[ahess]

I've just gotten an Amiron Home, and am loving it. The rest of my system is:
PiCoreplayer --> Modwright Transporter (EML Mesh rectifier, RCA Grey vt231) --> Sony TA-4650

My beloved Sony TA-4650 amp doesn't seem to be doing justice to these headphones, hence the need for a headphone amp. So I've been diving in to head amp research.

If I were buying an amp, I think I'd be looking for something like the Feliks Echo (still researching) , but I'd love to DIY my amp. I'm comfortable with solder, and don't want to go the starter kit route. I'm thinking hybrid/tube design, but not really sure why, except that I think tubes are cool.

What are the DIY options that would approach (or better?) what I can buy for $4-500? Like I said, I'm ready for more than a starter kit, would like it to (possibly) be my last amp, but since I'm married w/ 2 teenagers I can't hide myself away for hours every day building the uber-amp.

So....?

 

[100VoltTube]

The Bottlehead Crack is always a great option for high impedance headphones. It's often talked about as a good option as a starter kit because it's not very hard to build, and has great instructions, but it's still a great amp.

The Jonokuchi is another design to look at. It's not a kit; you would need to track down all the parts yourself, but the PCB is available on Ebay. The details are here: http://www.pmillett.com/Jonokuchi.htm Pete Millet has a ton of other good headphone amp designs on his page as well, with this one being the most tubey of the ones with PCBs available.

There is the torpedo I and torpedo III, both of which were available as kits. Now I think all you can get is the PCB, and and get the parts on your own.

You might want to look into a tubelab SE amp: http://tubelab.com/pc-boards/tubelab-se/ This is pretty much the same design as a Jonokuchi: a single ended, 2 stage tube amp, but far more flexible; you can use all sorts of different tubes (I think it's mainly designed for DHTs) and transformers.

Here are another two:
https://wtfamps.com/papa-rusa-headphone-amplifier/
https://wtfamps.com/el-bad-hombre-headphone-amplifier/
These are different in that they don't have a PCB or kit, and the design process is explained fully. They were designed by member @Sodacose. That site is great for learning about tube electronics as well.

and last but not least, tubecad's kits:
https://glass-ware.stores.yahoo.net/heam.html
google the name of the kit and read its respective article(s) on tubecad.com for more info. These explanations can be very technical.

Hope these options help. Knowing what sound signature you want would likely help narrow it down.

 

[ahess]

These are great leads! I'll start reading up.

How do these DIY projects hold up against commercial (e.g., Feliks Echo) amps?

Also, considering that the transporter has tubes, and the Sony amp with the V fets is often described as tubey, could it be a bad idea to go with yet another tube device? I don't feel that my system sounds tubey, but I don't have enough experience to really know. To me it just sounds nice!

 

[ahess]

Okay, so my head is spinning from all the options and from trying to learn about amp electronics. My challenge is that I want to build something that will be fairly high-end, but also want to build it before I become an old man (oh, wait, too late!). I like what I'm reading about the Torp3, but am not crazy about the dimensions (small nitpit, I know).

Also, weird question: the transporter (DAC/preamp) has the volume control. Is there any problem with not using a volume control on the headphone amp? Would I need to revise the electronics if I did that?