Bottlehead Forum

Bottlehead Kits => Crack => Topic started by: fipple8 on August 28, 2010, 04:55:55 AM

Title: Great kit, great fun, great sound.
Post by: fipple8 on August 28, 2010, 04:55:55 AM

I'm writing just to add my voice to the chorus: The Crack headphone amp is an excellent kit. It was my first build ever and I'm still amazed that the thing actually (1) works and (2) sounds great. The supplied RCA 6AS7 and Toshiba 5963 tubes sounded pretty good with Etymotic ER4-S IEMs, but I replaced them with a Tung-Sol 5998 and an RCA 6680 "clear top."  The result: lower noise floor and the amp really sings now with the Etys, and with AKG K701s. Many thanks to everyone at Bottlehead for a great experience. Crack was my first kit, but it won't be my last.

Paul

Title: Re: Great kit, great fun, great sound.
Post by: HF9 on August 30, 2010, 08:01:48 AM

Looks very nice. How do you like it with your AudioSector DAC?

Title: Re: Great kit, great fun, great sound.
Post by: fipple8 on August 31, 2010, 01:02:15 PM

Very much, but I've enjoyed the Audiosector DAC in every set-up I've had since I bought from Peter in 2007. I like the sound of NOS dacs (I also have an Ack! dAck 2.0) and find it compares favorably with my Benchmark DAC1 HDR. I use it with an unmodded Squeezebox 3 as a transport.