[diaBoliQu3]

Last few weeks, someone gave me the worst advice I ever get. He asked me to get Crack, and use my credit card. Thanks to that guy, now I'm waiting for my Christmas present even though Santa didn't like me for being naught this year.

 

[calipilot227]

You mean the best advice you've ever gotten 

 

[JamieMcC]

Little update I unexpectedly had a afternoon free on Saturday so with some trepidation and a pair of shaky hands was able to make a start on wiring up the crack.
 
Those pesky little LED's are a tad fiddly but are now in and I haven't melted anything yet and have only burnt me little pinkie once. Up to page 29 now but minus the 22.1K ohm 1W resistor as I did not have the meter with me to check it was correct the bands also looked different to the picture.
 
Happy to say its been a blast so far.
 
Also much to my relief my practice soldering was done with some 60/40 solder but for the actual build I have some 63/37 Cardas Eutectic solder.  This turned out to be a lot more user friendly to solder with than the 60/40;
 
Also who ever gave the tip of using those medical forceps which lock super idea these have been very handy to hold bits steady or use as heat sinks when soldering the LED's and any other bits close to plastic which I might have melted.
 
Work in progress pic.
 

 

[bigfatpaulie]

Looks fantastic, well done!  Keep up the good work!  

 

[JamieMcC]

Cheers Paul I am kicking back for the rest of the evening and having a beer

 the Cracks assembled (minus speedball) and I will tackle the resistance and volt checks to tomorrow with fresh eyes . Internals took me about 7hrs total,  4hrs yesterday and 3hrs today.
 

 

[mullardpassion]

  Cheers Paul I am kicking back for the rest of the evening and having a beer

 the Cracks assembled (minus speedball) and I will tackle the resistance and volt checks to tomorrow with fresh eyes . Internals took me about 7hrs total,  4hrs yesterday and 3hrs today.
 

Clean build..good job mate. When you're done with the spedball, post some more pics

 

[bigfatpaulie]

And you were worried!
 

 

[HMFlol]

Hello folks,
 
quick question. I am thinking of buying a Bottlehead Crack to go with some HD650's relatively soon. Partly because I think they would be a lot of fun, and a great learning experience to build, and also because I've heard that they are an A++ pairing with the 650's.
 
That said, I will be running them from my PC, which has an ASUS Xonar DX card. I am wondering if that will be sufficient to use, or if I should be looking to pair it with a different DAC? This will be my first foray into tubes, so I am hoping that someone in this forum has experience with that particular setup that might be able to she some light.
 
Thanks sirs.

 

[Doc B.]

My advice is definitely ask for informed opinions, but change only one piece of gear at a time. 

 

[HMFlol]

That seems like good advice. Looking forward to building my Bottlehead Crack this Holiday season.

 

[Loquah]

  My advice is definitely ask for informed opinions, but change only one piece of gear at a time. 

 
Great advice. By starting with a Crack with your existing sound card you can hear the difference made by using the Crack and can then notice the upgrade improvements of a future DAC upgrade.

 

[JamieMcC]

Build update
 
I have gone and shot myself in the foot while doing the voltage checks (face palms self)!
 
Resistance checks were all good and very close to those in the spec.
 
Voltage checks all good and going well until a LED went out while testing the octal socket terminals.
 
Very fast diagnoses from Caucasian Blackplate (Paul "PB" Birkeland) on the bottlehead forum (Doc must have him hard wired into the computer) with a almost instant response just a few moments later.
 
Very impressive customer service well done and thank you Bottlehead.
 
So after a few quick questions and answers it looks like I shorted out the LED on the adjacent high voltage pin with the end of the testing probe.  I am very thankful that nothing more serious was damaged, including myself as this was the very first time I had ever used a multi meter its a good lesson to learn for later on.
 
Looking on the positive side while I wait for a replacement LED I will be able to finish off the case. Which may not have happened so soon if I had started enjoying listening
to the Crack.
 
Edit I meant to add
 
Be very careful when you start probing your Crack!

 

[FlySweep]

 
Be very careful when you start probing your Crack!

 
Must..
 
 
 
resist...
 
 
 
opportunity.. for...
 
 
 
crass...
 
 
 
jokes..

 

[bigfatpaulie]

Sorry to hear that, Jamie 

.
 
I have to second your comment about Bottlehead service.  When I posted a question here about the SpeedBall assembly, Doc answered in minutes.  When I purchased the unit, Eileen was friendly and prompt both over email and on the phone.  I suspect Bottlehead is having a hard time filling orders for some of their items and it is with good reason.

 

[Doc B.]

Thanks for the kind words guys. We do continually run behind on delivery. It makes some folks a little perturbed in the era of Amazon free two day shipping (for only $70 a year) and Netflix streaming HD movies (with no surround sound). But this isn't a mass market product we are offering. We carefully prep and pack everything in house, I even brush all the chassis panels myself. This year we hired more staff to concentrate on order fulfillment (Josh) and one of the benefits has been about a 27% increase in business. So we kinda ended up at status quo on delivery time even with the extra help. That said, we are as caught up right now as we have been in a few months. Some of you might not know we have a delivery status web page linked to our shopping cart's main page, that gets updates whenever we complete a packing and shipping run. You can look at where we are at on orders and get some feel for how long the wait might be for your kit.