Hi, forum friends. Thought I'd check in to report that after many missteps and much neurosis, I at last finished building my Crack. On first listen, I was mainly just astonished that something I had built with my own two hands could actually play music without any obvious flaws. But as I listened more, something didn't sound right: compared to my Schiit stack, the amp sounded thin and strident; voices came across as artificial and just wrong. My fortunes turned when I found a relevant post on this forum in which Paul advised reflowing all the solder joints. Well, damn if that didn't work. My Crack was utterly transformed. Now I sit listening for hours in a state of sheer bliss, absolutely blown away by the way the amp brings my HD6XX to life.
Thank you a thousand times over to Paul, Doc, and all the good folks on this forum who have been so generous in answering my every question and enabled me to get to this point.
I've included a photo of my build in case anyone here has any constructive criticism or sees any red flags. (I'm particularly curious whether the lack of space between the 10W resistors is likely to become a problem.)
And finally, now that I've got the bug to build, what should I attempt next? The upgrade power cord? Interconnects? What's the next step in this journey?
Thanks, as always, for any advice and feedback.
-Jonathan
