Finished assembling Crack w/o speedball [resolved]

[meichacker]

I finished my build. The only anomaly was I destroyed a LED. VERY fragile! Fortunately there was another in the speedball upgrade kit so I used it and ordered 5 more from this site.

My ohm readings are all good but my voltages are off and the LED on 8 does not light up.

As per the instructions, here are my voltages:

1 133v
2 170v
3 0v
4 170v
5 90v

6 0v
7 149v
8 0v
9 107v
10 0v

I have looked things over and am reasonably sure everything is soldered well and correctly but who knows. First time kit builder so likely user error of some kind.

Thanks in advance.
Mike

[meichacker]

Got it working. Reheated all of the solder connections on the smaller tube and double checked the LED connections. All is good now. Both LEDs light and it sounds good. I will give it a week or two before I install the speedball upgrade.

I have the luxury having 2 cracks as I bought one already assembled from ebay a couple of months ago. After confirming they both sound the same and getting the replacement LEDs, I will install and compare the speedball to stock.

I built an A/B 1/4" phone jack switch box with a 3PDT switch which is making comparisons easy with different sources, headphones and amps.

Mike

[fromnowon]

Cool idea, to build an A/B switch to compare amps and headphones!
It would be interesting to see how you did it. 

[Gwymember]

I'm interested in making my own switchbox too. Would be nice to get some ideas/inspiration from you. Especially on finding/making the case.

[meichacker]

It is quite simple really. I bought a three pole double throw switch (3PDT) which can switch between 2 sets of 3 wires. Left, right and ground. I bought 3 - 1/4" headphone jacks and the hard part for most, 3D printed a case. 3D printers are amazing by the way. One could very easily buy a small plastic project box and drill holes for the switch and jacks. Solder them together and boom, you have an easy way to compare two setups with one pair of headphones.

I can connect different sources like computers and DAC's or DAP's like the ones from FiiO. Play the same song on both synchronized. Then match the volume on both of my AMP's and switch between the two and see if there is a difference. Surprisingly, I don't find much difference in DAC's or DAP's. There is a big difference in AMPs and headphones. Having two identical AMP's helps with comparing DAC's / DAP's.

I hope that helps.
Mike