Hey all :)

[sparky68]

Hi everyone
Been reading lots on here and as im not an audio diy'r its all very confusing but i do pretend to myself i know exactley what your all talking about

my kit is
Arcam alpha 8 cdp
Beresford Caiman DAC
Musical Fidelity preamp 8
Musical Fidelity MA65 Monobloks
B&W 603s3's
PayonHD! streamer thingy

Joined the boards in the hope of 1 day revamping the old MF gear myself, altho had a very kind offer to do them for me at a reasonable price id like to try myself,
past experience with a soldering iron was not the best effort, an old xbox1 i tried to put a chip in and burned a hole right through the pcb so dear old solderman was laid to rest back in the cupboard to gather dust.

Anyway nice to be here you all seem very friendly, well i hope so as i do have some proper idiot questions stored up

Mark from UK

[SY]

Hi Sparky and welcome. Let's see how much of that commercial stuff you can turn into homebrew.

[sparky68]

Cheers SY
dont know about homebrew but im sure it all may end up in flames in the near future if Mr Solder reappears from the cupboard.
Got plenty of reading to do yet im sure of that, be nice to hear from someone else with the same gear altho not a lot of them around anymore going by google,
luckily mine are old but where never used for 10yrs so im hoping theres plenty of life yet in the girls.
Mark

[c2cthomas]

Greets Sparky! and Welcome to diyAudio!!!

I lived in Ipswitch as a young lad - Dad was USAF stationed at Bentwaters (way before the UFO thingy) - so I have a real luv for England and Brit's, proper fish & chips, and a good mug of brewed tea.

Here are some links that should help Mr. Solderman get out of the closet and back into the light of - errrrr - workbench.

Circuit board rework and repair - BGA component rework and repair
How to Solder
How To Desolder Components | Hardware Secrets

[sparky68]

cheers c2cthomas
its good to be here, if i could just get my head round all this stuff i can see it being an interesting hobby

[c2cthomas]

Originally Posted by sparky68

cheers c2cthomas
its good to be here, if i could just get my head round all this stuff i can see it being an interesting hobby

Well - that is one of the main reasons for this site - making sense of it all. That being said - it is a bit like 1st day a university - soooooooo many things to find and discover - and still find your way back to the dorm. No worries - with a bit of effort and support you will soon have things in hand. If your interest continue after that then well done. If you find yourself loosing interest then perhaps it's off to another hobby. Time will tell, but while you are here please feel free to PM me if I can be of any help.

[sparky68]

thats very kind of you thank you

Be prepared for some proper dumb *** questions tho ?
ive managed to work out which end to plug the soldering iron into the wall socket (not the pointy end) so on a winner so far

Mark

[c2cthomas]

Originally Posted by sparky68

t

Be prepared for some proper dumb *** questions tho ?

Mark

I've been at this electronics thing for - errrrr - well never mind how long I've been at it (hint - think kites and lightning bolts) and have trained many.

1. Safety 1st -
2. There are no dumb questions - even tho a few will get a laugh.
3. You will eventually smoke something up (we all have) - be prepared
4. On the plus side of things - some wonderful gear and enjoyment to be had.

[chris661]

Welcome to the forums.

As a first (major) soldering project, I'd strongly recommend an Amp6-b from 41hz.com (here 41Hz Audio:AMP6-BASIC kit). The whole thing comes to around £50 (including a 60w SMPS, like the ones used for laptops), but it sounds lovely.

If you wanted to try your hand at some woodworking, a single, full-range driver (per side) could well be the way to go. They're unlikely to give the same scale or weight as the B&Ws, but they make up for that in the midrange. Later on, you could add a subwoofer to add a little more bass if you wanted.

Chris

PS - some UK-based sites that'll give you some eye candy if nothing else...
CPC | CPC - Over 100, 000 products from one of the worlds leading distributors of electronic and related products. - lots of stuff here, drivers to electrical components.
Europe Audio - Home page - better choice of drivers, though the prices could be considered steep.
Welcome to the UK's largest loudpspeaker supplier

[sparky68]

Hi Chris
Thanks for the links ill have a looksie at them, be a good place to start nice little amp

if your a speaker man maybe you could help ? my kevlar drivers in the b&w's have a rocket shaped thing in the middle, these have split 1 more than the other and the vocals sound a little distorted or is this my imagination since i found it they only look to be cosmetic ??

Mark