My pre-amp/DAC/Phono/Headphone build

Status
Not open for further replies.
This project is coming along quite nicely in my humble opinion so I thought I'd share a few photos with you:

Imageshack - dscf2917y.jpg
Imageshack - dscf2918y.jpg
Imageshack - dscf2919d.jpg

For now the case is an old Cambridge Audio A5, I have a new aluminium for it so I hope it will look reasonable from the front.

I wanted a DCB1 pre-amp, with built in USB DAC, phono stage and headphone amp all in one case and six inputs, two tape loops and seperate listen/record selectors.

The DCB1 is working fine, I have purchased some Takman resistors for the B1 and these will be fitted when they arrive. Potentiometer is a 25K stepped attentuator (I find them significantly better than normals pots). Power is supplied from a dedicated 30 VA 15-0-15 toroid.

DAC is a CS4398 from ebay with switchable USB/optical/coax inputs, the inputs will be switched from the front panel. I am not using the supplied 3-pin regs, I am using "Q-mini" regs which are similar to the Coffin reg, I have one for 5V and a dual board for -12/12V. The DAC sounds fantastic, espescially with these regs. I am also using Os-cons and Cerafines in the relevent locations. Headphone stage is off ebay as well, this will be powered from a "Q-mini" or a TPR reg (haven't made my mind up yet) The DAC and headphone regs are fed from a 60VA toroid

Phono stage will be a Salas Simplistic set for 60db gain for my Low-MC cartridges (Denon-DL-304, Entre EC-1, Dynavector Ruby or AT-33EV), powered from a Salas/Quanghao shunt reg. The shunt regs are powered from a 100VA toroid

Signal cabling is ordinary 0.75mm copper normally used for mains flex, nothing fancy but sounds very good to me.

As you can see I have used alot of the room in the case (the phono stage will go in the gap in the middle) but am confident it will all fit in. So far I have no grounding or interference issues.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.