Pars

Ooops, sorry to bust your balls on it (having a hard time saying that given the pic below ) Casing and wiring is an ongoing thing, and I use/have used Cat5 etc. Like I said, sometimes it presents interesting problems. I find that everytime I open something I've built up, I think of better ways to do stuff. Then redo it the next time This is probably the biggest area of delta between DIY'ers and commercial manufacturers (tho I don't know if Ori really fits in there). Hard to justify the amount of money involved in the case/machining and board layout to fit said case design (well, unless you're KG ). I think that Justin does an awesome job since ditching the Gilmore V1/V2/lite V1 designs, and from a business perspective, the amount of labor required to wire panel components in his initial designs versus now with most if not all things board mounted and aligned with the case design has to save inordinate amounts of time, aggravation, and just presents a damn professional looking product. Same with Ray insofar as his cases go. Don't like the design aesthetics as well, but whatever...

All you probably have is a couple of non-functional drivers... you'll be back to the before you know it, looking forward to the even better system...

LEDs are pretty damn quiet. Actually, its the Cat5 wiring supporting the board Fortunately, the electrons have no idea what they're running thru. Build quality on the board is so-so... those blue caps actually look like some kinda tantalums , or possibly polystyrenes. Granted, when you overlay a board onto a design not made to support it, you can get into some interesting problems as to how to wire it in, etc., but the workmanship here is lacking. The metal cans are transistors... not a package you see often these days but alot of mil-spec shit used that type of packaging (as well as the ceramic DIPs you see sometimes, which are usually better than the plastic package normal varieties). Looks like about $15 in parts plus the PCB... dunno what he charges for these but if he's not making money on them That said, remember that pretty-looking professional PCBs, etc. don't insulate you from shitty engineering, irregardless of the price tag. Read Jocko, John Westlake, etc. on diyhifi and you will see some references to this in well respected expensive equipment. The good looking PCBs do give you a warm fuzzy however on thinking you got what you paid for

Ahhh, hard to tell from that grainy pic... looked like blue LEDs. Instead, blue probably BC electrolytics. Would be nice to see a more detailed pic of it.

2007 Team Cheap-ass (otherwise known as married with 2 kids and underemployed wife ). Mostly concentrated on speaker rig. Sources: Rotel RCD-855; Thorens TD320 MkI / AT 440ML Concentrated mainly on improving my source (digital). Started off the year getting a modified PFM Flea board done with /2 clocking (actually 2 Flea PSUs combined on one board) so that I could bypass the horrid clock distribution via the SAA7220 and do direct BCK to the TDA1541A. Put in a second transformer and Tread to provide the raw DC for this. Worked real good bubba. Next for the source came the DIY DC-coupled discrete I/V stage. Got the discrete board(s) done this summer and finally got around to doing a proper PSU for them so I put one of them in. Major upgrade which has me in less of a mood to do anything else to the source right now. Opamps are no contest to this, at least for I/V. Need to listen to some of the more upscale players to compare; might grab a demo Meridian from Holm Audio to listen some . Amplification: Counterpoint SA5.1 preamp and Odyssey Stratos plus power amp. I'd always been fighting with the preamp regarding hum and noise. I even bought a Coda Window II preamp to try out... it lost, so I sold it (not bad sounding though). Got rid of almost all of the noise by replacing 2 huge Cerafine 2x220uf caps I had put in 3-4 years ago with 3 BG VK 150uf 350V caps. The Cerafines were too close to the pot, causing the noise. DOH! Probably not done though... back to a TKD pot for it, and replacement of the coupling caps. Next year I might send the Odyssey in and get the Extreme upgrades done. Don't think I can accommodate monos... Speakers: Von Schweikert VR4 GenIIs, Soler Points stainless spikes, Kimber 8TC cables. Still like these, probably here to stay for awhile. If I come across a long 4TC run, I might go back to biwire. Headphone rig: Still using a DIY Dynalo (headamp V2 PCB), AKG K601s. I know this is pretty lame for most of you I have alot of bits around for a Dynahi or 2 or 3, but the B22 also interests me. Not sure if I want to go balanced yet, as nothing else I have is balanced (other than the Aleph P1.7 clone I have the boards built for). Maybe... The litz ground loop thing that Aerius mentions on the first or second page is interesting, though the boards I have done have full ground planes on them... might have to play around with that a bit though in some of the stuff. And possibly some interconnect upgrades (still using mainly old Audioquest Turquoise/Ruby cables). Pricey cables and team cheap-ass don't peacefully coexist though... Maybe try some Grovers out though... saw a UR5 on HF... would this be worthwhile?

I've got a pair of old Audioquest cables (30' each) that I'm going to be selling at some point. Actually, I have 2 pairs of these (one is my brother's, so I would need to see what he wants to do with his). These are Indigo (IIRC). My pair has a cut in one cable (one conductor) at about the 27' mark due to some dumbass (me) drilling a hole thru the subfloor out with the cable in the hole... Bought from AudioAdvisor probably around 1990 or so. http://www.audioquest.com/archive/index.html, go to Spiraled Hyperlitz. I have no idea what they are worth

Remember that the Zapfilter uses all SMD stuff, including the BJTs. Now I'm certainly no expert on device selection, but all of the good transistors (Toshiba, etc.) I know of (KG designs, Jocko's I/V stage and variants, etc.) only come in thru-hole AFAIK (TO92, etc.) packaging. LC Audio says "Active components feature low noise Japanese audio transistors in Class A mode, and vertical bipolar types from Zetex, UK, with ultra high linear performance." Dissipating any kind of power and heat thru an SMD device has got to be problematic.

Mcmaster-Carr would be a good place for the washers and stuff... probably for the threaded rod as well.

That looks nice! I was wondering how that mdf would soak up the oil... Where did you buy the threaded rod at and what size is it? I've toyed with building one for myself. And Merry Christmas!

Hmmm... Probably comcast... someone told me awhile back they could see them as http instead of https, so I tried that. Apparently not... https://home.comcast.net/~youngc1/My_dyna.JPG https://home.comcast.net/~youngc1/My_dyna2.JPG And here is the amp for my brother: https://home.comcast.net/~youngc1/Fr_dyna_lit.JPG https://home.comcast.net/~youngc1/Inside_rear_dyna.JPG https://home.comcast.net/~youngc1/Rear_dyna.JPG

I built a Dynalo for my brother for Christmas and just finished casing it up today, so thought I'd share some pics. I used the board from my work Dynalo and put a new board in it that I just built up with Roderstein/PRP resistors, Pana FM and Elna Cerafines, etc. I used some Mill-Max flush socket pins to socket all transistors and FETs also. Sorry bro... but that one is mine Here's my new board: And here is the amp for my brother (knob was one I had laying around, not my favorite... but whatever): Hope he likes it!

Hard to tell from that picture, but it appears to be discrete, as the opamp is the DC servo (probably using a dual opamp for 2 channels). I'm not sure what the metal can devices are; could be some kind of JFET or BJT. Two additional BJTs per channel. Couple of LEDs per channel probably used as CCSs. Board probably isn't home-etch, but a proto run without silkscreen/solder mask. Looks better than the Kwak clock boards I have seen from Elso... I disagree that Ori necessarily says it is better than the Zapfilter... his words were "In my opinion it has several advantages over the Zapfilter." It very well could be better than the Zapfilter, but one would have to listen to both. The statement about the DC servo stiffening the low bass I would question... a servo should have no effect whatsoever on the audio signal, although if his context is compared to an AC-coupled stage, then yes, that is a valid statement, just somewhat misleading. The zero feedback is a big plus as well in this. Does the Zhaolu use I-out or V-out DACs? I'm guessing V-out. From a parts count perspective, it is similar to something like Jocko's discrete I/V stage, although that isn't DC coupled. It would take another transistor, maybe more to do DC coupled. I have never dealt with Ori, and haven't really paid attention to all the Zhaolu stuff for the most part. From a technical perspective, his comments in the portions of Zhaolu threads I have read would lead me to believe he knows what he is doing.

Looks good... is that a DIY flexy rack?

Hmm, they semm to have missed this one. Which amp (or preamp) is this referring to? Pretty funny (or sad)...

Issues with P&G or the RK50s? So, how much are these RK50s? I looked at the datasheet on them from Bisco and noticed they offer these in 4-gang (balanced)... bet that is expensive. I know, if you have to ask how much...

Yeah, I drive by fucktards all the time that snowblow their driveway out into the street! Glad your public works people yelled at the idiots...

Justin, Have you ever compared the Alps RK50 to the TKD CP2500? WOnder how they compare, as the CP2500 is considerably better than the Alps Blue IMHO. What about the Penny and Giles RF16 or RF11 whichever it is?

Acetone might be a bit much for this. I'm not sure what you can use that would neutralize the crap from the batteries... I would clean it out as best you can. Maybe wipe it out with some alcohol or something once you have it pretty clean. I would also take something like DeOxit or contact cleaner and clean the metal contact parts.

I fixed a guy on Head-Fi's Musiland DAC for him and had to try to deal with Pacific Valve asking them for schematics. They were total assholes, even when we determined that yes, his came from them. And they are 6 miles away from me. Standard response was to send it in... probably for a board replacement ($$). The guy I did this for is in the Army and getting divorced AND with a kid... I wouldn't do business with them personally.

It's hard enough to get TDA1541as (the MI8 whatever)... gee, I only have to come up with 8 of them? Oh, I need to match them? (not sure whether you do or not). But yeah, he does seem to know what he's doing. I can't comment on the NOS thing since I've never really listened to one... intuition and things I've read tells me no, but...

You need something like these. If you can find a brand called Bondhaus they are nice, but I also have some similar to these and they work fine. Regarding the key sets at Harbor Freight... some of these sets have really soft metal and don't take very well to much force.

I'd agree with postjack on this. If you indicated that you were going to buy them doen to requesting paypal info, the seller shouldn't have sold them out from under you, particularly without PM'ing you first to give you right of first refusal. Shitty in my book.

I had the Edison Price posts that Tkam referenced on a Hafler amp I used to have and they were very nice... I like them much better than whatever is on my Odyssey, but I'm just too damn lazy to do anything about it For RCAs (chassis mount), I've used the Daytons (Partsexpress), the Cardas CFTA (the cheap ones... MisterX turned me onto those), and some I got from diyfidelity down under which I haven't actually put on anything yet but look good (damn are they tight!). If you want to spend big bucks, my recommendation (without actually using them) would be the Vampire CM1FCB or CM2FCB which are direct gold plate over OFC copper. Only $20 a pair (actually not that bad unless you need 10 pairs...). Or there's always WBT for insane prices... The WBT Nextgen is supposedly 75 ohms when used with the corresponding cable connector, but I haven't seen anyone verify that and would attribute it to mktg. BS until I do. Even so, if you need 75 ohms, BNC is the way to go...

The 4th would be another good one to start with. I haven't listened to Bruckner much in quite awhile, but seem to recall many of my LP versions were Haitink/Concertgebeau (sp?) as well as Karajan/BPO.

Those don't look too bad. I would like to get a closer look at their standard connectors used on all but the Classical cables. They up the price quite a bit for the Neutrik Pro-Fis on the Classical model, though not to normal cable pricing