[PieRat]

Okay hear me out,

I am not a good DIYer, or should I say I really have not tried any modding, or amp building, etc.

I had a thought though and curious to any thoughts, ideas about this.

I have an older Awia shelf system that I had been using at work to spin some CDs, and run my Ipod through.

Basically it looks something similar to this.

I have burned out the CD player on it and also the volume knob/pot has become twitchy. I pretty much just planned on taking it to the landfill. I have other amps/receivers, and whatnots. To be honest I just used it as it was easy and small enough to use here at work.

Anyway back to my idea. Now before anyone just says to trash it and its junk, etc (I know it is), I am wondering...

As a fun project how hard would it be to take the amplifier part out of this...maybe replace the twitchy volume pot, and then maybe make a case for it and use it as a headphone amp only?

I am thinking this might make for a fun 1st time DIY project for me. Instead of just trashing it altogether.

Is it all just one big circuit board and therefore impossible to do?

I haven't opened it up yet till I get home, so I know the obvious answer is probably just to open up and look. I am just curious if anyone has ever tried anything like this?

Yes I know it is a piece of crap, etc... I am not trying to make the mother of all headphone amps here, I just thought it might make for a fun first time DIY project for me to get my hands dirty with.

Thoughts?

 

[Ynis Avalach]

You're kidding me, this was my first stereo! I loved it so much, but yes it's crap.
Yes it's a single board, but wires and stuff all around the place, serious not worth the hassle!
I still got it collecting dust somewhere, and I guess the volume is twitchy too in mine. Mind you it's not a analog volume pot.
Greetz and much of luck!
Ava

 

[PieRat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ynis Avalach /img/forum/go_quote.gif You're kidding me, this was my first stereo! I loved it so much, but yes it's crap. Yes it's a single board, but wires and stuff all around the place, serious not worth the hassle! I still got it collecting dust somewhere, and I guess the volume is twitchy too in mine. Mind you it's not a analog volume pot. Greetz and much of luck! Ava

Ahhh I did not know it was not an analog pot. Yeah my mother had this for the longest time, only to play cassettes thru. When she burned out one of the cassette trays she was going to dump it. Everything else on it worked fine. So I took it. This was about 5 years ago before I discovered Head-Fi.

So I used it for work. I actually enjoyed it as well, and it did not do a bad job of being a LOD amp for my Ipod.

Anyway yeah I will at least open it up before sending it to the landfill this weekend.

 

[Uncle Erik]

It'd probably be as much if not more work than building a DIY amp and it probably wouldn't be that good once you finished. It would be like cutting off the back end of a car and welding on a truck bed. You could do it, but it would be easier to just buy a truck.

If you want a good amp, build one of the projects listed here.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif It'd probably be as much if not more work than building a DIY amp and it probably wouldn't be that good once you finished. It would be like cutting off the back end of a car and welding on a truck bed. You could do it, but it would be easier to just buy a truck. If you want a good amp, build one of the projects listed here.

Awww c'mon. Don't be such a wet blanket.

It'd be a fun little project. He'd gain some knowledge and experience along the way, and if it ultimately doesn't work out, he's no worse off than he was from the start.

k

 

[PieRat]

LOL I know what you are saying Eric.

It was just a thought, for a first time experiment LOL.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koyaan I. Sqatsi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Awww c'mon. Don't be such a wet blanket. It'd be a fun little project. He'd gain some knowledge and experience along the way, and if it ultimately doesn't work out, he's no worse off than he was from the start. k

Sorry. It's just that casing and the rest of the non-electronic stuff devour time when putting together an amp. Soldering is the easy part. I just think that if you're going to put that much effort into something, you should get a payoff. The amp from a boombox probably runs class AB or B, and might make for a noisy headphone amp without a lot of other tweaking.

All that time, effort and money could be put towards a CK2III or something and you'd be guaranteed great performance.

 

[Zorander]

I had an AIWA deck with similar problems (bad volume pot and self-ejecting CD tray); I figured it's too much work to attempt DIY at it so I just dumped it and connected the actually decent speakers to a spare Rotel amp. I agree with Uncle Erik that DIYing a different (and better) amp is a more rewarding experience.

Cheers!