With a dayjob and other "stuff" in my life. I don't always feel like conquering the cold and messy shed to go do some drilling. But I usually have other projects running parallel that I can do something on. Pictured here is the Pass B1 and the lightspeed pcb's. Stuffed...primarily because..... that way I won't loose parts in my messy hobby room.


The Kendeill caps were too big for the B1 board. So I soldered the neg terminal to the neg hole in the pcb and wired the plus to the positive rail.

The wires of the 10uF cap I bent to go beneath the pcb and almost touch. I did this on purpose because I have some 0,22uF smd caps that will act as bypass for the Audyn polyprops. They will go between them wires there.
...

Well those PX100 headphones came a couple of weeks ago, have to say acoustic sounds was quick on the shipping..

To say they are an upgrade over my old JVC folding phones would be just a bit of an understatement. They're just clearly better in every not so subtle way. Much more extension at both extremes, and much improved clarity - a surprising amount of resolution IMHO for $69..
They're not circum-aural, and have open backs, but surprisingly ambient noise does not seem to be much of an issue. And they're reasonably comfortable.

On a slightly different note I have a fairly large number of songs on my iPod that I downloaded from iTunes. Recently I swapped a not so well liked Pixies album for BT Emotional Technology on Swaptree. I have listened to it a few times and realized that the songs I actually like best are none of the ones I purchased on iTunes! I ripped it to the iPod last night using Apple Lossless and removed the original AAC encoded copies....

It's funny but one does not realize how much time goes into a project like this. In my case anyway.
Taking the time to find the correct spacing etc.
And after you've drilled the hole you realize that it is just not big enough. Out comes the metal file and you have to use some elbow grease to enlarge it just enough so it will fit. Then you can't find the other cap. Thus the decision is made to pull the ASC's from an old project. Etc. Etc. And all I have to show for this is one little picture.

starting to look like it...

Actually wanted to continue on the Baby Huey but it was late. And did not want to keep everyone awake while drilling.

specifically I wanted to show the deflex washers that I'm planning on using.



The deflex washers will probably look ugly. But I'm planning on putting them on top of the aluminium top plate. And having a bolt with separate brass washer "hang" on them. This bolt will then pass through a larger hole in the alu chassis plate to the wooden sub chassis that houses the tubes.

Also got the 470uF/100V caps for the bias blocks.

to need an attenuator as well. Because the Gainclone will be set up as a power amplifier only. I put together a makeshift attenuator of parts I have. And of parts I want to use in a full blown tube preamp.

That way I can ...dare I say it...burn-in the transformer. Even if burn-in does not exist...it won't hurt.





Also some mock up shots of the GC. "Enclosure" is some Ikea DVD storage system that was on a sale. Something like 2 euro's or so.

...

therefore in between I'll be posting progress on my LM3886 "gainclone"

I soldered the boards a long looong time ago. So no pictures. And I don't think anyone would want to see these boards soldered part by part. pcb's are boring in that way.

The build will be quick and dirty. But still something I could "live" with. Hopefully.

I'll start today and let's see how long it'll take me to finish this article, about an easy to build and cheap amplifier, with ECL86 or with a few tweaks an ECL82 can be used. This is actually not my totally own design. It's taken from the 'Muller' Tube Manual, but I added a input stage with tone control 2 or 3-ways, depending on your flavour. And a loudness-control...
What you need accept the passive components are;
(double up all parts for a stereo-amp.)
One EF86 - high-mu signal-pentode, for the tone-ctrl and gain-stage.
One ECL82/86 driver and power pentode for our SE-AMP.
One output transformer, Z = 7k - 10k(if you want to build a stereo, make sure you use the same brand and model, the core and turn-ratio is critical, if you desire the same sound from each channel!)
One power-transformer(mains), 230 - 250V@100ma(or 160 ma for stereo) and 6V3@2-4A(4A for stereo).

I've based my design on this article, from a magazine, printed in...

Adding yet another variable (current vs. voltage driven) sure makes for a lot more measurements.

I survived figuring out Soundeasy's quirks once again with minimal bursts of cursing.

The following are the 3 driver's frequency response at varying levels of current drive vs. voltage.

For the woofer I'll clearly have to limit myself to more voltage drive given the peak at resonance, but for the mid tweet I can go current drive easily.

I'm not sure where I got the idea that current drive altered phase. The phase for the mid and tweet are identical for current vs. voltage and the woofer is close enough to measurement error.