I have collected vinyl since I was 12 I've got a nice collection of vinyl, but that's it.
No cds to speak of, and no files or digital music, I don't even own a computer. I have a pretty sweet stereo system using tubes, primarily designed around vinyl.
A few months back I moved in with a friend of mine, and he asked if there was any way to connect his phone into my system and play music. There wasn't but there soon will be.
I've had a Bluetooth board stashed away for this very purpose but hadn't found the perfect chassis yet, and I wasn't inspired.
Thinking a little harder about it I decided that I could do it with the stuff I've already got, cleanly and it will keep my old tube equipment looking classy and period correct.
The chassis is an old Heathkit WA-P2 moocher preamp, which I gutted. It will use the same umbilical cord arrangement as it did originally, but I'll only be drawing power from the 6v ac filament string. I found a 2A bridge rectifier, some terminal strips and some electrolytic filter caps to get me started, and I mounted the Bluetooth board up on some standoffs which I already had.
One main goal here is to build this with things I've already got on hand.
So the idea is to have a small box which plugs into the stock preamp power socket of one of my MC30S and which contains an interface to get digital music into my Analog music system.
I will need to fabricate a faceplate, and potentially a walnut box to match my preamplifier, but so far I've got a good start on it, and I may just spend today pressing forward with building it...
I find that not a lot of people are using the moocher preamps nor are they using the preamp power sockets in their vintage power amps. The moocher preamps themselves can be had for a low low price, or free, because nobody uses them anymore.
I've started collecting them, some I'll restore and the parts donors will get made into various plug in interfaces for my audio system.
The next one may be a guitar/bass amp front end that I can feed into the main system, so people can play guitar or bass through my sound system if need be.
Good idea, bad idea?
Am I even in the correct forum?
No cds to speak of, and no files or digital music, I don't even own a computer. I have a pretty sweet stereo system using tubes, primarily designed around vinyl.
A few months back I moved in with a friend of mine, and he asked if there was any way to connect his phone into my system and play music. There wasn't but there soon will be.
I've had a Bluetooth board stashed away for this very purpose but hadn't found the perfect chassis yet, and I wasn't inspired.
Thinking a little harder about it I decided that I could do it with the stuff I've already got, cleanly and it will keep my old tube equipment looking classy and period correct.
The chassis is an old Heathkit WA-P2 moocher preamp, which I gutted. It will use the same umbilical cord arrangement as it did originally, but I'll only be drawing power from the 6v ac filament string. I found a 2A bridge rectifier, some terminal strips and some electrolytic filter caps to get me started, and I mounted the Bluetooth board up on some standoffs which I already had.
One main goal here is to build this with things I've already got on hand.
So the idea is to have a small box which plugs into the stock preamp power socket of one of my MC30S and which contains an interface to get digital music into my Analog music system.
I will need to fabricate a faceplate, and potentially a walnut box to match my preamplifier, but so far I've got a good start on it, and I may just spend today pressing forward with building it...
I find that not a lot of people are using the moocher preamps nor are they using the preamp power sockets in their vintage power amps. The moocher preamps themselves can be had for a low low price, or free, because nobody uses them anymore.
I've started collecting them, some I'll restore and the parts donors will get made into various plug in interfaces for my audio system.
The next one may be a guitar/bass amp front end that I can feed into the main system, so people can play guitar or bass through my sound system if need be.
Good idea, bad idea?
Am I even in the correct forum?
Progress so far:
I know, circuit boards are lame but since, I'm building it for myself, for my own sound system, I can make a compromise, use a circuit board for the Nasty parts, but do everything else as a point to point job.
Ill probably go ahead and use all salvage parts that I already own, then spend a few dollars having a period correct faceplate made, once I confirm that it works.
With a bit of luck I should have it working today!
I know, circuit boards are lame but since, I'm building it for myself, for my own sound system, I can make a compromise, use a circuit board for the Nasty parts, but do everything else as a point to point job.
Ill probably go ahead and use all salvage parts that I already own, then spend a few dollars having a period correct faceplate made, once I confirm that it works.
With a bit of luck I should have it working today!
I was in the same shoes as you. Mocking with Bluetooth I found it is not in par with my all-tube gear. It is good for voice only. The solution for me is a Chromecast Audio. It is out of production and support now, but you could find it second hand. Note it is different from Chromecast (that is for picture and sound over HDMI). Chromecast Audio is for sound only, it is 24-bit 96 kHz. It is a wifi receiver and a DAC in a tiny box. I cast music to it from Android, the only drawback is that Youtube does not support it. I use Bubble UPnP for playing music from my smartphone or from an external storage (NAS).
Attachments
So far, everything I've sent to this unit has played. It sounds very good for voice and for music and all I've got left to do us clean up the enclosure a bit.
I'm not getting rid of my vinyl, my Moving coil cartridges, step ups, or tube amplifiers. I just added an input so other folks can use my stereo to show me their music.
It works really well!
I'm not getting rid of my vinyl, my Moving coil cartridges, step ups, or tube amplifiers. I just added an input so other folks can use my stereo to show me their music.
It works really well!