mwl168

One thing I recommend is to watch a few of Youtube videos on soldering technics if you have not already done so. Pace put on a few videos that I like very much. Electrostatic amps like the Carbon operate on very high voltages which makes them rather unforgiving with less than tedious soldering job. In many threads here you will find information about cleaning solder flux, etc. that are good practice to follow. I would further recommend getting good quality soldering station and solder. It’s very good investment for serious DIYers.

This can end very badly! You are dealing with very high, unforgiving voltage here, a small misstep can easily turn into a catastrophic disaster. I advise you to consider if you are willing and prepared to deal with such consequence before you continue to proceed down this path.

Agree that measuring an amplifier with a device in a store isn’t practical. Assuming the ultimate goal here is to find an amp that you like the sound the most, I would pick one or two good recordings that I am very familiar with, keeping the front end and headphone consistent and simply listen to the different amps at the volume you like and as consistent as you can sense and go back and forth as needed. Then go with the one you like the most overall. Make sure the front end and amps are properly warmed up when you do this.

I tie the ground of the PSU together when I do a dual mono amp - one wire that goes from the output ground of one PSU to that of the the other one and then, from there, a single wire to the chassis. I do the same thing when tying the LV and HV PSU ground together. So far this has worked well for me. But I typically do not install a volume pot on my headphone amps.

I am curious - what don't you like about the threaded clamp? I like mine on the TNT, it does a good job coupling the record to the platter and works well if the record is very mildly warped. For more severely warped record, I use a peripheral ring and a heavy brass center weight (have to take the washer off the spindle that works with the threaded clamp). I do stop the platter when I change record.

VPI TNT and Tri-Planar arm from 1994. Shelter 901 cartridge.

A Christmas gift from my son.

Maybe it’s fairer to jail the naughty one?

Matching P channel and N channel is very challenging even you have a large supply of both. Agree with Pars that it's not really required for this application. If you already use dip socket for the THAT340 you can simply plug in the SK170/SJ74 into the dip socket with some leg bending. There should be some photos showing how this is done in the Balanced Dynahi build thread. found the photo so I'll show it here...

Happy Birthday!

Switched from Megatron to the Blue Hawaii this morning. Different sound signature but equally as satisfying. This one is not the BJT version but the one that uses 2SK216/2SJ79 with cascoded CCS and adjustable plate current.

The balanced amp gives twice the voltage swing and slew rate and 4 times the output power. Wether that matters for a headphone like HD650 is debatable. My personal opinion is yes. The motto here at HC is "moar is better" and never pass a chance to go overkill

I bought a bunch of tta004b/ttc004b for this exact purpose but have not tried them yet. Would be nice if we can find something that's also pin-compatible with 2SK216/2SJ79.

I see now that I missed it - I thought you built a SUSY Dynalo and only used one phase of the balanced output. I see now it's actually a single-ended Dynalo. Did you follow Kevin's original Dynalo schematic from many years ago?

Probably not a bad idea to also get the corresponding KSC2690 as well.

Nice review and pics. How would you describe the build quality and durability of the ES 1a compared to the Stax 007?

I also really like my HD800 with my balanced KG CFA 🙂

That's what I am using in my Megatron as well, Philips E180CC SQ. Very happy with the outcome.

Single digit temperature outside. Time to power up this glorious sounding amp. What a treat...

I am in US and figured you are in UK thus the comment on the shipping cost.

I may have spare boards left but, given the shipping cost, it probably makes more sense for you to have them fabricated.

A much better idea is to see if you can obtain one of the pot PCB from a GB (or other sources) some time ago so you don't need to solder directly to the pins on the pot. No need for fancy solder IMO. I have solder from Cardas, WBT and good old Kester and don't believe either one makes an audible difference. Get a good quality solder and solder the joints well is key.

My car has over 400 hp and can go over 150 miles/hour. Even though I don't use all that power nor intend to drive it anywhere near that speed. I enjoy it just as much.

Check out Kevin's (Dr. Gilmore) current feedback electrostatic amp if you are looking for a compact and first DIY project. I suggest it because it's easy to build, low cost with very simplistic power supply requirement and, more importantly, a very nice sounding solid state amp that uses all current production parts.