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Ck2III vs Starving Student vs CTH - DIY amp for low impedance headphones

post #1 of 5
1/13/10 at 1:59am
Thread Starter 
Hi y'all,
I was surprised to find very few comparisons between the Ck2III and the Starving Student amps - I realize one is tube and one is discrete - but they seem to have a similar build cost ($100 - 150ish?)

My main two questions are:

which one do you think is best suited for low impedance headphones ie ath-m50 & Alessandro MS1

which is the better build for a beginner (I've successfully built a Cmoy, so I'm not a complete novice)

might throw the CTH into the mix too!
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post #2 of 5
1/13/10 at 11:00am
Having built both a Ck2III and a CTH I can advise you don't do the CTH as a second build. My first build was the Ck2III and it went perfectly, but even if it hadn't debugging it wouldn't be a problem as there is space. The CTH is so compact it's impossible to check things are in the right place once the build is complete, I can't even see where the smoke is coming from!

Hope that helps

As for working with low impedance headphones I love my SR225 woodies through the Ck2III, I built it with a gain of 4 especially for them. I don't like the grado's out of my canamp at all, but your opinions may vary.
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post #3 of 5
1/13/10 at 1:01pm
We do bill CTH as an intermediate-level project.
It's been our experience that In every instance during the prototype (& now production) phase(s) where the builder has put the right parts in the right places with the correct orientation the amp has come alive on first power up.
But when that's not the case things get difficult mostly due to parts density (as s_o is finding out).
I believe there are scale images (PDFs?) of these amp you could review.
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post #4 of 5
1/13/10 at 3:58pm
Just a minor comment if you choose to build the CK²III for low-Z headphones, unless you have a (very) weak source, set the gain to 4.1x according to the CK²III website "parts list" section. The default gain of 9x is good for high-Z headphones, but most likely a bit much for low-Z.
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post #5 of 5
1/14/10 at 12:02am
Thread Starter 
Hey guys thanks a lot for your advice - I had my eyes set on the CKK3 for a while now, but just recently found the CTH and Starving Student threads - maybe it'd be best to avoid the CTH for now. I'm not too afraid of a more difficult build but I should probably be realistic about my skill level...

Anyone think their is a considerable quality drop from the CKK3 to the tube based amps (CTH, Starving Student?) - I know the CKK3 has gotten some lovely reviews, but everyone just seems to rave about the CTH, while opinions seem a little divided on the Starving Student, but it may be just because more people have em ATM.

BTW: My source will probably be a Gamma1 lite USB from my PC - Music prefs mainly indie rock, plus classical, opera and a little jazz.
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