Crack;Bottlehead OTL
Nov 5, 2020 at 6:51 PM Post #10,471 of 12,304
Do These Caps Make My Amp Look Big?

I've been enjoying listening to my Crack-a-two-a in its stock form for the past few months, save for the installation of some very nice tubes. I purchased a pair of Clarity caps around the time I finished building the amp and just got around to fitting them. It was necessary to reposition a couple of terminal strips and resistors, lengthen/shorten a couple of wires and fabricate some mounting blocks. Here’s the finished product. Tested it out. All seems good, and in the past couple days I've been doing some critical listening with the Sennheiser HD800S.

The amp is a lot more incisive with the upgraded caps, and vocals are more palpable. Percussion is delivered punch, impact, grunt and pace. Cymbals sound as real as I've heard, with natural timbre and sustain. micro dynamics. Vocals -- female and male -- are so present and there. Overall, music sounds real to me. I think it's safe to says I won't be doing any further upgrades to t he amp.

C2A Caps.jpg


Joe.
 
Nov 13, 2020 at 2:49 PM Post #10,473 of 12,304
Do These Caps Make My Amp Look Big?

I've been enjoying listening to my Crack-a-two-a in its stock form for the past few months, save for the installation of some very nice tubes. I purchased a pair of Clarity caps around the time I finished building the amp and just got around to fitting them. It was necessary to reposition a couple of terminal strips and resistors, lengthen/shorten a couple of wires and fabricate some mounting blocks. Here’s the finished product. Tested it out. All seems good, and in the past couple days I've been doing some critical listening with the Sennheiser HD800S.

The amp is a lot more incisive with the upgraded caps, and vocals are more palpable. Percussion is delivered punch, impact, grunt and pace. Cymbals sound as real as I've heard, with natural timbre and sustain. micro dynamics. Vocals -- female and male -- are so present and there. Overall, music sounds real to me. I think it's safe to says I won't be doing any further upgrades to t he amp.

C2A Caps.jpg

Joe.

I use the same caps on my BH, guess what? They are not inside the cabinet. Sound great as you say, lots of refinement including some very nice decay. Female vocals in the center get more air too. No pics, its still ungainly looking.
 
Nov 13, 2020 at 5:32 PM Post #10,474 of 12,304
I use the same caps on my BH, guess what? They are not inside the cabinet. Sound great as you say, lots of refinement including some very nice decay. Female vocals in the center get more air too. No pics, its still ungainly looking.

Not surprising. There's not a lot of real estate inside the Crack envelope to accommodate them; they're large. Did you build a separate enclosure for them? Even with the extra room provided by BH on the Crack-a-two-a, I had to use my best packaging engineering skills. I did quite a bit of measuring and revisualization before attacking the task. I'm pleased with the outcome, though. Well worth the effort!

Best,

Joe.
 
Nov 13, 2020 at 5:42 PM Post #10,475 of 12,304
Not surprising. There's not a lot of real estate inside the Crack envelope to accommodate them; they're large. Did you build a separate enclosure for them? Even with the extra room provided by BH on the Crack-a-two-a, I had to use my best packaging engineering skills. I did quite a bit of measuring and revisualization before attacking the task. I'm pleased with the outcome, though. Well worth the effort!

Best,

Joe.

Imagine them stacked between the chokes wrapped in copper sheeting.

Walt
 

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Nov 13, 2020 at 5:50 PM Post #10,476 of 12,304
w/ tubes. HA! Joe, I knew it was a JMW Memorial on a VPI.
 

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Nov 13, 2020 at 9:03 PM Post #10,477 of 12,304
Crack + Speedball + Mods. Built for me by a forum friend. Tubes are Chatham 6AS7G + Tung-Sol 12AU7.
 

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Nov 13, 2020 at 10:39 PM Post #10,480 of 12,304


Thanks a lot for the link. Not sure how much you paid for the building and who built it for you, but it is easily one of the best IMHO. The wiring looks gorgeous.

For comparison my amateur wiring (Speedball was not added yet at that time):
Crack04c.jpg
 
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Nov 13, 2020 at 10:45 PM Post #10,481 of 12,304
Then I have a Brimar 6SN7GT on its way. All of those I haven't tried yet. I have far too many tubes really for my uses. I want to find a couple of different combos I like and then sell on the rest.

So far my go to is the 5998 with either the Mazda 12AU7 or "Tung Sol*" 6SN7GT *Branded Tung Sol but I think this is the "Raytheon" rebranded as Tung Sol mentioned in post #113 in the 6SN7 thread:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-6sn7-identification-guide.209782/page-8#post-13476833
I think I paid £24 inc shipping for the Raytheon-Tung Sol. Re-brand or not it sounds great and just edges out the Mazda but not by much. I seem to be the only giving love to the Mazda though. It is that good and cheap that I bought another 6 within an hour of hearing it.

Laptop-Music Bee (Wasapi)-USB into Topping D30 into BH Crack with the 5998 and Ray-Sol 6SN7GT into AKG Sextetts (MP). Rush - Permanent Waves on. (Puppy is asleep.) Absolute Heaven :D And this is still stock (no crackling at the mo either.)

The Tung Sol 6SN7GT you bought is definitely a rebranded Raytheon. Only Ray 6SN7 has these extra supporting rods (5692 not included). A very nice tube. The Brimar is even better, I like it more than the Ray.
 
Nov 13, 2020 at 11:06 PM Post #10,482 of 12,304


Just checked the Dayton 100uF cap, but I couldn't find "Oil" or "Film"anywhere in its specs. It only mentions "polypropylene capacitor" in its title.

IIRC polypropylene is basically used in most modern caps, even the electrolytic caps use polypropylene as dieletric as well.

But the linked Dayton caps do look like typical Oil Film caps, so are they Oil Film caps? Anyone can confirm?
 
Nov 14, 2020 at 9:24 AM Post #10,483 of 12,304
Crack + Speedball + Mods. Built for me by a forum friend. Tubes are Chatham 6AS7G + Tung-Sol 12AU7.

Nice build! Really well thought through and executed!
Joe.
 
Nov 15, 2020 at 6:39 PM Post #10,484 of 12,304
Just checked the Dayton 100uF cap, but I couldn't find "Oil" or "Film"anywhere in its specs. It only mentions "polypropylene capacitor" in its title.

IIRC polypropylene is basically used in most modern caps, even the electrolytic caps use polypropylene as dieletric as well.

But the linked Dayton caps do look like typical Oil Film caps, so are they Oil Film caps? Anyone can confirm?

Doubt it, not at that asking price.
 
Nov 16, 2020 at 3:30 PM Post #10,485 of 12,304
Nice build! Really well thought through and executed!
Joe.
They aren't Oil ones. I was looking at them when I was deciding what to buy because the price is really good. They look cool too. I didn't buy them in the end and bought the Mundorf MKP audiophiler (not the EVO I stated earlier.) Not because of anything to do with the Daytons really, just that I drank too much port, thought "sod it" and clicked on the Mundorfs.

Then I bought some Clarity Cap ESA to use as bypass on them, hic, hic. lol.
 
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