[yawg3d]

Hi there,

I own an Ultrasone HFI-650 for quite a long time now, and while it's a great headphone, my source is very substandard, so I want to buy a reasonable CD-player as soon as possible. I'd also like to have a headphone amp, but buying seems very expensive, I guess it might be cheaper to build one myself?

I've never done any soldering work before, so I'm kinda unsure about whether to try a DIY project. Will it be anywhere near as good as a commercial headamp or will it just be somewhat like "well, it's my own, but it's not really to good"? Do you think it's possible for someone like me to build a reasonably good amp? Can anyone recommend online stores where you can buy opamps and other stuff needed for DIY in Germany? Can you recommend any books on the theory of electronics and amps in particular? I like to know what I'm doing

.

 

[ATAT]

Okay... so there's a few factors here

Cost, quality and fun.

Cost - You've never done soldering, down own any DIY equipment.. this could end up being expensive... solder, soldering iron, desoldering braid, solder pump .etc could quickly add up to be fairly ridiculous ..
Also, you could mess up, making you re-order the parts (which is painful)
Lastly, dont forget that time is money, and you'll be spending a fair amount of time constructing the beast (if you want to make something along the lines of PIMETA or greater..)

Quality - I wont make a comparison with commercial amps (pah. See thread from a few days ago). But the quality is often quite good.. the M^3, PPA, Millet, Dynalo, Dynahi are not sub-par by any means. (I have no idea about the portable amps and thus will not comment..)

Fun - Yes, you'll have alot of fun =) the construction, parts-buying is really quite fun ... something everyone should do at least once..

Bottom line -

Looking for just a cheap, good amp? Comission a builder, you'll end up with more money left because you dont have to pay for all the shipping, and wont have to buy equipment

Looking for some custom quality? Make it yourself, or commission with those requests.. DIY is good not because its cheap, but because you can spend what you want to get what you want =)

Looking for fun? DIY. =)

 

[Samgotit]

If you have not already seen this check it out:
http://www.tangentsoft.net/audio/new-diyer.html

Does Germany have a RadioShack equivalent?
http://www.radioshack.com/home/index.jsp

I just got started in DIY and I learned a lot building a CMOY with Tangents site as a guide. I think anything I build will "sound" better than anyting I buy

.

Sam

 

[Porksoda]

Just building a simple amp is a heck of a lot of fun, and just a simple CMoy will be a lot of fun.

I would reiterate what ATAT said. Starting from scratch, you will NOT save money doing DIY, but you WILL have fun and take a lot of pride in your final result. If you want to save money, commission a builder.

As is often said on here, try buying some basic parts (simple soldering iron, etc.) and making a CMoy. The result is not that bad for a first shot, and it'll give you a taste of what is to come. Once you finish that, you can decide if you want to step up to the plate and try something more advanced.

As for suppliers in germany, can't help you there

 

[Pars]

To echo what others have said, DIY is somewhat its own reward. The amps can and do rival and eclipse commercial offerings, and typically for less money once you have the tools and some experience. That said, a simple CMoy will kill the headphone outputs of many preamps or integrated amps. I know that my first CMoy did this to the headphone out of my previous Hafler preamp.

There are some good German suppliers (can't recall who off the top of my head, but the post right at the top of this forum with the DIY links resource might have them in there). You'll have a hard time getting some stuff, like the std. Panasonic pot for a CMoy. Other stuff that you can easily get will have some (or most) of the US DIYers drooling in envy. There are at least a couple of German DIYers that hang out here (Steinchen is one), so hopefully they will pipe up with some links.

 

[yawg3d]

Thanks for all the info so far. I'm quite sure I won't be able to resist the temptation

.

What's a good amp to start with? Should I try a CMoy/Mint first or is there any sense in starting directly with a Pimeta/PPA? I've got to say those tubes look quite sexy too...

 

[MisterX]

Quote:

Should I try a CMoy/Mint first or is there any sense in starting directly with a Pimeta/PPA?

Do you think you can debug a Pimeta or a PPA if it doesn't work the first time?
If not it's prolly better to start with a CMoy and work your way up.

 

[ATAT]

Reiterating MisterX-- If you have tools to debug your PPA (Multimeter, Oscilloscope ... likely neither since you said you had nothing.. so a good friend?) then by all means.. thats how I started. I dont think tis particularly hard.. just plug in the resistors, solder, check for bridges before powering up, check oreintation of all my components, power up, carefully adjust bias... pop in opamps .. enjoy!

Otherwise I recommend the PIMETA.. why? because there's a PCB for it and it requires no SMD soldering (which isnt fun for a beginner). the CMoy is nice but I never found it to be that great increase in SQ, and its a pain to troubleshoot perfboards.

My .02

 

[Twisted85]

As a new DIYer who just finished his first headphone amplifier, I think I should answer this thread too.

The main reasons why I wanted to make an amplifier by myself was actually curiosity and passion to learn something new, not because I needed an amplifier that much.

I had some experience in soldering, but I had not built anything like this before. As a first project I didn't want to choose anything too hard to build and/or expensive, but I wanted just a little challenge. I decided to build Millett's Hybrid amplifier as I've been interested of tubes for a quite long time. I also bought/built tread regulator/ac-dc convertor and amb lab delay-circuit for the project.
I think the parts cost was somewhere between 150-200 dollars (including shipping). It could have been made less expensive, but I wasn't on a very tight budget and I wanted to use high quality parts.

I had very little problems constructing the Millett and after a few days of building the amplifier was ready. (excluding the enclosure)
I've been really happy with this amplifier and it is a lot more fun to use it in my system as I have made it by myself. It was also really fun and interesting to build it, and this will not definitely be my last project!

Based on my experiences, I would definitely recommend to choose a DIY amplifier, even though it might not be the cheapest option.

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

As for suppliers in germany, can't help you there

there are plenty but not being familiar with the language or knowing anyone who has actual dealings with certain suppliers did not add any to my links list.

I would try a simple google of "electronics parts suppliers,germany" or insert .de for germany

as for starting out it is always best to start with the small and simple then work your way up so you know where you are at.to jump right into multiloop and artificial grounds will most likely just be baffling but taje a simple single opamp cmoy,build it and get it to work then try varios powering methods and buffering schemes and you will know what you are doing and where to turen when ready to step up.

Everyone around here wants to run a sprint before they even know how to crawl or do baby steps but in the long run you gain more actual usable knowledge by doing the steps in a proper sequence and nailing each before moving on and moving up.

spending $1,000 on trest gear you have no idea how to use to make a $300 amp before you even know how to solder is not the best move in my opinion

 

[yawg3d]

Okay, I can see why it's not too sensible starting with a $500 project...

Concerning suppliers in Germany:

We _do_ have big online stores like conrad.de and reichelt.de, and it's no problem getting resistors and capacitors from there, I think conrad even has the Alps blue potentiometer and Neutrik plugs - they don't have any of the opamps or tubes you guys use for your amps though. I just realized that Digikey ships to Germany, but that's very expensive...

 

[guzzler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickcr42 Everyone around here wants to run a sprint before they even know how to crawl or do baby steps but in the long run you gain more actual usable knowledge by doing the steps in a proper sequence and nailing each before moving on and moving up.

!