nattonrice

Not technically listening to (yet), but went to the local record store for RSD. A lot more variation in titles this year, but also felt like a lot more exclusives with shorter runs. Line to get in was brutal.

That Airtight and Franco Serblin room was great (3rd pic from the bottom). Last year they had their 211 p-p monos with Franco’s bigger speakers. Winning combination both times.

It really centered the image for me.

Axpona is always a blast. Spent quite a bit of time with a view of @naamanf’s head. Lots of good “small scale” rooms (too many to list). Notable highlights for me this year were the big Stenheim room on the ground floor, Jeff Catalano’s High Water Sound room with the upgraded Cessaro horns, MBL, and Bill Parish with the Vivids. Bonus photo of the SAT turntable I’d never encountered in person before.

I’ll be there again this year. Hopefully see some of you at the bar.

Mushed spider ground topology?

It was great to meet everyone, get home safe!

Space shuttling with wings and thrusters

Diet Coke can be strong stuff.

The 009s looked like the hulk went at them.

I'm coming for bacon.

Weak

BEER

jp has been hydrating for the last hour...

Perfect timing, I should just be over today by then.

Haha clearly 11.30am tomorrow is too late, it's already been going for 12hrs

11.30 it is then. Hopefully the weather holds up better than today's..

Was the consensus to turn up at 10am?

I'm now living in NYC, it'd be great to meet everyone if there's room.

So am I, we're due to catch up... Awesome build btw!

The girls lasted out 10 years and he made it what, 30 odd days? That aside, he costs less this way.

Depending on component tolerances and how you set the pots when you installed them the first power on can have: all led lighting up like magic, nothing lighting up, some combo in between.

Having a live metal tab to contend with is a complete pita. On the t2 I used nylon cap screws on nylon shoulder washers where I'd get them to tension and then glue them at the nut (have to cut them off now) This worked on average about 60% of the time whereas the other 40% would get close to the tension I was happy with and then the bolt would strip out. It was heaps easier in the 300b build because the CREE diodes are to247 (packed with plastic around the bolt hole). Used a pps washer, ss cap screw, and a Al oxide tablet. It's yet to blow through to the case despite the 850VDC pre-reg bonanza that's riding on the live underside of the diodes.

Yup, sorry I should have been more specific there.

There are some general themes established throughout the thread (in no particular order) which if followed seem to lead to success more often than not. -> You can use (correctly rated) wanky resistors anywhere except the 700v batteries: these must be the specified Xicon part and should be raised off the board surface (for memory they are slightly inductive which adds a stabilising factor and stops a particularly annoying type of noise on the output). -> As a (possibly unique to me) extension of this: the dividers at the output of the regulators should be Xicon and raised (in my case the PRP units were leaking and causing the voltage to swing all over the place which is bad). -> At the minimum adjust all pots to the middle of their resistance/travel: Inu suggested middle for the 10k, max resistance for the 2k (this worked for me). -> Don't risk using possibly shitty nos 6922's: try for matched triodes as well as matched pairs (as an example, everything I've had from tubedepot has been good). -> Check your transformer voltages (at load if possible) before connecting them to any terminal blocks: never trust that things are as the spec sheet says. -> Fire up the psu BEFORE connecting it to the amp and check the voltages: load test if you can. -> Check all LEDs discarding ones that either don't work or have odd Vf: saves un-needed hassle and annoyance. -> Don't use fake parts: they are shit and cause various failure modes, none of which are good. -> If you have some form of tester then test all the sand: past basic sanity checks on the bjt's I didn't, this was a bit reckless and ymmv. -> Use teflon sheafed test points (digikey for example) on the batteries and only ever use one hand when moving probes (preferably you right one): this is basic practice, don't fuck it up. Apart from that there really is nothing else except to take a lot of care that you put the correct things in the right places. The great thing about the t2 is all of the leds in almost every major circuit component. Any time a bunch of them come on but others don't it really triangulates the fault. If you get the batteries into the right ranges then every led should be lit to some extent, if any are completely dark then that's your first place to start hunting for problems.