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    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

What do I have here......Aikido

Hi All, I picked all this up some time ago but I already have a great pre-amp so is this worth building? It came with all the bits to complete the two pre boards with headphones out.
 

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From my experience the Aikidos work well as a headphone amp for high impedance 'phones and SOME low impedance 'phones. It's not entirely a question of impedance value. E.G. AKG 701s don't work that well with Aikidos I've heard, but might with a version based on the ECC99 tubes in the picture.

The two boards at the bottom of the first picture are mono line stage/headphone capable amps. one or the other, depends how it's configured. These would make a great line stage or HP amp (see proviso above) and the Janus regulator would be good for powering them. I think this is the Janus with the built in rectifier, filters and filament reg.

Yes, most definitely will the Aikido and Janus make a good sounding line stage. Tube dependant of course. It might even surpass your "great" preamp. I lean towards the Aikidos with 6DJ8 for a clean, fast sound. 6CG7s (a nine pin version of the 6SN7) will sound more tubey, in my experience.

Steve