You could use round spacers. 1/2" diameter would give good support and look better than spindly little standoffs. McMaster-Carr sells both threaded and non-threaded ones in aluminum, brass and plastic.

I finished building my Torpedo III with Cinemags last night. Assembly was easy. The kit is superb, great attention to detail.   Compared to my previous amp, a SOHA II, the T3 is a huge step up. The bass is more powerful, with better definition. The treble is smooth and the overall sound is...

I have had a similar buzz in mine for a while. It started after I did the mod to up the tube current, as I reported in this post:  http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/374941/soha-ii-builders-thread/1230#post_6500229 I have just lived with it until now, it goes away after 2-3 minutes and is low...

I have been running my SOHA II for over a year with no problems. I recently did Regal's mod to increase the plate current on my SOHA II and now have an interesting problem. I had a small amount of hum/noise with Grados once I had it back up and running. The noise was only present with tubes in...

Quote: Originally Posted by cactus friend One more dumb question - I can't find the exact power supply on ebay, but I do see a similar 48v power supply that offers 1.25amps. Since the original one mentioned only offers .38 amps or so, will this be okay? I use the 1.25 amp unit...

I used the same knobs on my SOHA II and SSMH, It is hard to see the index mark, so I filled it with white paint, worked very well.

I used adhesive lined heat shrink tubing for the "Y" on mine. That worked very well, no tendency for the sleeve to pull out of the Y.

Quote: Originally Posted by wiatrob I can't recommend the 12BH7 strongly enough for this amp... I am running 12BH7A's in my SOHA II, and agree that they sound great.

I have a Cmoy, a Mini^3, a SSMH, a SOHA II, a Gamma 1 DAC, an Alien DAC and SR80's. To my ears, you will get the most improvement with the SSMH. I was a tube agnostic until I heard a SSMH, now i'm an addict. The SSMH works very well with SR80's. I would wait until the PCB and tube combo is...

I have 4.7uf NX-HiQ caps on my Alien and Gamma 1 DAC's. They took at least 100 hours to fully break in, but as Tomb said they were harsh and shrill at first, not lacking bass.

Quote: Originally Posted by amb grendel23, are you sure the original PCM2707 actually died? Maybe there was a marginal solder joint. The act of replacing the chip, most likely "fixed" it... That was my first thought, so I checked it carefully. I had a nice fillet of solder on...

I had the PCM2707 on the USB board of my Gamma 1 die today. I fired up my computer and got "USB device not recognized". I swapped USB cable, checked 5V and 3.3V rails and looked the board over carefully with a loupe, but all checked out fine. I had a spare PCM2707, so I swapped it out and now...

Each LED needs it's own current limiting resistor. A 1K or 1.2K in series with each LED instead of the 560R will ensure the correct current in each. Otherwise they may not share the current evenly. As I am sure you are aware, the ring signal is about 90V 20 Hz AC, and can give a painful...

Quote: Originally Posted by Hayduke What bushings are those around the tube holes? These are snap in plastic bushings from the hardware store. These were too tall, so I trimmed them down and glued them in with epoxy. By the way, I have replaced my original top with one made of...

Quote: Originally Posted by gspence2000 Would you mind telling me the blackgate model numbers that you used for C24 and C25 (and C22 if you used a blackgate there)? I don't want to get the wrong thing. Thanks! I used 4.7uf NX HI-Q caps on C24 and C25, and did not populate C26 and...

I just finished my Gamma 1 build. Assembly was easy and straight forward. I built the standard full configuration BOM except I used Blackgate NX caps on the output. The Blackgate caps will need to burn in before they sound right, but it sounds quite good now. I would recommend builders have a...

Quote: Originally Posted by bmwpowere36m3 Who here has done the high-current heater mod? I mounted the regulator directly on the case, works fine. The case has more surface area than any heatsink which would fit in the case.

I just finished the mods to allow the use of 12v 300ma heater tubes. Replaced transformer, moved the heater regulator off board and mounted it directly on the case. and jumpered out R3P. Amp sounds great, I really like the 12BH7A tubes I am using now. Much better than the Sylvania 5963's. I...

Quote: Originally Posted by Arkku How about Amveco TE62083, e.g. from Digi-Key? Digi-Key is the one major vender I did not check. Thanks for the heads up.

Quote: Originally Posted by runeight If you remove R3P (as per the website) you will cook the Heater regulator from the power dissipation with the small heatsink. But, if you use an offboard heatink you might be able to skim by with the 1A transformer. Might. You'll have to try it and...

Does anyone know of a good (cheap) source for the larger transformer, 15-0-15 1.5A needed to run tubes with 300ma heaters? I can find a Hammond at close to $60, Avel has it on their web page, but a search of the web comes up empty. I am aware of AnTek, but their voltage is rated at no load, not...

runeight, I am going to try to do a graphic for the front of my amp. Would it be possible to get a hi res image of the yin yang logo? That would look great if it works out. Thanks

I have had a chance to listen to my SOHA II for a few days now. I must preface my comments by stating that I am not a "golden eared" audiophile and can only compare this amp to my SSMH with my Alien DAC with Blackgate output caps and SR80s (recabled because one of my cats chewed up the cord)...

Runeight, the top panel drawings on your web page give a 404 error when you try to access them, so I used the board drawing to locate the holes for the tubes. I made 1" holes with a chassis punch and put in plastic snap in bushings. I am going to enlarge the holes and use bushings with a 1" ID...

Grounding the pot eliminated the noise. Now it is dead silent even at full gain. Thanks for the tip Runeight! I ran into one other small issue. I had the holes for the tubes in the top plate very tight to the tubes. this worked fine until I tried to remove the tubes, the sockets are tight and...