cmoy.. better than nothing?

[JamesL]

First things first.. while I love music,
I'm not the regular head-fi audiophile..
I know hardly anything about good headphones and amps, receivers, etcetera.. and am not as dedicated as the rest of the folks..


I'm somewhat nifty when it comes to building stuff.. and want something to do in my spare time without spending too much money. Otherwise, I'd just buy a mini3.

Although I know 'almost' nothing about circuitry and headphone amps, I'm good at following directions, and am willing to learn a bit.
While cmoy's look like the best choice for starters, are there any other ones that have clear and thorough directions?

I'll have to run these off my pc, so I thought I'd just build it into my 3.5" bay drive. I don't think I'll have too much problems getting my hands on a cheap solder and multimeter.. also, is it possible to run it off of my psu?(the same ones used to power the pc)

If I start now, I probably won't get these done till like, next year... but I don't care, as long as I get the DIY satisfaction.

 

[Basil101]

A CMoy is certainly better than nothing and one of the easier projects to start with (no surface mount parts).
As for running it of your PC I have never heard of this being done, I suppose it would depend a lot on your PSU, but I would try the 12V fan connections. This leads very nicely on to my suggestion of a future project, an Alien DAC, the alien can made to use a USB port for information and power and the line out could be run straight in to your CMoy.

 

[TzeYang]

go with a cmoy. Now just pray you won't get addicted to DIY.

(for now it's almost like drugs for me, i cant live without it.)

 

[SuperNothing]

CMoy is a great little amp. Go for it.

 

[NelsonVandal]

If you're about to build a CMOY, make room for an active ground channel like in Mini3. This makes a lot of difference. Your amp will only be a couple of bucks more expensive. You can add it later when you want to upgrade. Make sure to use good opams. Lesser opamps like OPA2134, NE5532 and AD823 is not worth it. Good opamps doesn't have to be more expensive. Opamps and a good ground channel are the most important factors in an amp like this. Fancy resistors, connectors or internal cables, expensive solder etc are more mythology than better for facts. Large and fancy capacitors might be important if you use passive ground like in the original CMOY, but not in an amp with active ground.

 

[Jammin72]

Please don't tie it to the power supply in your computer. You would introduce a lot of unnecessary noise into the signal. Keep it out of the case, RF is a nightmare inside of a PC.