Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up
May 15, 2018 at 8:41 AM Post #32,881 of 145,787
What if you offered the board to five volunteers, board, bom, and schematic and let us see what we could do to improve on it? I would volunteer, possibly people like Ableza and TomSix but I cannot speak for them of course. I would supply my own parts and time and even offer to buy a couple of the circuit boards in case I needed to alter one. In DIY the builds are refined over time and this might allow you to concentrate on money making product. I have a feeling several would volunteer to help but that is just an opinion.

Tom
Christ on a cracker. There's a thought! 5 volunteers screw around with it and do a scheduled show-and-tell at the Schiitr. Schiit's sales department could do an informal web-cast of it (with links on this forum). Intriguing...
 
May 15, 2018 at 8:43 AM Post #32,882 of 145,787
I agree.
Focus efforts on things people will buy or use.
A poor performing amp may be of some passing interest, but won't really matter.
Mike
From a technical point of view, further effort on this project is not warranted. Selling the PC board as a coaster is a good idea, but I believe that only a few DIY builders would buy parts and build this amp, given its with mediocre performance. Buy a Magni or a Vali and listen to the music.
 
May 15, 2018 at 8:49 AM Post #32,883 of 145,787
Maybe this has already been discussed, but for the house-proud OCD-types, what's your secret to keeping the brushed aluminium chassis on your Schiit gear looking pristine, free from dust and fingerprints? My Schiit gets kept in my main hifi rack and is very seldom fondled. As a result my Bifrost still looks pretty amazing for a 6yr old unit. I've had my Yggy 2 for just over a month now, during which time it has collected a fine layer of dust. (I live in a house in which an hour after dusting it looks like you haven't dusted, so I generally don't bother dusting anything unless it's so thick you can write your name in it!). Anyway, I lightly dusted it with a soft dry t-shirt following the grain of the metal, and now I notice a few minor milky white smears in the finish (I'm not sure if these were already there under the dust or if my dusting caused them). And what about fingerprints or sweat residue, how should these be cleaned. My approach to everything thus far has just been to use a soft, dry cotton t-shirt, as I know that from cleaning my MacBook, using a cloth damped with water can leave whitish mineral deposits.
I use one of those micro-pore type cloths sold with TVs and with many glasses. I'm paranoid about not allowing any water into the air vents (especially with my Magni3). I use the same methods as one would do for a tablet surface (a 2013 article from How To Geek that I like a lot). Just my 2 cents...
 
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May 15, 2018 at 8:50 AM Post #32,884 of 145,787
Christ on a cracker. There's a thought! 5 volunteers screw around with it and do a scheduled show-and-tell at the Schiitr. Schiit's sales department could do an informal web-cast of it (with links on this forum). Intriguing...

There are several threads on DIY amps such as the Bottlehead Crack, it is easy to get a collective interest in any kind of project here, people experiment and discover all kinds of upgrades. I cannot talk intelligently about it till I see a schematic but I like solving things.
 
May 15, 2018 at 9:19 AM Post #32,886 of 145,787
May 15, 2018 at 9:24 AM Post #32,887 of 145,787
Firewall at work is blocking this.
Could you tell us how compares with other services -- eg Tidal, Spotify, Pandora, etc?

Seem like this should be in a streaming thread rather than in a Schiit thread, but what do I know.

Mike
It seems that we in the US do not have access to this site for streaming or downloading. I briefly looked and it appears to be available only in Europe. I'm in Spain and Portugal in June and if I have time I might check it out.
Joe
 
May 15, 2018 at 9:27 AM Post #32,888 of 145,787
Seem like this should be in a streaming thread rather than in a Schiit thread, but what do I know.
Indeed what do you know.....

Edit: Sorry, that's too harsh.
I see you can't get it in the US.
You can always shop there though.
It's the biggest HD music store I know.
www.hdtracks.com
 
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May 15, 2018 at 9:27 AM Post #32,889 of 145,787
May 15, 2018 at 10:34 AM Post #32,891 of 145,787
There are several threads on DIY amps such as the Bottlehead Crack, it is easy to get a collective interest in any kind of project here, people experiment and discover all kinds of upgrades. I cannot talk intelligently about it till I see a schematic but I like solving things.

I can definitely send you a board, but getting the kit together is a bit too much of a distraction. I'll finish the BOM and the schematic and do a wrap-up chapter, but I don't think I'll be doing any further development.

So why am I letting this go?

1. It accomplished its primary objective, to be a neat-looking coaster.
2. It does operate as an amp, though it doesn't meet all of the performance criteria defined in the first chapter.
3. I have lots of other things to do, and fixing it--for real--will require significant changes, including some that will make it less suitable for a DIY project.

What do I mean by "significant changes?"

Well, the primary thing this amp needs is more voltage on the tube. That's the big differentiator between it and the original Vali. Vali had 2x the amount of voltage to play with. A 60V B+ is way, way, way better than 30V. Period. You ain't changing tube physics. The 6088 wants a lot more volts than we can give it in the coaster. The 6418 is closer to ideal. I haven't been able to find a subminiature tube that runs on lower volts, or not one that is gettable, at least.

And that's it. We can add more volts or find a tube that works better at lower volts. That's pretty much it for significant performance increases.
  • Adding more volts is out, since you don't want 80V running around on a bare board without a chassis.
  • And, like I said, I haven't found another tube that works better at low volts.
"But what about more feedback, or changing it to just a follower?" some of the experienced tube guys might ask.
  • Feedback? It only has about 12db of gain. Not much feedback to play with here. Plus, then it isn't "no overall feedback." Ha!
  • Follower? It's a direct heated cathode. Have fun with that one.
So, there you go. Sure, some small improvements can be made. But the big wins would be in things we don't want to do, can't find, or don't work with this tube. The best bet would be to find a subminiature tube that works at lower volts. You can start here http://pw2.netcom.com/~wa2ise/radios/penciltubes.html and search for "s:15", confirm the tube has a 1.2V or 1.25V heater, and see if there are any tubes you can find. Then it's a matter of running them through the board, testing different plate loads, and seeing how they do.
 
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