Hi There, I'm Sangram. Nice to be finally on board.
I've been lurking on the boards the last few weeks, and I must say this is a great place. Specially since it is in line with one of my major interests.
A little bit about myself: I am thirty-one years old. My hobbies apart from audio are technology, computers (games! games! games!), reading (though I don't do as much of it as I would like to) and music (I hope to be a performer one day), my primary interest is the acoustic guitar. So far, I'm not very good at it but learning gradually.
I've been DIY'ing it for the last twenty years. My first DIY was a 10-watt amp based on the TDA 1010, when I was fifteen years old, assembled in a plastic bread box. Needless to say over a period of time I became acquainted with the delicous aroma of cooking plastic.
The years in between had been spent learning (read: taking stuff apart). I had tried to assemble a transistor radio when I was twelve, but it ended up as an attempt, and not a good one at that. Eventually I began removing the tracks from the PCB to amuse myself.
Since then I've done a lot of stuff for friends for small monetary or other materialistic considerations, and quite a few of my amps/systems have been in service for over five years without any glitches (knock on wood).
Then, six years ago, I got a job.
That eventually led to the demise of my DIY completely. My last project had been a gainclone bridge amp based on Sanyo STK 4191 ICs, and it puts out quite a blast, probably 80/90 watts/ch. I gradually moved to brands. I'm in the process of building a moderate rack system for my own use, in phases as my budget permits. I find myself less and less inclined toward DIY just because I don't think I have time, talent or measurement/calibration instrumentation for it. I probably do, so I'm gonna have to brainwash myself into actually sitting down and doing something, maybe add on subs just for fun.
My system is as below. Most of the things I have now are either used or new gear, but all branded, apart from the above mentioned secondary amp. I am going to start some DIY projects next month after the Formula 1 season is over. What am I gonna do with all those Sundays??
I have a list of to-dos in the next few months. I hope keeping this post here will also remind and motivate me to do these things:
1. Tweak up secondary amp and speaker system to usable points. Includes complete rewiring, removing tone controls, changing crossovers and cabinets, and redoing interconnects (I'm on 5-pin DIN as of now, imagine!). The current speaker boxes are nothing short of a disaster.
2. Building CD/MP3 player using a CD-ROM drive as transport. This I may or may not do, because I am seriously veering over to the NAD c521i or 541i (considerably more expensive, alas, otherwise the 541 is a no-brainer). Might take it up as an educational project if I get a nice bonus.
3. Building isolated and acoustically insulated racks for the CD and receiver.
I'll be bugging all of you guys for more info on the above the moment I get started. I see a bunch of people from my country over here as well (hello to you guys: navin, palesha, Samuel Jayaraj and any others I may have missed), looks great.
Love being here.
I'll resumer lurking for a while, anybody needs any help with anything related to computers, music, homewrecking, just holler!
CYA.
Sang
I've been lurking on the boards the last few weeks, and I must say this is a great place. Specially since it is in line with one of my major interests.
A little bit about myself: I am thirty-one years old. My hobbies apart from audio are technology, computers (games! games! games!), reading (though I don't do as much of it as I would like to) and music (I hope to be a performer one day), my primary interest is the acoustic guitar. So far, I'm not very good at it but learning gradually.
I've been DIY'ing it for the last twenty years. My first DIY was a 10-watt amp based on the TDA 1010, when I was fifteen years old, assembled in a plastic bread box. Needless to say over a period of time I became acquainted with the delicous aroma of cooking plastic.
The years in between had been spent learning (read: taking stuff apart). I had tried to assemble a transistor radio when I was twelve, but it ended up as an attempt, and not a good one at that. Eventually I began removing the tracks from the PCB to amuse myself.
Since then I've done a lot of stuff for friends for small monetary or other materialistic considerations, and quite a few of my amps/systems have been in service for over five years without any glitches (knock on wood).
Then, six years ago, I got a job.
That eventually led to the demise of my DIY completely. My last project had been a gainclone bridge amp based on Sanyo STK 4191 ICs, and it puts out quite a blast, probably 80/90 watts/ch. I gradually moved to brands. I'm in the process of building a moderate rack system for my own use, in phases as my budget permits. I find myself less and less inclined toward DIY just because I don't think I have time, talent or measurement/calibration instrumentation for it. I probably do, so I'm gonna have to brainwash myself into actually sitting down and doing something, maybe add on subs just for fun.
My system is as below. Most of the things I have now are either used or new gear, but all branded, apart from the above mentioned secondary amp. I am going to start some DIY projects next month after the Formula 1 season is over. What am I gonna do with all those Sundays??
I have a list of to-dos in the next few months. I hope keeping this post here will also remind and motivate me to do these things:
1. Tweak up secondary amp and speaker system to usable points. Includes complete rewiring, removing tone controls, changing crossovers and cabinets, and redoing interconnects (I'm on 5-pin DIN as of now, imagine!). The current speaker boxes are nothing short of a disaster.
2. Building CD/MP3 player using a CD-ROM drive as transport. This I may or may not do, because I am seriously veering over to the NAD c521i or 541i (considerably more expensive, alas, otherwise the 541 is a no-brainer). Might take it up as an educational project if I get a nice bonus.
3. Building isolated and acoustically insulated racks for the CD and receiver.
I'll be bugging all of you guys for more info on the above the moment I get started. I see a bunch of people from my country over here as well (hello to you guys: navin, palesha, Samuel Jayaraj and any others I may have missed), looks great.
Love being here.
I'll resumer lurking for a while, anybody needs any help with anything related to computers, music, homewrecking, just holler!
CYA.
Sang
Hi, sangram. The subwoofer is just about the best and most cost-effective performance enhancer you can do, and you do not even need an oscilloscope. You can get audio frequency generators off the internet as free software which you can use to test its response. That should be no problem for you at all since you are good with computers.
Thanks for the welcome, guys. I'm completely in now, and am taking up a small project of tweaking up a Chinese all-in-one player, in the digital forum. I'm also updating my progress regularly so for those who may be interested in throwing 50 bucks behind a 60 buck player to make it a little more impressive, take a look. But seriously, it's a gift so who cares??
Hari: Hi, I'm from Calcutta. It's only recently they opened up some decent hi-fi places in Cal, but most of my shopping will now shift to 10 Octaves. I like the guys there...
Hari: Hi, I'm from Calcutta. It's only recently they opened up some decent hi-fi places in Cal, but most of my shopping will now shift to 10 Octaves. I like the guys there...
Hi Vivek. Thanks for the welcome.
I was in Bangalore for four years in my first job. The lack of good stuff on SJP Road was one of the major reasons I quit DIY, I lost interest very quickly there. I did manage to build a pair of bare 7294 power amps and another STK 4191 when I lost one channel of that. But that was a long time ago.
Be seeing you on the board. I'm currently on a few threads here and there, and a new project has started. Hopefully I can get back onto DIY.
I'm also getting stirrings
of a nice tube amp for my guitars, which I may build into a small practice amp chassis... That will be another project.
Sang
I was in Bangalore for four years in my first job. The lack of good stuff on SJP Road was one of the major reasons I quit DIY, I lost interest very quickly there. I did manage to build a pair of bare 7294 power amps and another STK 4191 when I lost one channel of that. But that was a long time ago.
Be seeing you on the board. I'm currently on a few threads here and there, and a new project has started. Hopefully I can get back onto DIY.
I'm also getting stirrings
of a nice tube amp for my guitars, which I may build into a small practice amp chassis... That will be another project.Sang
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