I wanted a nice-looking component-sized case for my Media PC source, and everything out there seemed, well, huge. And metal. So I built my own: Even with a Micro-ATX motherboard, it still was a challenge to make things compact. Not a lot of wasted space here: SSD (visible in the...

This has been rattling around in my brain for months, but I've finally made enough consistent progress to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I've had the Jisbos/Alpha 20 boards from AMB for awhile, but have only recently gotten comfortable enough with tube design to get a reasonable...

Have any of you tube guys toyed around with a long-tailed pair as a headphone amp gain stage?  It seems like an elegant way to get a differential input/output amp.   I have a quartet of JISBOS buffers I'm thinking of using as the output stage, and a bunch of preamp tubes (12au/x/t7's) sitting...

Well, my Windows installation went belly up, and my 1212m is finally driver-dead.  I recently came into (a little) cash, and was thinking of reterminating my HD580's back to SE so I could upgrade along the lines of:   Audio-GD 15.32 Asus Xonar Essence ST Schiit Modi/Magni   Only problem...

Hi Guys!  Life had been busy so I'm trying to get back up to speed after a long hiatus.     I've shepherded my E-Mu 1212m along for quite some time.  Now that my Windows 7 install is bitrotting away and the drivers on the E-Mu just died (actually I think I broke them  ,) I'm not relishing the...

Hello all!     I finally messed up one my HD555's drivers doing a re-recable.    Instead of just getting the "standard" 555/595 driver, I was thinking I might go ahead and see if I can track down a pair of HD598 drivers, along the lines of linuxworks' "Project FrankenSixFifties."  Does...

The last stage of my preamp/headphone amp project will be controlled with a pair of nice P&G Faders I found on eBay.   The input stage (it will actually pull double duty as a hifi instrument preamp) may require up to *7* pots per channel (a 4-band parametric plus an opto compressor/limiter...

My wife needs to purchase the *original* recording of the Beatles "All You Need is Love" to use in one of her Elementary Music classes she teaches in the next couple weeks. We've done a number of searches online but all we come up with is a bunch of re-recordings and tribute band performances...

So, I'm sitting in my chair watching Deep Space Nine a couple of nights ago. I have our cat, Daphne, in my lap with a blanket. Nice and cozy. Daphne's really been an outdoor cat since she started a nasty habit of marking things, but I bring her in from time to time when she'll stay put on my...

Well, I'm back. That didn't take long. I apologize for the lengthy post, and I know there's a lot of threads like this already around , but my situation is rather complex and I'm suffering from "can't see the forest for the trees" syndrome. Just to recap, I'm the one who posted the...

I have a pair of newly acquired HD 580's on the way, complete with the HD 650 cable. I was planning on reterminating the HD 650 cable, to plug the phones into my balanced a47. Then I realized I have an extra length of Mogami 3106 lying around, which is designed to have nearly the same...

I'm typing (rather rapidly), listening to music through the Win7 Media Center (minimized), and suddenly the sound gets all distorted--reminds me of what it sounded like when I didn't get the wiring right on my a47 at first. I stop the music, hit "play" again, and it's still distorted. "O.K."...

In the good ol' days, preamps were pretty much all the same: Tuner/Phono/Aux/Tape/Tape 2 with a volume, balance, and maybe a tone control. There's a lot more options these days. So what kinds of inputs do you need/use most on your preamp? What about outputs? Do you like pushbutton selector...

EDIT:  This design has gone through a bit of re-working.  Jump to the major revisions here.     It was suggested to me on a number of occasions that a balanced JISBOS with a little gain might be a good accompaniment to my E-Mu 1212m. I have some other switching/source needs, so one thing...

I'm working on a block diagram for a JISBOS-based balanced active preamp/headphone amp. I'm to the outputs and have a conundrum. From a practical standpoint, I want my line output (to amp or receiver for speakers) to be defeated when I use headphones. On SE designs this is usually handled...

I'm preparing to build a Balanced JISBOS-with-gain headphone amp. I need to be able to switch my source to drive either the headphone stage or send a line-level out to my amp for my speakers. I would like to have a front-panel switch so my wife can switch back from the headphone output to the...

...and ran across two CRT displays I couldn't get the local 2nd hand shop to take off my hands. There's a 1994 17" IBM flatscreen and a slightly newer Micron. Would there happen to be any useful parts I could scavenge off of these before I haul them off to the dump? I also have two...

You guys have to be getting tired of these threads--I'm so indecisive! I'm contemplating a "Frankensixfifties" mod on my already hot-rodded HD 555's (somehow transplanting the 650 drivers in, but angled like the original 555 drivers--hey, it works for the HD 800, right? ). I'm not even sure...

Responding to a post I made in the opamp thread about my "quest for greater soundstage," murrays pointed out the following: Quote: Originally Posted by murrays There are more subtle issues than just the quoted "separation" of a dual device. (See if you can track down Walt Jung's...

Figured I'd post this in "General Discussion" since part of my question has to do with more than audio... So, on the *3rd* reinstall in the last 3 years of Windows XP, having the same sorts of ridiculous hardware issues (I always end up having to do some form of driver acrobatics to get even...

I made Husband mistake No. 1 and got the wife interested in a remodel, whereby we eliminate the office so we can add a dining room space. A logical (and only really cost-effective) solution for the computer rig is to combine the office machine with the studio/media computer in one super-powered...

I know killz23 had posted about a Spokane/Northern Idaho meet. We've been chatting and wondered if there'd be more interest if we opened it up a bit. Anybody from Boise/Southern Idaho/Eastern Oregon interested in a meet? To give us some time to plan, let's say, October-ish? Boise & Spokane are...

Following FallenAngel's suggestion, I'm looking at building a balanced headphone buffer using this JISBOS kit for my next "intermediate" build. Should work well with my low impedance, high-sensitivity phones and my "relatively" hot source. I've noticed the original SOHA is no longer available...

So here I am enjoying listening with my first successful audio build (a balanced a47), and it's really not even completely finished yet... ...and I'm already contemplating my next build! Having a balanced source, making the a47 balanced was really quite simple. And fun to do. The...

My attempt to do "balanced on a budget--" a balanced a47: Sorry for the cellphone image--one of these days I'll figure out how to take "real" pictures like a lot of you do. Yes that's 4--count 'em--four OPA 2134's, using Apheared's original values (gain of 3--I couldn't get it to run...