[colonelkernel8]

So, I've been doing some research on DIY speaker amps for my upcoming Frugal-Horn build, and I have thought about the following: First Watt F1, F2, or F3, Krell clone, Aleph <something>.

Anyone have some ideas? I'd like to build something with a board available. I hate air wiring and I don't have the gear to etch.

Oh and please post pics of your DIY speaker amps to get the ideas a flowin'

 

[Nebby]

I picked up the twisted pear audio Twisted X Overture speaker amp, it's basically a gainclone in a symmetrical balanced configuration. Haven't even begun to populate the boards so I can't give any impressions, but it looks to be a fun amp.

 

[colonelkernel8]

Yeah, I want to stay away from gainclone.

 

[colonelkernel8]

Anyone have any First Watt boards?

 

[labmat]

You might want to look at 41hz they have quite a few different DIY speaker amp kits that I've been eyeballing.

 

[gates_2]

hugz and I both built the firstwatt F2 on perfboard

Its really pretty easy, honestly, although not as nice as a pro board. The layout is sufficiently easy that you should be able to design a board yourself and have express PCB or someone make it- although that will cost $$.

If you are planning on building either the F1 or F2 for use as a speaker amp, make sure you get really good heatsinks... the amp gets REALLY hot.

 

[colonelkernel8]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gates_2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif hugz and I both built the firstwatt F2 on perfboard Its really pretty easy, honestly, although not as nice as a pro board. The layout is sufficiently easy that you should be able to design a board yourself and have express PCB or someone make it- although that will cost $$. If you are planning on building either the F1 or F2 for use as a speaker amp, make sure you get really good heatsinks... the amp gets REALLY hot.

Can I see what your F2's look like? How do they sound?

 

[gates_2]

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=235608

thats a link to my build log- hugs also has a very good log on here- you can search for it and find it. I'm currently working on casing it up, so bear with me- those pics are quite old and represent early stages of the build.(using a hacksaw and hand drill slows things down a bit...

)

The sound is really quite impressive with the K1000's. Unfortunately, I only have crappy bose speakers to test the speaker potential, and thus can't give a good review on that. I think the best solution would be to DIY a fullrange speaker, aso you are planning to do. I'm not sure how my amp would do driving speakers hard, but hopefully sooner than later I'll get to building a fullrange set. Reviews of the Firstwatt amps with fullranges have been overwhelmingly strong,imo.

Keep in mind that these current driven amps are specialty products, in that they only work right in single driver setups. Thus, in the future if you want to move to a 2way or 3 way design, you'll need a new amp.