Just finished ordering my PPA parts

[Sycraft]

About $200 in total, not counting power supply. My first crack at a precision analogue device, hopefully it'll work out well. As a plus, I work for an engineering department so have a number of people with PhDs in this stuff to help me.

Tangent, thanks for all the info on your site, that's what inspired me to try and build my own amp. As a side note, you might want to start selling some good caps and the like. They are somewhat trickey to find, and I'd much rather give money to you than a parts warehouse.

Thanks to everyone here for advice on parts.

Now I jsut need to nab a scope and precision DMM form work for the weekend

 

[CBMC]

I don't know exactly how much tangent marks up the stuff he buys, but judging by the prices he charges I would guess not much. Having said that I doubt that it would be worth the hassle for him to sell capacitors and such on his website. Maybe I am speaking out of turn and tangent has a different reason for not incorporating a full ppa store on his website. By the way, good luck on your ppa.

 

[ITZBITZ]

Selecting and understanding the parts being used is key to building the amplifier. Yes, Tangent has made it fairly plug-and-play with respect to the parts list and PCB, but it's good to know what you are buying and what the individual parts does.

You put a board and all the parts in a bag, I'd think you'd have people putting boards together with no more knowledge than it takes to assemble a Lego(R) project. Not that I'm being a critic of those who wish to build this amplifier with no electronics knowledge, I'm just saying as it is the amplifier has some pretty decent instructions and many have built it as their first amp without difficulty. Most of the helpful information is in the parts selection guide, which may go unread if a parts bag were included.

In the case of other projects, where the parts are so inexpensive but difficult to obtain, it makes more sense to offer parts kits to save on shipping charges from 3+ vendors.

 

[Sycraft]

I'm not thinking parts kit, I'm thinking just specalty, high quality, items that are hard to get. I mean good resistors are available from any big vendor and Raido Shack practically gives away cheap ones with every purchase.

I was thinking things like high quality capacitors. Those are harder to find. I bought some cerafines for this PPA, but I had to get them seperate from everything else, as none of the big vendors seem to stock them. This shop, being a high end audio type shop, kinda screwed me on shipping.

So, much like the ALPS Blue which he offers (also harder to find), I think it would be cool if he offered some high end caps and the like. Well, assuming he thinks it is worth his financial while.

I also don't think that kits are a bad idea, though I doubt he'd want to mess with all that. Even if you have electronics knowledge, it doesn't mean you have enough amp knowledge to change the design much. I don't know a whole lot about amps, other than some basic theory, so for the most part I am sticking to the recommended parts. I made a few changes (obviously) but not a whole lot.

There is plenty to be learned by building something from a kit. Espically because you can get it working, knowing the parts choices are ok, then play with tweaking the parts to your liking.

 

[TrevorNetwork]

I agree that kits can be an effective learning tool for those that are new to electronics. I successfully built my PPA according to Tangent's instructions and am listening to it right now.

I took several electronics courses as part of my network engineer schooling. Mind you, that was 4-5 years ago. I don't remember much. Err... anything actually! Mind you, I'm pretty good at soldering. The PPA is a great project, and one can develop a decent understanding of how it works just by reading the docs. I'm sure everything will go well!

also, I'll pass on a recommendation that was given to me. Pass on the buffers, and simply purchase a diamond buffer from LaRocco. The diamond buffer is not a "last 5% upgrade". It's a very substantial upgrade. Purchasing twelve buffers is not that much cheaper than the diamond buffer.

All the best,

Trevor

 

[Sycraft]

Well it's already a done deal, the buffers have actually already come in, as they were part of the Newark order which got here first. Also, I am using OP637s, which don't work with them apparantly. Maybe later, I'll swap out for 627s and get the diamond buffers, but we'll see how this goes first.

Besides, if I decide to do a better amp, I might see if I can find or design an all discrete solution.

This will do nicely for now, I imagine. All I have at this point is a headphone jack that is a resistor dropped across a poweramp.