[shaggy]

 
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So forget the kit and just order the parts yourself, that's a good portion of the fun in building stuff - picking and ordering parts... then posting "oh damn" comments about what you forgot to order.

 I'm sure its fun but I would like to save money and get this project built before school starts.
 
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A few thoughts:
 
- the C1 upgrade is easy to do anytime
- the Regal mod has been done by enough people that it it straightforward to troubleshoot
- upgrading the power supply caps after the initial build is a royal pain.  There is very little space and you're working between and around the heatsinks.  My suggestion would be to install them from the get-go and put them under the PCB
 
In terms of the dac, I started out using the DAC on my iBasso D10, which is supposedly pretty darn good.  I found myself tweaking my amp setup (tubes, caps, ...) to correct things introduced by the dac (light bass, mushy imaging, ...).  When I built my Buffalo II it was a real eye opener: bass went a lot deeper and was much clearer, imaging was much better, etc.  Lesson: you can't fix an inexpensive dac with a very good amp.  My personal advice (wearing my asbestos jumpsuit ready to be flamed) is the following: take your overall budget and assign 2/3 to the dac and 1/3 to the amp.  This may be the reverse of what most people do, but it reflects the cost of the various parts and the fact that it's hard to fix the signal once a cheap dac has messed it up.

I need to research all these tweaks more (I'm still working through the builder's thread atm). I plan on getting the kit from glassjar, so most likely I wont be using any boutique parts that I can't get from there. 
 
I agree with your take that I should dedicate more of my budget to the source, but from what I read the SOHA II + Bantam is a lot simpler to put together than the y2 or Buffalo II, so I want to start with there. Also, I might be mistaken, but the y2 and SOHA are both in the $250 realm, so that's only about how much I'm willing to spend right now, and I haven't really done any dac research so far.
 
Also, I can postpone trying the tweaks until a build a good dac, so I know my changes are because my source wasn't accurate. That way when I order the parts I can also add any other that I would need for tweaks and save on shipping.

 

[QRomo]

Does glassjar offer a SOHA II kit? I only see the board listed.
 
I just finished a γ2 recently and even though I'm a DIY neophyte, I didn't find it too complicated. Putting together an order for the γ1 portion is a bit harder than usual with the way the parts list is laid out (by necessity due to the various configuration options), but nothing a little careful list making can't solve. My advice if you do end up going that route is to really take your time with the surface mount components. Double (or triple!) check the orientation of everything before you solder more than one pin down because they're a bear to desolder if you make a mistake. Keep your solder joints nice and neat and carefully inspect and test them as you go. Oh, and if you think you might make a mistake despite all that caution, order some Chip Quik with your parts. Learned that one the hard way. 

 
I also recently built a MiniMAX, which is a great kit and another not-too-difficult build (just in case you change your mind on the SOHA).
 
I'm sure you've already considered this, but remember to account for any case work you'll have to do. Part of the reason I opted for the γ2 and MiniMAX was because they were designed to fit into particular cases with available pre-drilled and engraved/silkscreened  face plates.  I live in a condo and don't have access to the various necessary tools.
 
One last thing ... If you're considering a Grub or Bantam DAC to go in your amp chassis and don't mind veering away from DIY, an alternative might be to get a USB DAC Cable from Headphonia. You could either use the DAC as intended or chop off the cables and rewire it inside your chassis. You'd get the same functionality but with the higher end Wolfson DAC chip (8740). And it's a pretty good deal at $69 shipped. 

 

[jdkJake]

... then posting "oh damn" comments about what you forgot to order.

Man, can I relate to that one!

Go through the BOM a couple times with a fine tooth comb, otherwise, you end up with DOH!!!!

(slaps forehead multiple times)

 

[jdkJake]

Quote:

 Lesson: you can't fix an inexpensive dac with a very good amp.  My personal advice (wearing my asbestos jumpsuit ready to be flamed) is the following: take your overall budget and assign 2/3 to the dac and 1/3 to the amp.  This may be the reverse of what most people do, but it reflects the cost of the various parts and the fact that it's hard to fix the signal once a cheap dac has messed it up.

So, there is a fair amount of truth to this statement (and not just because stringgz301 is from Green Bay). Crap in is crap out, no matter how you slice it. A good amp cannot make a bad source sound better.
 
As you go up the price chain, the sound quality usually goes up. I mean, the GrubDAC is an amazing value for the money. It's a $35 dollar kit for heavens sake! You would be hard pressed to come up with something with better sound for that price. Some might even say impossible. That being said, do I think it sounds better than my Keces? In a word, no, but, the Keces was a factor of ten more costly. I fully expected it to sound better. It has a dedicated power supply, a fully optimized topology and is HUGE compared to the GrubDAC. You certainly cannot put it in your pocket and go like the GrubDAC. 
 
So, the goal here is to balance you purchase. Work your way up the chain. Consider your entire signal path. Be aware, if you listen to only 128k mp3 files, then I would not spend a whole lot on a DAC. There is not much that can be done with those files. A computer or iPod straight into an amp will do the best it can. Even a thousand dollar DAC cannot do much with lossy source material. Once you start moving up to around 256k and beyond to lossless, it is another story altogether.
 
My advice, start small and affordable and work your way up in time. You can always trade out and trade up gear as you go (and dollars permit).

 

[FallenAngel]

Kits generally won't save you any money.

 

[tomb]

Quote:

Kits generally won't save you any money.

??  I thought the whole reason for kits was to save the customer the shipping prices and inconvenience (minimum order $$) of having to order from multiple sources.  Heck, my kits are priced according to the single item prices from Mouser/DigiKey, et al, with no additional overhead - same as the BOM.  Jeff Rossel at Glass Jar Audio is the same.  We buy in volume, and the price difference is often enough to make up for the added shipping from multiple sources.  So, we win and the customer wins.
 
' Course, with a couple of the posters we've had around here lately, they think all of this is a zero-sum gain and that anybody can do this.  So maybe we're not providing a service that's needed after all?  I mean, anybody can build one of these things and order all the parts that are needed, so why do any of this?

 (That emoticon is not directed at you, FA.)

 

[rds]

Quote:

' Course, with a couple of the posters we've had around here lately, they think all of this is a zero-sum gain and that anybody can do this.  So maybe we're not providing a service that's needed after all?  I mean, anybody can build one of these things and order all the parts that are needed, so why do any of this?

 (That emoticon is not directed at you, FA.)

Anyone can do anything ...until they actually try

 

[shaggy]

 
Wow thanks for all the replys you guys, I really appreciate it
 
From my point of view kits really do save you money on shipping and are quite convenient, especially to noobs like me who are not familiar with how electronics are built and even less aware of all the individual parts of an amp. With a diy kit, an amp appears more like an advanced Lego set (sometimes with a nice case) rather than a complex physics project.
 
As far as my build goes, I have considered the MiniMax, but FWIR, the SOHA II is a better and more versatile amp, so I would prefer to go with that. My music library consists of mainly of high bitrate mp3s, but I have been steadily compiling flac since I joined this site, so I'm looking for a simple dac that will fit inside the SOHA II to tide me over for the time being, until I have time next summer to research and build a better dac. Speaking of which, will the alien fit inside the soha II with the large hammond case? And how is it compared to the bantam? Casework doesn't really matter to me that much right now; either a nice custom case from beezar or a rough cut sharpie labeled one will suit me just fine, as long as it functions as intended.