The diyAudio First Watt M2x

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I'm working with a custom jeweler to get price quotes for Chromium, Rhodium, Platinum, and Gold electroplating. Plus any alloys/duals she recommends.

$$ versus thickness versus #pieces plated. Eight bolts only? Eight bolts and sixteen star washers? Bolts and star washers and nuts? etc.

It might be supremely stupid. But as the song says, I Did It My Way.

Any of you could do the same. Walk in, smile, make a sales pitch.
 
Congratulations! Try the Mountain View daughter boards too, I think you'll be pleased. Compare to the sound you get from Ishikawa, which do you prefer?

I think I'd twist the pairs of wires together, that run from each RCA input jack to each PCB's input pins. I'd do this to reduce hum, and also to feel good that I did something, I took active steps, toward reducing hum.

M2 uses Nelson Pass's patented autobias; as long as you stuffed and soldered his exact choice of optoisolator and his exact choice of resistor values, you'll get the same bias current he got, and it'll work great. Put the amp on a "Kill A Watt" $20 household wattmeter, it ought to draw 135-160 watts with input signal jacks shorted, if everything's assembled correctly.

Guess I got lucky cause it’s more silent than my Aleph J and that’s quiet. This amp handles my tube preamp better. I would go back and twist them but I soldered some quick connects into those spots, so when fastened it’s so tight that they may break. Already did that once trying to disconnect them.
 

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Question about parts. I order lm4040 from mouser with part number 595-lm..... as indicated in BOm.
However on the to92 chip package, there is no marking of lm4040 instead it read "67mx82e" and below that is "nfc101" and the last line is "Ti" . Am I getting the right one?
Thank
 
Question about parts. I order lm4040 from mouser with part number 595-lm..... as indicated in BOm.
However on the to92 chip package, there is no marking of lm4040 instead it read "67mx82e" and below that is "nfc101" and the last line is "Ti" . Am I getting the right one?
Thank

Never mind I figure it out, in datasheet they said the marking is "nfc10i" so it should be the right one.
 
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Never mind I figure it out, in datasheet they said the marking is "nfc10i" so it should be the right one.

Congratulations, TI buried that information pretty deeply in the datasheet. Like you, I got steaming mad when I opened the antistatic bag from Mouser and saw the weird letters and numbers on the package. They did all of that to save ONE CHARACTER on the stamping.
 
Austin is singing now, but I prefer Tucson. The different is a lot more than I expect, Austin is on the warm side meatier than Tucson and lack of some sparkling (at least in my system, YMMV). My speaker is already on the warm side so pairing with Austin is a bit to much.

This is very interesting and fun project!
 
I’ve put about 15hrs on this thing. The 1st 30min the amp sounded AWFUL, I mean AWFUL. Muddy bass, congested mids, I thought I messed something up but 45min in, it just opened up. 8hrs in the bass finally tightened up more with the mids and top end becoming more defined. The only other amp I can make a comparison to is an A-J since it’s the only other amp I’ve built. I love my A-J but this amp is more of my preference. The M2 has better grip on the low end but it’s the mid range presentation where It really sets it apart from A-J. The M2 has a more forward presentation vs the A-Js is more deep presentation. Both have great detail though. Think I’ll enjoy the build for a bit before I start swapping cards. Glad the store will be getting M2x boards cause it should be the gateway for beginners. Much easier build than my Aleph J. Good times for folks stumbling upon the diy stuff for sure
 
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The brand new, virgin mica / thermal "grease" / Keratherm pads, which form a low-thermal-resistance pathway between the output transistors and the heatsinks, might possibly need some time to come up to temperature, loosen up, ooze around, and gently flow toward an equilibrium state.
 
My ACA's need at least 30 min warm up to get to a state where critical listening can be performed. But of-course "burn-in" is something different…….many opinions if it is real or not. I have always wondered if burn-in exist…...why it is always to "the better". The capacitor manufacturer I know both says that burn-in only exist in "the brain". I am a bit confused myself…...as I think I can hear a new amp change sound (to the better) after some hours of playing. But I accept that it can be my brain that is "fooled"...….
 
It's a controversial subject, to say the least. I understand that mechanical pieces require some burn in, like speaker diafragms. But I have always wondered why audio is the only 'realm' where burn in happens and why doesn't the same principles apply to other disciplines: why a TVs color does not change in the first days, or why a computer is able to run to its full specs from the first millisecond, or a microwave! Yet, audio requires for the components to change during the first hundreds of hours.

I would like a scientific explanation. If someone says that the dielectric in a capacitor changes over the first few hours, or that a transistor's response curve is different after a few days, then I am all ears. But most every 'scientific' minds usually say it is you who are 'burning in' to the sound of the amp: your brain learning to 'decode' the abstraction of sound that is the sum of sounds a system puts out.

That, I can truly believe: animals are not able to abstract the sounds... a dog barking through speakers will fool no dog, a cat complaining over speakers will never grab my cats attention. Our brain needs to learn how to interpret the sound into instruments and voices, and that probably does require burn in.

But again, if there is scientific reasons behind burn in, I'd love to learn about them! It's an interesting subject, perhaps not one to discuss here?

Best regards,
Rafa.
Ps: of course, heating up a component is thoroughly documented, and that is no 'audio voodoo'. Components need to warm up to reach stable performance.
 
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If somebody knows what is true or false about this is Nelson Pass. He has made amps his whole life. Tube manufacture says that a new tube need to burn-in some hours to reach optimal performance (something about emission of electrons). A transistor may change a tiny tiny bit.....but I assume not enough to be audible. Then there is the oxidation of the alu-foil in capacitors. A very old capacitor which has not been used for many years can re-generate its oxidation layer if you put power on very slowly (if not it will just short). But a capacitors direct from the factory has all the oxidation it needs and should not change when put into use for the first time.
 
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It is of course a fact that amplifiers change as they warm up, easily
documented by measurements. Toward that end, we want to think in
terms of an hour+ of operating time if we are doing our most critical
listening. One could argue that it might sound better cold, but there
is a good reason why they usually don't - typically the bias of output
stages is low at turn-on and increases as they warm up. Your better
high end manufacturers will adjust and re-adjust bias after some hours
of operation.

Perceived difference is more complicated after a long time, because two
phenomenon are involved - Potential differences due to long term
operation of the amplifier and internal adjustment on the part of the
listener. Of those, it seems that the latter is usually a bigger effect.