Hoo kay. So my 12SR7 starving student is done. I wanted to post some pictures for you guys.
I would like to point out that this is my first ever tube amp and first ever DIY project of any kind so please be nice to me
So here is the case I decided to use for my amp. This is an aluminium case that my external HDD used to be in.
Modding just the case took me a few hours. I drilled few holes in top cover for pot, mosfets and tubes. I also repainted it. I am not happy with how the side panel looks like but I couldn't manage anything better with my skills.
So I soldered everything together and... it didn't work. I checked everything once again and I found few stupid mistakes that I've made. I corrected them in less than few minutes and the amp started to work.
My cable manag... let's skip this part... I still need to work on that one.
Anyway, here is how it looks like finished:
I measured the output impedance. If I calculated everything correctly then it is 2.63Ohm.
The sound:
I was listening to it just for a couple of hours but I think I can give you my brief impression. My setup was ODAC-Student-HD600
I don't have much experience with amps, especially tube ones (this one is first I've ever been listening to) so I will be comparing it to ODAC/O2 combo.
The sound is more fun on my HD600. There is definitely more bass that seems to have better punch (like HD650? maybe even better). I'm not a person that like bassy amps/dacs/headphones/anything but I must admit that this amp makes my HD600's bass very nice to listen to.
Midranges seems to be a bit quieter than with O2 but they still sounds quite good.
Treble sounds like it's being a tiny bit emphasized but they still sounds very well.
The overall clarity and amount of details through this amp is definitely worse than O2 but I still like it. "Normal" music such as Gorillaz, Eurythmics, Europe or Depeche Mode sounds very enjoyable and for this kind of music I prefer student over O2. This amp is definitely more forgivable for bad recordings than O2. However for classical music, metal or any kind of instrumental music I prefer O2. I hope you get what I mean
So that were my impressions for now. I hope you like it.
Now I have one technical question to you guys. Is it normal that the heatsinks are getting really warm? I don't want to sound paranoid but I am getting a bit worried...