[fincherr]

“Every journey begins with a single step”, I’m only on step two but my feet are already hurting!

OK, step one was to acquire of a set of Ety ER4P’s, (that really hurt my billfold). Step two was to construct a Cmoy, (That hurt the billfold and time, prob’ly spent forty hours on construction and troubleshooting). It was a lot of fun, (except for the cold solder joint on C2 and breaking off a pin on the pot).

Having said all that the sound is great! I faithfully followed design in the Tangent article, with the exception of using a 2132PA amp, and increasing the capacitor sizes. I used a small Hammond enclosure, (1” high).

My question is how does the Cmoy design compare in quality to the more “advanced” DIY designs? Taking “step three” and building something else will improve what? The highs sound a little flat, maybe something with a graphic equalizer?

 

[__redruM]

There's plenty of options... For now stick with something from tangent's site, since it's so well documented, and has plenty of options. A lot depends on how much you want to spend, and how portable you want it, but the Pimeta splits the middle.

http://tangentsoft.net/audio/pimeta/

Once volume is accounted for, the improvement from an amp is of the last 5% varity, so while the step up to a mint or the pimeta will be noticable, it will not be a night and day difference.

Good Luck

 

[jerb]

Tangents site is a wonderful source of information. after a Cmoy you can do anything really depending on your needs/wants/cash/skill if you had the money and were confident enough you could make one of the higher amps.

two popular options though are tangents MINT if you want something portable or his PIMETA if your looking for something less portable.

soemthing else to consider is the peter millet tube amp thats been redesigned by N_MAHER (sry if i spelled wrong). its a fairly easy build and not too expensive either. but if your going to choose this one keep your eyes out in the FS fourms because hes selling the rest of the boards soon.

 

[Edwood]

I would recommend trying the Pimeta next.

-Ed

 

[mono]

You might find the treble on the CMOY gets better if you add a pair of decoupling (mono, ceramic, ~ 0.1 mfd) caps across the electrolytics, or better, close to the opamp supply pins. IMO, this is one of the primary failings of the CMOY, one of the things it sacrifices for the sake of simplicity.


I'll further the recommendation for a Pimeta next, it is a significant next step in that it has the buffered output and ground channel, plus it's nice to have the professionally made PCB.

 

[nikongod]

a cmoy with bipolar chips can be nice too...

 

[Syzygies]

Ety 4p's are hyper-revealing, some say to a fault, more so if you add 75 ohmn of resistance (use best materials and resistors available or you'll dislike the results, the official conversion cable costs $65 for a reason) to turn them into Ety 4s's.

To my ears, the amp accounts for far more than the "last 5%", unless one is listening to a lossy digitial format, or bottlenecked by one's phones. It "stands to reason" that my CMoy sounds better than iPod (lossless compression), but compared to my Pimeta, it just sounds loud, e.g. loud enough to drive Ety 4s's, but I dislike listening to it. The CMoy is a "starter amp", you're supposed to give it away after you build something better.

I have several other amps waiting to complete (I'm moving to CA for the year, I'll finish them there), for which by all reports the jump in sound is again as significant.

 

[tobias_svensk]

If someone builds a cmoy and don't want the 100nF caps to take up space just make them SMD underneath.
http://www.ettnet.se/~tobias/diy/cmoy/cmoy_smd_back.jpg

 

[kramer5150]

Im thinking about one of those RA1 clones... dont know if its a big step up from a cmoy though.

 

[Tomo]

Hi,

You can try YAHA amp. Tube input stage with opamp output stage. ... Hey it is still a tube amp! ... But it is not too hard. A little challenge.

Tomo

 

[dsavitsk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kramer5150 Im thinking about one of those RA1 clones... dont know if its a big step up from a cmoy though.

It is a CMoy.

 

[MisterX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsavitsk It is a CMoy.

With a crummy opamp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood I would recommend trying the Pimeta next.

Agreed.

 

[fincherr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood I would recommend trying the Pimeta next. -Ed

I'm confused as to the sound quality difference between the PPA and the Pimeta?

 

[diredesire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fincherr I'm confused as to the sound quality difference between the PPA and the Pimeta?

ditto, been thinkin' about building one of these, or the other

 

[fincherr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syzygies Ety 4p's are hyper-revealing, some say to a fault, more so if you add 75 ohmn of resistance (use best materials and resistors available or you'll dislike the results, the official conversion cable costs $65 for a reason) to turn them into Ety 4s's. To my ears, the amp accounts for far more than the "last 5%", unless one is listening to a lossy digitial format, or bottlenecked by one's phones. It "stands to reason" that my CMoy sounds better than iPod (lossless compression), but compared to my Pimeta, it just sounds loud, e.g. loud enough to drive Ety 4s's, but I dislike listening to it. The CMoy is a "starter amp", you're supposed to give it away after you build something better. I have several other amps waiting to complete (I'm moving to CA for the year, I'll finish them there), for which by all reports the jump in sound is again as significant.

With the Cmoy I can now hear a real difference in the output quality when compairing between a Mac G5 and an iPod, (the g5 has a lot of hiss and background errors that are not present with the iPod).

Everyone seems to advise building a Pimeta next, which seems to be the best choice. I'll order a Pimeta and a MINT board from Tangent, (and give the MINT away). This effort was too ugly to give away, (I'll need to bury it deep after I build somthing better)!

Thanks