Nice Crack

[Thermioniclife]

Hello all,
I just completed my Crack amp and I am quite pleased!
It's very quiet, Dynamic and has plenty of output. I'm using Sennheiser Hd 650's
I built it almost stock, I knew that I wanted to use a choke in the psu and wanted it in place of the final resistor.
Therefor I installed and wired it up during the build because it would be a pain to do so later.
I also installed the ground breaker diodes from the get go.
the final change was to use an alps pot removed from another project.
all resistance and voltage checks were normal using a variac set to 120vac.
My speedball kit is assembled and sitting in a box, frankly I like the way it sounds now.
I'll listen to it for the month of October and decide about the speedball then(i'm sure I will try it).
It is a shame though that the chassis is not a little wider as I will eventually install film caps on the outputs.
Having said that I am quite pleased with the amp in its current state.
Well done Bottlehead, all inclusive.
Now it's time to start on my BeePre. I have some very special things planned for that puppy.

Regards,
Lee

[Deke609]

What are the special plans for the Beepre, Lee? I think I've used up just about all of the available real estate in mine, but I'm always up for some new inspiration. 

cheers, Derek

[Thermioniclife]

Hey Derek,
I think I will keep them under my hat for now but I will tell you they are primarily extra user features not necessarily sonic upgrades.
Thanks for the reply.

[Thermioniclife]

A few pic's

[Paul Birkeland]

We do make a far, far better Crack in a wider chassis that has integrated mounting points for film caps.  Just saying...

[Thermioniclife]

Fair enough Paul, but the last sale price of the Crack and Speedball was compelling.
I'll likely mount the caps on standoffs or on the wood base with a quick disconnects.
The point of my post was to sing the praises of this amp in its basically stock form.
the upgraded model is indeed nice but currently out of my reach right now. But who knows in the future?
as I stated before nice job Bottlehead.

[Paul Birkeland]

Yes indeed, that is true.  It is tough to justify making the basic Crack kit any larger than it absolutely has to be, as it fits pretty well on a desktop as-is.   Those 100uF film caps get pretty huge and take a significant amount of chassis space to properly mount. 

[Thermioniclife]

I concur. Proper mounting is indeed important. especially when high heat and high voltage are present.
If relying on double stick tape to hold a heavy component seems ok then you are setting yourself up for a smoke show.

[badboybry9000]

I kept my Crack stock and used the same signal chain for about a year. I can say you will without a doubt notice a difference after installing the Speedball upgrade. However, I cannot say which sound signature you will prefer. For me the Speedball upgrade was a huge improvement.

[Thermioniclife]

I'm going to give the stock unit a month or more before installing the speedball. Knowing myself like I do I can't believe how my patience has increased with age.
20 years ago I would have installed the upgrade about 37 seconds after the stock build!