Bijou All Tube Futterman Headphone Amplifier - Page 156

^I've been eyeing the Ryobi drill press at Home Depot until I saw that pic that Amphead posted above.
Looks very similar to a Grizzly product.

Yes it is. Here's the link. I might have to sell something to help finance it.

G0463 Mill / Drill

Yes it is. Here's the link. I might have to sell something to help finance it.

G0463 Mill / Drill

Yea I ended up searching until I finally found it. A bit pricey(for me right now) but wow, it sure does get the wheels turning upstairs.
Yea I could see myself selling some stuff to help pay for one of those, easy.

Holy....
After drilling something using a friend's press (with wildly UNcalibrated heads...yikes) this looks deliciously perfect. Is that drilling capacitor a little small at 1" or am I just uninformed? Mayb e I'm thinking that for $1K it should have a drilling capacity of...well, more.

/what can i sell....what can I sell...

STOOOOOOOOOP ! It took me 2 days to read the whole thread and its 2330 posts....
I have already asked Jeff to send me 2 kits to build a balanced Bijou and i hope i will receive them when i will be back in France (after staying 9 years abroad....).
I have already in progress a Dynalo SE for my Senn HD600 and i like DIY ! I already built a pass-like preamp, the "UGS", and i have to finish my pass-like amp, the "UP". Sounds great ! Speakers witll be my next step.
My cans are a Senn 600 with SAA Equinoxe cable and a newly ordered Beyer 990/600 Ohms that i will recable with a balanced SAA Equinoxe cable.

I rode on this thread that it's not so good to do separate enclosure, 1 for the PS and 1 for the amp. Could you tell me why ???????

For the volume control, i already have a Relays attenuator bought at Dantimax (in Danmark). I think i will receive the kit (encoder+remote control) this week.

I received PF3 teflon caps for the ouput caps.

What else....? I don't know ! An idea for the enclosure : wooden sides + alu upper plate and front plate.

Oops, forgot to tell you this....

I will not use the NFB because i think it's not so easy to do it with a single pot (balanced version.....). But i have an idea :

I think to use a 4 positions switch with attached resistors to do a "0-25%-50%-100% NFB" , double row because balanced version (but i think you know now !), or a stereo attenuator DACT-like / 23 steps with the good resistors

Is it "good" to think about a switch to "select" a "32 - 300 - 600 Ohms headphones" ? What i should add different valu caps or something else ?

I think to put in the same enclosure the RCA/XLR converter described by amphead with a switch to select "balanced / unbalanced input" on the front panel. I hope it will not be so difficult to do with perf boards and relays (i still have some in my trunk).

I will also put balanced and SE plugs on the front panel.

Transformer : i have asked to a french company (ABL) a quotation for a custom made transformer with 2 x 260-0-260V@100mA + 2 X 6,3V@3.5A.
If it's not good to have only 1 trafo, i will ask for 2. They work very well (already asked them for toroid trafos)

The enclosure :

i have to draw it with sketchup because i's not so easy to describe what i would like to do !
But the idea is to have 2 separated enclosures (amp+PS linked by a cable with Ebay military connectors).
On the amp enclosure, i think about a "ribbon" at the bottom of the front panel with the XLR + jacks plugs.
Just above, a tilted panel with :
- Volume control knob
- RNB switch
- ON/OFF switch
- balanced/unbalanced input switch
- Z|Headphones| switch (to be defined....)

Siver wire is already ordered (20AWG shielded Twisted pair + 22AWG shielded Twisted pair + 20AWG shielded 3 wires twisted) to Navship !

Hoping you don't take me for a completely nuts guy !

Olivier
(Thx Dantes for the PM and Pabbi1 to show me this way)

Theoretically it could work to have a separate power supply enclosure. Using a single enclosure avoids some hassles with heater connection issues, between 2 enclosures. Especially to avoid noise, there will be some work to do. Welcome to the Bijou project!

I still listen to my Bijou daily - it has a rather unique voice. That said, I am hearing a Raven's call for my hd800... we'll see which is better, or rather, which I prefer. This is how she looks right now...

Thank you.

breizheau, I am running separate PS & amp chassis, with some success. Many solid state builds I have completed prior to the Bijou convinced me this method has merit, particularly for minimising the effects of AC artifacts in the signal path. Of course, complete isolation is next to impossible in a valve amp where AC filaments & DC HV lines coexist in close proximity, but a well executed design comes very close. IMO, the Bijou layout, which I have more or less followed, is such a design.

I am using two small diecast aluminium boxes on which the amp & PS components are mounted connected by two 3-core mains leads using XLR plugs & sockets, one each for the HV & AC heaters. The third conductor is earthed to the star ground at both ends. My build is dead quiet - totally black - at all attenuator positions. I am using amphead's heater mods (a 100R resistor to earth across each side of the 6.3V heater wiring). I'm not using any shielded cable - all signal wiring is Jupiter 5N's solid core Ag with cotton insulation. Nor am I running any feedback, as my cans of choice are HD650's with SAA Equinox cable.

Other mods include film caps everywhere using Mundorfs (M-Cap (C1), Supreme Silver/Oil (C3,4), TubeCaps (C5 & PS)) & Jupiter Beeswax/Paper (C6); choke PS mod (variation 1); regal's mods (increased idle current); EH 6H30Pi, JJ ECC99, 370DAX, DACT CT2, etc.

Sound is fabulous. Still burning in but it is opening up beautifully & has fundamentally altered my view of what "high fidelity" sound really is.

Hats off to Alex, Jeff & all developers & forum members for a great project.

Tony

Thx Tony I still have to work on the design but one like the Mcalister looks very nice...

Do you feel like posting some pictures of your build?

I'd like to see it too.

I'm moving along slowly on my build. I've finished stuffing the boards. Here is a quickie pic (not great b/c I didn't bother to go and set up my tripod).



I'm going to air wire tube sockets to the top panel. The wood in the picture is maple for my frame. It's already cut and routed. I have some free time this week. I hope to get the case built and stained in the next couple of days. Who knows, I may start to power up by the weekend. Lots of little details to attend to along the way though.

look nice.