Finished this CMoy the other day and I'm pretty happy about getting it to work. Like daveabrey, I had to use a regular board and thinking through how to connect all the things was the most fun part of the project.
Those white wires were as difficult to use (due to their stiffness) as they are ugly
Finally! Finished the Dynahi last week. It's sounding incredible! DC offset is 5 and 6 mV cold, and falls to <1mV when warmed up. Here are the pics:
Par-metals, 20-series cases, deep blue LED and illuminated power switch, Neutrik 1/4" jacks (Mouser P/N:550-NMJ6HCS), Alps 23Pos stepped attenuator w/ Holco resistors.
I am still waiting for the diycable volume knob, I don't really like the feel of that one, and want one a little bigger diamater.
LEDs - I sanded it down flat and mounted it directly into the front pannel.
Back panel: gold plated RCA or 3.5mm inputs. DIY power cable with techflex.
Inside: massive 10x4x3.5" heat sink with a thick base plate. The trasistors and bolted directly to it, with pure silver paste for thermal contact. Temp is <60ΊC after several hours.
2 power supplies, rated at 30V @ 4A, with <1mV ripple, in separate enclosure:
The transistors are bolted directly to the heat sink base, I didn't want to use the L-bracket, because this should have better heat transfer. Yes, I am using pure silver jumper wires. I couldn't figure out any other way to do it without positioning things really awkwardly inside the case. It works quite well, the heat conducts very evenly across all the fins in no time at all.
My amp on the top and the one I built for my friend on the bottom. The knobs on the lower amp are Suzurando brushed aluminium knobs. Very nice feel and build although slightly more costly than the average alu. knobs. =)
A single level X-feed I built for my friend. It's based on the Meier bass-enhanced X-feed. The 0.22uF caps are Multicap RTX whilst the 47nF cap is a Rel-cap RT. All 3 are polystyrene film and foil. The resistors are Riken RMA resistors.
2 inputs selectable using an Augat switch with silver-plated contacts and gold-plated lugs. Available from Welborne Labs (About US$14).
Very tightly packed on the inside. The crossfeed board had to go under the PSU board (sadly, since the crossfeed looks better through the ventilation slots). The Hovland Musicaps are DC blocking caps. The bridge rectifiers built using HEXFRED's coupled with Evox MMK caps. Transformer is a Nuvotem Talema.
I'm sorry if anyone wants to know where the case can be bought online. However, I have no idea as I bought it from an electronics shop in Singapore. I don't even have a clue as to who the manufacturer is.
It's a very nice case with a 1.5mm - 2mm thick brushed aluminium faceplate.
There is another 1mm steel plate behind it and makes a bitch of aligning holes on both panels.
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DIY: To spend all it takes to get the sound you want.
I had a Hammond case lying around from previous PPA projects, so I decided to use it for the DAC. I coupled the output Black Gate NX Hi-Qs with some Angela/SCR 0.33uF tin foil caps. This coupling quite significantly brought out the mids and highs compared to BGs alone, and I'm very pleased with the results.
I currently have two amps connected from the DAC, I put three pairs of RCA outputs (paralleled) just because there was just enough space for three. I had the two amps previously connected with an RCA splitter, it should be better that the splitter is now eliminated from the chain.
All internal wiring is 22AWG teflon sleeved silver. Battery holder is Bulgin 4xAA tray type, and it's connected in parallel internally (2 x 3V).
Anyway, the DAC sounds excellent, a substantial improvement over my bypass/blackgate modded OptoPlay.
Linear Mode
