[AndrewTosh]

Hey all,

I'm thinking of a unique gift idea for my girlfriend, and have been considering building her a headphone amp. She currently uses my HD580s on the headphone out of her Compaq PC (eew

)

I'm looking to spend about $100 total on parts. A complete kit or one without too many parts to hunt down would be best. I already have a soldering iron, multimeter, etc.

My previous building experience is building the small tube integrated amp described in the "Wow..." thread a while ago. I don't have the steadiest hands or the best soldering equipment, though, so I don't think I could build anything too densely laid out.

Her musical preferences are mostly acoustic rock and classical piano. Oh yeah, and it has to look good.

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[scottder]

Not a kit, but this sounds like a CMoy to me.

 

[MisterX]

Pimeta.

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

 

[aeriyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterX Pimeta. http://www.tangentsoft.net/audio/pimeta/

Ditto that. XD Easy to build, and fun too! Better than a CMoy.

 

[AndrewTosh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aeriyn Ditto that. XD Easy to build, and fun too! Better than a CMoy.

As part of team Girl-Fi, do you think this would be a good gift?

Someone I know might be able to paint a design on the enclosure to make it look nice.

Thanks for your help guys, time to start ordering parts!

 

[ECM]

for 100 bucks, you can buy an M-audio sonica or transit AND have enough left over to build a cmoy!

this will ensure that the sound from the computer will be free of computer noise.

 

[bg4533]

I am going to guess the stock sound card is being used. If so and $100 is all that you want to spend then the best results would be with a Chaintech AV-710 soundcard and a CMOY in my opinion. If you already have a decent soundcard or can get one later a basic Pimeta would be a good choice. A Pimeta with onboard sound will likely sound worse than CMOY and AV-710.

 

[AndrewTosh]

I have an AV 710 that I will probably give her. (I do most of my "serious" listening on a Sony SACD player, the sound card is more for background music)

I've been playing with a pretty cool parts list spreadsheet someone made. It seems like it'll be hard to do for $100, but going over a bit isn't a big deal. One issue that concerns me is power supply. Powering the PIMETA with 9v batteries seems popular, but this is going to be for home use. Would it be best to build my own power supply somehow, or are there any off the shelf wall-warts that will perform acceptably well?

I wonder if I can get it done by the 25th!

Ah well, I like a good challenge.

Thanks so much for all your help guys

I've been reading up on it as much as possible, but sometimes the most helpful information comes from someone else's personal experiences.

 

[n_maher]

Andrew,

I've basically been kicking around the same idea although not as a gift, just as the next DIY project for me. I thought about doing a PIMETA but found that to really do it right (for me anyway) and take advantage of what it's setup to do I'd want to spend around $160 to $200 on parts *cough* *chough* *choke*.

What I found to maybe be an acceptable alternative is to build a MINT. Total parts cost is around $65 (including a nice Hammond case) and should yield a really sweet amp. If I was smarter I'd try and figure out how to do something similar to the Maxi Moy (dual single op-amps) but alas, I'm not. At least not yet

. And I'm sort of butchering the MINT concept by putting the amp in a larger case (J1201) so that I can use a better (ALPS) pot and still get a dual 9v power supply and have room left to tinker. Also part of the criteria for this project was to use a premade board to try and cut down on the work so I don't lock myself in the attic for too long. SWMBO was nice enough to put up w/ me during the Cmoy build so I'm trying not to push too hard w/ the second project.

Just figured I'd throw that out there as an alternative. And good luck gettin all the parts and all the assembly done in the next three weeks.

Nate