[Sonido]

   
Wow, beautiful setup with full of Bottlehead amps. I'm not really sure what preamplifier does? Does it improve sound quality significantly as a DAC? 

In my experience, it can do two things.
 
1. Impart it's own sound signature to the chain. For example the Quickie does this by adding a kick to the lower frequencies. Tubes preamps are especially known to add warmth to the sound. This can be good when pairing with a colder sounding solid state amp. Purist will hate on this though since it deviates from the source.
 
2. It can clean up the sound. This is done by putting less strain on the DAC by increasing the gain somewhat before feeding it into an amp. It's an intermediary to help match impedance values. I've found the Smash to do this more than the previous point. Smash to me is very neutral, but the improvements are in details, imaging, and soundstaging. Overall the music just sound less compressed or cluttered.

 

[Aeolus Kratos]

   
+1.  My HD600 + Crack have left me with no desire to upgrade my open-backed setup in the near future.
 
P.S. I love my Orca's, how do you like yours?

Me too! The Orcas sound is very transparent, detailed and neutral. I've been surprised by how these beautiful little box can be!
 

  Very interested in the SMASH. I'm not familiar with the 4P1L tubes it uses.
 
When you use the SMASH to drive the S.E.X. (um, that sounds a little weird...), do you just set the volume control on the S.E.X. to max?
 
I too own the Blumenstein Orcas. Amazing what comes out of those little boxes! Looks like you also have the sub -- like it?
 

Hi guildenstern,
 
What I think even weirder is that the SMASH can cause a big distortion driving the Mainline. The distortion was even louder than when you plugged the planars/ortho like the HE-500s to the Crack. The music from SMASH + Mainline is not listenable at all. Surprisingly, the SMASH was fantastic with either the Crack or the SEX.
 
When I use the SMASH with the SEX, I set the SEX volume to approximately 50% ( i.e 12h direction ) and control the volume via the SMASH, same to the Crack.
 
Yes! I totally love the Orcas! The sub really adds a great depth to the bass and helps create a deeper and more 3d soundstage to the overall presentation.
 

   
Wow, beautiful setup with full of Bottlehead amps. I'm not really sure what preamplifier does? Does it improve sound quality significantly as a DAC? 

Thanks Benjamin! I'm now having two main setups : I use the SMASH + S.E.X + Orcas speakers combo as I pictured above for speaker setup and this wonderful headamp for critical headphone listening, so I can have the best of both worlds

 

 

[Sonido]

  What I think even weirder is that the SMASH can cause a big distortion driving the Mainline. The distortion was even louder than when you plugged the planars/ortho like the HE-500s to the Crack. The music from SMASH + Mainline is not listenable at all. Surprisingly, the SMASH was fantastic with either the Crack or the SEX.

The Crack and SEX has input impedances of 100K ohms, whereas the Mainline only has 25K ohms input impedance. Still with a 1.6k ohms output impedance, that ratio isn't terrible with the Mainline. Perhaps less headroom. I'm using it with my Questyle amp that has an input impedance of 47K ohms, and it sounds fine, though I do find I can't turn the volume on the Smash past 60% or distortions start appearing. I do note that headroom for my setup could be better. Right now I have the Questyle at 1 o'clock and the Smash at 12 o'clock to get to decent listening levels (~80 dB), with 7 o'clock being the starting point on both. Doc B. has told me that the BeePre has better headroom than the Smash, and its output impedance is only 500 ohms, so maybe that has something to do with it.

 

[liamstrain]

A pre-amplifier is often a source selector, and then used as another place for volume control. Whether it improves sound varies widely. I like them for convenience.

 

[Doc B.]

I am hesitant to intrude upon this, as I am very happy to sell everyone both a headphone amp a preamp. But I feel compelled to say that putting a Smash ahead of a Mainline is counterproductive. We did not design that gear to work together. The Mainline is a standalone headphone amp designed to be connected directly to a source component. For that matter so are the S.E.X. and Crack amps. But they have a couple of gain stages and a higher input impedance so one is not really going against a fundamental design point by putting more tubes ahead of them like you are with the single gain stage Mainline. If it was distorting it's probably because the Smash was being driven hard by the source and the bass was crapping out into the relatively low impedance of the Mainline. Also, the stock Mainline volume control is quite a bit more esoteric and sounds better than the stock Smash volume control ( which will be upgradeable to a similar state with the BeeQuiet kit soon) so why put the extra volume pot in the chain?

The Quickie and Smash are really designed for power amps like our Paramount and Quicksand amps, and also the new midline tube amp design we are developing. My hunch is what you guys are doing is making sort of a buffer stage for your source components by putting them in between. I think that's reasonable for a Crack or S.E.X. Based system, but I would suggest getting a better source component to match the Mainline if you feel the existing one needs some help.

My most cost effective suggestion if you want to experiment with this preamp stuff is get some nice inefficient planars and try a Quickie/Quicksand combo to drive them.

 

[Sonido]

I am hesitant to intrude upon this, as I am very happy to sell everyone both a headphone amp a preamp. But I feel compelled to say that putting a Smash ahead of a Mainline is counterproductive. We did not design that gear to work together. The Mainline is a standalone headphone amp designed to be connected directly to a source component. For that matter so are the S.E.X. and Crack amps. But they have a couple of gain stages and a higher input impedance so one is not really going against a fundamental design point by putting more tubes ahead of them like you are with the single gain stage Mainline. If it was distorting it's probably because the Smash was being driven hard by the source and the bass was crapping out into the relatively low impedance of the Mainline. Also, the stock Mainline volume control is quite a bit more esoteric and sounds better than the stock Smash volume control ( which will be upgradeable to a similar state with the BeeQuiet kit soon) so why put the extra volume pot in the chain?

The Quickie and Smash are really designed for power amps like our Paramount and Quicksand amps, and also the new midline tube amp design we are developing. My hunch is what you guys are doing is making sort of a buffer stage for your source components by putting them in between. I think that's reasonable for a Crack or S.E.X. Based system, but I would suggest getting a better source component to match the Mainline if you feel the existing one needs some help.

My most cost effective suggestion if you want to experiment with this preamp stuff is get some nice inefficient planars and try a Quickie/Quicksand combo to drive them.

Thanks for the explanation Doc! The BeePre is in my sights. I'm thinking of getting a second Questyle CMA800R to go dual monoblock balanced, and with that setup, you need a preamp to control volume because the volume pots on the Questyles in that setup aren't being used. Also need 3-pin XLR out from the preamp to feed this setup, and I believe the BeePre has that.
 
Also that's translation for the rest of you Crack owners on here to go and pick up the Quickie or Smash, or better yet the BeePre.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

Sounds like you should also develop a buffer kit Doc.

 

[Loquah]

  Sounds like you should also develop a buffer kit Doc.

 
Stop giving him ideas - we'll all go broke!

 

[Armaegis]

 Based system, but I would suggest getting a better source component to match the Mainline if you feel the existing one needs some help.

My most cost effective suggestion if you want to experiment with this preamp stuff is get some nice inefficient planars and try a Quickie/Quicksand combo to drive them.

 
Of course, there's the bottlehead dac in development... very curious to hear more news on that as it develops.

 

[Merloobi]

This is probably the wrong place to ask, but is anyone looking to sell their Bottlehead Crack + Speedball? I'm very interested in getting my hands on one, but the costs of buying soldering tools is impeding me. I've heard the build is noob friendly, but the whole process sounds very daunting and I don't want to take a risk after investing ~$500 in parts and tools. Thanks.

 

[jgreen16]

  This is probably the wrong place to ask, but is anyone looking to sell their Bottlehead Crack + Speedball? I'm very interested in getting my hands on one, but the costs of buying soldering tools is impeding me. I've heard the build is noob friendly, but the whole process sounds very daunting and I don't want to take a risk after investing ~$500 in parts and tools. Thanks.

There is a For Sale section for Phones, sources, amplification, etc.
 
Check here, I think there were a couple the last time I looked:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/f/6551/amplification-for-sale-trade

 

[Merloobi]

  There is a For Sale section for Phones, sources, amplification, etc.
 
Check here, I think there a couple the last time I looked:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/f/6551/amplification-for-sale-trade

Thanks for your response. I will take a look there!

 

[olegausany]

I have moded one for sale

 

[Loquah]

  This is probably the wrong place to ask, but is anyone looking to sell their Bottlehead Crack + Speedball? I'm very interested in getting my hands on one, but the costs of buying soldering tools is impeding me. I've heard the build is noob friendly, but the whole process sounds very daunting and I don't want to take a risk after investing ~$500 in parts and tools. Thanks.

 
Where in the world are you located?

 

[MattTCG]

There are lot's of crack for sale in the forum right now. More than I've ever seen.