My first gainclone. pics, descriptions and thanks

[socaler]

First of all, Thanks to diyaudio.com and all it participants/vendors for insiring me to take on this project.

here's the results:

225VA +-18v transformer in separate chassis:


amp section in separate chassis:


another view:


The two chassis stacked:


back panels:


close up of amp chassis back panel:


front of both chassis and ipod mini line input:


another view:


Took about 2-3 hours a day for 3 weeks. I took my time and tried my best to keep things clean, double, triple checking everything. The chassis were from old mac external scsi drives. they worked great!

After about of week of burn in and leaving the power on (chips remained warm) the depth of the music was very intoxicating, surreal to say the least. My previous setup was over 20 years old and this just blows it way. Im very pleased with the sound, no hum, no static, no clicks from the attenuator.


Special thanks to:
brian @ chipamp.com
diyfidelity
Mark Hennessy
Fedde Bouwman
Maarten@Platenspeler
Decibel Dungeon
and many others for their informative sites and articles. couldn't have done this with out your help. Danke shon!!

[gar]

Socaler,
Great work and glad you're pleased with it! What enclosures did you use and what is the source? Thanks, Gary

[inguz]

Very neat! Nice work!

[socaler]

thanks! the chassis were from old macintosh external drives. i had to fabricate the front and back panels from plexi glass. painting them black on the back gives the panels depth like piano lacquer.

the source is a ipod mini using the line output and lossless codec. which will soon be moded with a shorter output signal path.

[jaudio]

Way to recycle the enclosures

Looks good.

[socaler]

thanks!

here's the alps "blue vel" pot ( i think, can anyone tell me it if is?)

i listened for a day. and the stepped attenuator has more musical peaks. hard to describe but the notes kinda rolled off with with alps.

its still probably one of the choice pots out there.

[peranders]

Nice work. The possible object I have is that you have turned the heatsinks wrong, shoud be standing to give you good cooling but if you don't get the amp overheated I'll suppose this is not a problem.

[socaler]

per, thanks for the comment. i originally wanted to make a aluminum and wooden case for the amp section but when i found out i had another matching drive enclosure like the one i built for the power supply, i decided to make them matching.

the down side was that there's not much ventilation. so on the amp chassis. theres now holes under the heatsinks and around the chassis.

ideally vertical heatsinks would have been best, i got these at a surplus electronics store for $1 ea.

surprisingly after everything was done and amp was burning in. the heatsinks were warm and close to being considered hot but never burning or untouchable. (removing the case to check)

i now listen to them at lower volumes then at burn in with load resistors.

it definitely could have been better designed but for my use so far its more than ok. im happy

Im now looking for a better volume knob. this sounds crazy but im thinking of cutting up a replica star wars lightsaber because the base would be a perfect knob once i machine it and for the correct length. will post pics once done.

[socaler]

question:

Im running my gainclone to B&Ws DM600s3 speakers. The mids and highs are good. I'm tempted to make this a 2.1 system by adding a B&W ASW300.

I'm looking for suggestions for a way to provide a line output for a active subwoofer. any comments or advice?

much appreciated for any insight.

[jaudio]

The easiest thing would be to branch off bewteen the volume control and amps and add a buffer for the subwoofer preout.