[Voodoochile]

No electronic ingenuity going on here, just regular hacking and fitting to make this more convenient...

I've been using a Sonica USB DAC with my laptop for a while now, and while not a stunning piece, it's a substantial improvement over the onboard sound. But you needed the DAC, an amp (dac is line-level only), and a pair of cables. Now it's one box and one cable. More convenient for my late-night work and also perhaps for office use.

The mint seemed to be the perfect little amp to pair with the little sonica, and it fits well with the eight AA cells. The case is the ~3"x1.75"x 6" mid-profile unit. The DAC has a torx optical as well as 1/8" analog out. I tagged leads directly to the solder points for the analog jack, rather than cheesing out too much with a plug. The sonica was assembled with screws, so I can actually remove two screws from the standoffs, clip the three leads, and replace the board in it's original housing unscathed. Just in case, I guess.

I do plan to add a pair of RCAs in the back for other inputs, and also ditch the input caps.

 

[Arzela]

Very nice work!

I love that knob. Where
did you get it?

 

[Sol_Zhen]

Clean job.

 

[Voodoochile]

Thanks guys. Pretty down and dirty, but very functional.

The knobbage is from a very dead Marantz integrated amp I've been gradually stripping down over the years. Netted four knobs like this, and four smaller ones. Solid chunks of aluminum with slots for indicator lines. Good old stuff.
The amp probably has fifteen pounds of aluminum heatsink/knobs/front panel mass to it, and another 30 pounds of iron. What a beast.

 

[Sovkiller]

ANd why not fixing it, instead of stripping down, it should be a pretty good amp...

 

[Voodoochile]

You have to see it to appreciate it's sad state! I thought about it for a long time before dismantling it. I don't even come close to having the resources needed to ressurect it.

Also, I don't believe it was ever anything particularly good, or I'd have sold it long ago! I'm not a member of Team Rich, unfortunately.

 

[antness]

I've been eyeing the knobs on my Marantz 1060B as well. The sad thing is, knobs like that sell for about $15 each, with four knobs nearly the value of the entire amplifier.

 

[blip]

Very nice... I haven't seen a really innovative mod like that for awhile.

 

[Gino]

I'm falling deeper and deeper in-love with the Hammond case. If only they had an Altoid-sized baby case.

 

[Chipko]

Check out Rose-Boplas AluBos series, I used it for my amp it comes in a variety of sizes, from 60x30x100mm up to 100x50x300.

 

[Gino]

The Bopla cases are nice. Do they have black ends with silver aluminum bodies?

Which case model there would take my Altoids Cmoy internals?

 

[Voodoochile]

Gino- Hammond has one not too much larger than an Altoids, in fact a bit shorter on one dimension:
3.15Lx2.25Wx0.91H. The Altoids tin is 3.65Lx2.25Wx0.75H. Pretty darn close, and a lot more durable.

Chipko- can you get them in the US? They do look nice!

The Sonica board will fill an Altoids container on it's own... someone here put one into a tin, but not much room left over for eight AAs and an amp. If the DAC was a bit narrower, I could have placed it on edge against the side wall, and then used 16 cells.

Antness- I'll check to see what model the Marantz I have is, though it's moot. Not even an option to rebuild for me. I could buy some very nice hardware for far less than the reconstruction cost. I suppose if it was some landmark piece of equipment it'd be different, but... it isn't. Nice knobs in the day, however!

 

[jamont]

Very nice looking, Mark! And a great knob. I like the Hammond 1455 cases a lot.

 

[tangent]

Quote:

The mint seemed to be the perfect little amp to pair with the little sonica, and it fits well with the eight AA cells.

Sostenuto-0?

Quote:

If only they had an Altoid-sized baby case.

The 1455C801 is roughly that size. The main problem is that the big distributors don't keep it in stock. You can order it anyway and deal with the backorder delay, though.

Also nice is the L size, which is probably twice the overall interior volume as a mint tin.

 

[Voodoochile]

Quote:

Sostenuto-0?

That's a gross analogy ( I think AOS would agree!), but funny!

That's the idea, only on more of a fringe basis. This setup is a significant improvement over even headphones and a meta plugged in direct to my laptop. I do believe it is better than when it was all strung together with interconnects, too. The solder joints between the amp and the DAC are bound to be better than a pair of plugs and jacks, plus the cable is now the length of my pinky and enclosed in the chassis, versus a 1/2 meter.