[JaquesGelee]

Hey there,

yesterday i read the first time about it and flew asap through this forum.
Maybe already asked, but:

1. Is soldering this kit + upgrade doable with entry level experiences?
(soldered BNC plugs on RG58, N-Plugs on RG213, soldered and desoldered some semiconductors, done entry circuit pcb´s many years ago)
*Edit: ok, seems not, if i plan to modify it like i would.

2. where do i get finished rosewood casing?
3. Which tube is highly recommended as solid allrounder?
4. Which DAC do you use? I have Chord Mojo, Qutest in mind.

audiophile greetings

 

[Mightygrey]

Hey there,

yesterday i read the first time about it and flew asap through this forum.
Maybe already asked, but:

1. Is soldering this kit + upgrade doable with entry level experiences?
(soldered BNC plugs on RG58, N-Plugs on RG213, soldered and desoldered some semiconductors, done entry circuit pcb´s many years ago)
*Edit: ok, seems not, if i plan to modify it like i would.

2. where do i get finished rosewood casing?
3. Which tube is highly recommended as solid allrounder?
4. Which DAC do you use? I have Chord Mojo, Qutest in mind.

audiophile greetings

1. I've never used a soldering iron before, and I found it easily doable.

2. A hobby/hardware store.

3. The stock tubes will be plenty fine for a good while unless you find them sonically lacking anything. After that, try a 5998 power tube.

4. I use a Schiit Bifrost 2, or a Rega Planar 2 for sources. It won't matter too much as long as you feed it with well mastered and recorded music.

 

[haasaaroni]

She lives! What a joy putting this thing together and being rewarded with such an incredible sound. Goes with my Aeolus like peanut better and crack...I mean, jelly

Hearing just a tiny bit of channel imbalance towards the right and a bit of sound in the right channel though (the stock power tube seems pretty microphonic). It's so little that I'm just assuming it's just tubes being tubes, and will see if using a different tube fixes the problem. Looked it over pretty well and didn't any cold joints or anything.

 

[DeweyCH]

She lives! What a joy putting this thing together and being rewarded with such an incredible sound. Goes with my Aeolus like peanut better and crack...I mean, jelly

Hearing just a tiny bit of channel imbalance towards the right and a bit of sound in the right channel though (the stock power tube seems pretty microphonic). It's so little that I'm just assuming it's just tubes being tubes, and will see if using a different tube fixes the problem. Looked it over pretty well and didn't any cold joints or anything.

What in the name of all that's holy is that gorgeous base made of?

 

[haasaaroni]

What in the name of all that's holy is that gorgeous base made of?

You mean the stained wood with acrylic paint (and way more coats of poly than I could have ever needed)? Or the hammered black spray paint on the top plate?

 

[DeweyCH]

You mean the stained wood with acrylic paint (and way more coats of poly than I could have ever needed)? Or the hammered black spray paint on the top plate?

Former

 

[haasaaroni]

Former

Haha yeah, it’s just the regular wood that I messed up the staining on, painted over the mistakes with some cool acrylic colors, and dumped a pound of ploy onto

 

[cddc]

She lives! What a joy putting this thing together and being rewarded with such an incredible sound. Goes with my Aeolus like peanut better and crack...I mean, jelly

Hearing just a tiny bit of channel imbalance towards the right and a bit of sound in the right channel though (the stock power tube seems pretty microphonic). It's so little that I'm just assuming it's just tubes being tubes, and will see if using a different tube fixes the problem. Looked it over pretty well and didn't any cold joints or anything.

Channel imbalance is one of the most common problems of potentiometers, especially at low volumes (6-9 am), mainly because a small displacement of the 2 wipers on the 2 resistive discs can cause a relatively large % difference in resistance between the 2 channels at low volumes, but as volume increases and the distances of the 2 wipers from their starting points increase, the % difference is becoming smaller and smaller (as its denominator increases) and channel imbalance normally will disappear at normal listening levels. If the imbalance at normal listening levels is tiny, you can possibly ignore it. If you can't stand it, you can upgrade the stock pot with some higher grade Alps pot or stepped attenuator.

You are both lucky and unlucky on the stock tubes... I got the worst ever double-double from Bottlehead, GE + GE . Your Baldwin 12AU7 seems to be a Sylvania 12AU7, which is slightly better than my GE 12AU7 stock tube. Your GE 6AS7GA is also slightly better than my GE 6080 stock tube. The unfortunate part is your GE 6AS7GA seems microphonic. Give the tubes some burn-in time (20 hours, maybe) and see if the microphonics goes way. If not, clean the pins, or replace it with some better tubes. The stock tubes are just some basic tubes. A good starter tube that I always recommend to BHC fellows is the Russian 6H13C tube, nice and cheap, normally costs $10 + shipping from Ukraine or Russia.

 

[haasaaroni]

Channel imbalance is one of the most common problems of potentiometers, especially at low volumes (6-9 am), mainly because a small displacement of the 2 wipers on the 2 resistive discs can cause a relatively large % difference in resistance between the 2 channels at low volumes, but as volume increases and the distances of the 2 wipers from their starting points increase, the % difference is becoming smaller and smaller (as its denominator increases) and channel imbalance normally will disappear at normal listening levels. If the imbalance at normal listening levels is tiny, you can possibly ignore it. If you can't stand it, you can upgrade the stock pot with some higher grade Alps pot or stepped attenuator.

You are both lucky and unlucky on the stock tubes... I got the worst ever double-double from Bottlehead, GE + GE . Your Baldwin 12AU7 seems to be a Sylvania 12AU7, which is slightly better than my GE 12AU7 stock tube. Your GE 6AS7GA is also slightly better than my GE 6080 stock tube. The unfortunate part is your GE 6AS7GA seems microphonic. Give the tubes some burn-in time (20 hours, maybe) and see if the microphonics goes way. If not, clean the pins, or replace it with some better tubes. The stock tubes are just some basic tubes. A good starter tube that I always recommend to BHC fellows is the Russian 6H13C tube, nice and cheap, normally costs $10 + shipping from Ukraine or Russia.

Thanks for this! I had no idea the stock tubes vary so much between kits. I'm definitely loving the sound!

And yeah, thanks for bringing up burn-in. I actually think the slight noise went away already from just a couple hours! And the channel imbalance isn't terrible (and happens at normal listening levels with the HD6XX), as my hearing actually drifts further to the left than normal anyway. So the right-leaning imbalance is having the effect of balancing all the images that sound "off" on more well-balanced gear

 

[QuasiSpecies]

She lives! What a joy putting this thing together and being rewarded with such an incredible sound. Goes with my Aeolus like peanut better and crack...I mean, jelly

Hearing just a tiny bit of channel imbalance towards the right and a bit of sound in the right channel though (the stock power tube seems pretty microphonic). It's so little that I'm just assuming it's just tubes being tubes, and will see if using a different tube fixes the problem. Looked it over pretty well and didn't any cold joints or anything.

Wow! This is a beautiful build, A+

I love the Crack with ZMF headphones!

 

[DeweyCH]

Can anyone give me a kind of overview of pot resistances and how they change things? I did a lot of modding on a Darkvoice, and one of the issues I had was that it was extremely loud extremely fast - couldn't turn it more than a tiny bit without blowing my eardrums out through my nose. So I went from the stock crappy 100k pot to a 50k with a 47k shunt, and that solved my problem - volume was nicely balanced due to the shunt and didn't get to "too loud" until like 1 o'clock.

Now I've got a 10k stepped attenuator in there, which seems to have gone a little bit too far in the other direction.

So as I understand it, bumping down the resistance of the pot makes the volume increase more slowly. This has been my takeaway. But the pot replacement discussions around the Crack always seem to default to the 100k resistance the stock one comes with. Other than slower volume gain, what would, say, a 20k pot in my Crack do to the sound/build/etc?

Thank you!

 

[Bonddam]

I ain't got the balls to build one so I bought the classified option. Wanted a dedicated amp for these guys

 

[CaptainFantastic]

Hi everyone, I am new to this thread. I have a small army of high-impendence headphones that apparently would pair well with the BHC. Unfortunately, I also have a small army of quality 6922 tubes that I somehow would like to get good use out of.

Is it possible to have a Crack built to take 6922/E88CC as an input tube instead of the standard 12AU7? Or is that a) too complex to pull off or b) not recommended, not a good synergy in this amp.

 

[Bonddam]

Im going to be using my Bendix 6080WB but don't know which driver to choose. Any driver recommendations?

 

[jonathan c]

Hi everyone, I am new to this thread. I have a small army of high-impendence headphones that apparently would pair well with the BHC. Unfortunately, I also have a small army of quality 6922 tubes that I somehow would like to get good use out of.

Is it possible to have a Crack built to take 6922/E88CC as an input tube instead of the standard 12AU7? Or is that a) too complex to pull off or b) not recommended, not a good synergy in this amp.

Rather than rebuild a BHC, you might use a 6922 (top) -> 12au7 (bottom) adapter. These can be found on EBay or you could have Head-Fier @Deyan build one for you. (He built me two of the opposites - great workmanship!)