Posted the Hawaiian Punch Crack I'm building for a friend in another thread. Just finished building it as a stock Crack and preparing to do the Speedball upgrade. Couple things of note:
The plate load resistors are way up high because they come out anyway for Speedball and it's just easier this way and I can save the resistors and throw in the parts drawer.
The output caps are up pretty high too since they get angled to accommodate the Speedball upgrade. Left all the length on them to make this easier.
Resistance checks were perfect, I turned it on and no smoke, LED's lit up nicely. Rather than do the voltage checks, I thought "What the Heck?" and just plugged the DAC in. Beautiful music came forth. Listened for 30 minutes and then did the voltage checks. Perfect.
Will get Speedball installed in the next day or three and figure a way to ship this back to my friend.
This is my third Crack build and I really have to sing the praises of Bottlehead again. Great designs, great directions, great support, and best of all it sounds absolutely amazing. One of the best bargains and best sounds in the industry and you get the distinction of telling everyone "I built this".
On this build I had no gotchas, no problems, no smoke, no blown fuses, no hum, no buzz, nothing. The kit just works if you take your time and follow the directions. Anyone can do this. If you're reading this and wondering if you can do this, and sitting on the fence building one.........Order one now. Right now.
