What I gather he meant was to copy our design because he doesn't want to pay for it. A copy made with a different case, different iron and other parts isn't our product. If you have some unrelated beef with me you're welcome to message me, email or phone and I would be open to talking about it.

That subject line is pretty bold. If you make it, it sure as hell isn't a Bottlehead kit.

I've been trying to make that point for 23 years. Thank you. Refined circuit design will pretty much always trump boutique parts. We came up with the Crackatwoa as an alternative to putting silly expensive caps and tubes in a Crack, and a good part of why we make so many different headphone amp...

Looks great! Well done!

Wow, Jason, thanks for the kind words! I was directed to your post by one of the bottleheads. I've read bits of this thread over the years and they crack me up because I think I'm reading about my own business, particularly the various pratfalls and other slapstick parts. Just want to say that...

Thank you, Bob. @drtechno - direct coupling is indeed common, however our specific design values and operating points are our IP and you are violating copyright laws when you post a schematic from our manual on the internet. Your statements about the power supply design are incorrect, and you...

I don't bother with this stuff usually, but your mistake is posting Bottlehead copyrighted IP without permission. Mods have been notified of your copyright violation. If you really want to improve your stature by denigrating my work don't take cheap shots on a forum, take me on in the street...

Did anyone listen to the Massdrop CTH we had set up in the front room?

That reminds me of being in an elevator at the Venetian in Vegas at CES with my San Francisco business partners several years ago. We're all wearing jeans and t-shirts. Two guys get in the elevator wearing slacks, leather jackets, Italian loafers, gold chains. One of them says to us - so, youse...

Thanks everyone, that was a really good meet! Great to see so many new faces. I mentioned this to a lot of you, but I'll say again that we are always happy to demo our stuff if you would like to come back for a more focused listening session without so much else going on. Just give us a call...

A small update - I was just sent a Massdrop Cavalli tube hybrid headphone amp that I'll have set up for demos.

We do have high efficiency speakers called the Jagers, but in deference to all of the headphone listeners we don't run them during the meet. Happy to demo them any other time, though!

Yeah and we only charge $9.99 per day! Actually we have a free guest connection. Just ask one of us how to log in when you get here.

I'll backpedal just a bit here - the output power will indeed be lower into 300 ohms, and your 60mW number is probably in the ballpark. The Mainline should put 600mW into a 64 ohm load from the 64 ohm tap. However I would not necessarily use this as the only yardstick by which to measure the...

That would be 600mW, not 60mW. Crack puts out more like 300mW into a 300 ohm load. None of this has to do with how much you turn the volume knob of one amp relative to the other for the same level. That has to do with the gain of the amp, not the power output.

The meet at Bottleheadquarters will be on Saturday May 5th, from 1-4.

I'm saying clean the pins on the tube. The tube socket contacts are probably fine. Sometimes you can clear up oscillation by simply inserting and removing the tube from the socket a few times, which scrapes the pins a little bit. But I usually clean them with DeOxit or even a little fine...

Did you try what I suggested?

Guys, you have this backwards. If you tap on the tube and it rings, that is microphonics. If the tube starts to sing without any mechanical impulse like tapping - and tapping it stops the singing - that is not microphonics, it is an oscillation due to something electrical. First thing to try is...

We've had a couple of cases where the paint got brittle and cracked some time after it was baked. However that was baking with a heat lamp, which may have gotten the paint too hot. An oven's even heat will probably be safe enough. Definitely don't go over 200 F, and I'd suggest keeping it under...

Your comment may be adding some confusion. Those are our kits. We did not assemble them. I don't know why anyone would assume that we did. None of that is my point. Generally accepted good netiquette is that someone clarifies when they post enthusiasm about something for sale whether they have...

It's usually considered good form to clarify whether or not you have any association with the seller when posting this kind of thing.

We did indeed. It was actually a little difficult to sleep the night the sale started because Eileen and I were both the getting transaction notifications from the phones on our nightstands every few minutes. They kept lighting up the room. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Speaking of price, you guys might want to check it.

The most bang for the buck, easy to get, good sounding tube is the one that comes with the kit. Give the amp a chance in stock form before making arbitrary changes.