balanced Beta22.

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

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…

So this is the time of the year from thanksgiving to new years where i have the time to do extraordinary projects. This year is no exception. So i delivered the hydrogen torch preamp prototype to a person in chicago that happens to own a ctc blowtorch with great success. (hearafter just refered to as just hydrogen)(a hydrogen torch is at least twice the temperature of a blowtorch) But this year i wanted to do something extremely over the top just for me. And while it is not done yet, enough of it is done for a couple of pictures. So I hereby present the $5000 hammer. (in fact its going to cost way more than that) http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/hammer1…

I'm venturing into cable making and I've found sources for everything I need, except good quality copper wire. What should I look for? Thanks in advance! .

http://cgi.ebay.com/OLD-Fluke-407DR-Plate-Filament-Rack-Tube-Power-Supply_W0QQitemZ160184703511QQihZ006QQcategoryZ58287QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem If you have room for this thing...

Have any of you that have the IM716, or took advantage of the Buy dot com deal, removed the volume pod and added resistors? The other site has a thread on this but thought I check here as well. I just got in a pair and also have a few resistors hanging around; although, all I have are 75 ohm jobbies from KSC-35 mod craziness. Other than getting rid of the somewhat sizeable pod holding the switch and volume pot, anyone find it worth the effort?

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?

Well I traded for a pair of ALO jenna cable rewired 701s and of course the left channel is cutting out on me at the earcup. I have a 4 conductor extension that highflyin9 did for me a while back that is totally transparent to me so I thought I would use that cable to rewire these. Ken did a second entry so I am all set up to attempt to wire them balanced but I can't seem to be able to get into the earcup has anyone done these yet. I would stick with the jenna wire but it is all of 5 feet and I need a min of 10ft any help would be appreciated

the output on my Zhaolu is too high. I have had some issues with it in the past, but never that bad. However with my two most recent purchases, a Marantz Sr7001 receiver and a MPX3 SLAM I am running into problems. The Marantz's Peak light shows and the sound gets distorted at times because it can't handle the inputs and I can't turn the volume up past 7 o'clock on my mpx3. I've considered getting some of those RCA adapters to reduce gain by 3db or 6db, but I realize that is not an ideal fix. So does anyone have any experience with the Zhaolu 1.3? Can I change the gain on it?

just curious, has anyone tried using other tubes in the Blue Hawaii than the 6CA7/EL34? I ended up with a set of boards, and was looking at some datasheets over the weekend. I started looking at the 6BG6GE, 3D21A/WB/7403, 12E1, EL360, 6146, etc.... I started looking more at the 3D21A, but noted that the one major concern is that the transconductance is about half that of the EL34 which means that the gain will probably be about 6dB lower than the EL34, and depending on headroom in the cathode drive circuit this could result in significantly higher distortion. (Also, I might not get enough voltage swing without making other changes that would raise the source impedance …

Do-it-yourself-ers and MOTs: If someone had a mid-fi device that you knew nothing about, what would be your first recommendation? I'm fond of my X-Tone, but suspect it has cheap op-amps and/or caps in there -- any recommendations? I also have a MF X-24K that I suspect could be better. For that matter, I have a whole slew of X-tube stuff -- X-Pre, X-CANv2, X-LP2 -- I suspect the recommended mods for the X-Pre would be the same as the mods on the X-CANv2, neh? If anyone wants me to post pics of internal organs, let me know.

I was working on a project this weekend and realized that I had my camera downstairs in my DIY dungeon. It seemed like a good time to take a picture and start a thread like this, I figure no one should be ashamed of what their space looks like after they see mine. That's my nightmare, what's yours?

Hello, this is my first post here. I have Stax SR-303/SRM-313 combo. It works well with my vinyl player but with cd it is cold and boring. Cd (Audio aero prima) is fine with my speakersystem, so I?m not going to change it. I got an idea of DIY tube amp with SR-303. Having read many threads here and the other, now malfunctioning forum, I have found this Gilmores schema: http://headwize.com/projects/gilmore_prj.htm Is this a good schema? What else would you recommend? I won?t make this myself, have to make it by an experienced amp maker, so it can be a relatively complicated amp like that of Gilmores.

I was thinking of getting some to case up my b22. Mailed perforate.com a hell lot of times and still no reply. anyone know where to get them?

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?

Is there a general preference?