Super excited about this kit arrival! It has been a very long time since I have built any audio related kit. My current China made headphone amp is seriously lacking, so I made the jump for a little SEX in my life! True to form Bottlehead has exceeded my pre-built expectations with very short order to delivery time, exceptional packing (DB Cooper style) and very good quality components. One minor finish issue with an otherwise perfectly, precisely cut top plate. Now, truth be known, I am a function over form kind of a guy and firmly believe this kit will supply the function in spades! I have included pictures of the initial build steps. I would also like to comment on the awesome, complete, very detailed instructions!!!! It is such a blessing to have this form of documentation so well done! Well it is off to the next steps in the build!
Day three and build has been completed. Resistance checks were spot on, voltage checks (included picture) were extremely close or even spot on, and no smoke! But alas there is no audio output, or at this point no determination that there is input. lol. I have connected to the speaker out puts as well as the headphone jack with the same results , no output. So it will be back under the hood for some diagnostics.
Final report <<Success>>! After going under the hood to find the "No output" problem I taught myself the first step in diagnostics should have been "Check the Source!". I was using an Ipod as an input device. I varied the volume up and down to no change. It really would have helped if I had actually press play on the Ipod. I was so sure that I had miss read or just completely goofed something up I bypassed the simple and made it much more complicated. I am now listening, without bothering my wife, and totally immersed in tonal excellence! Which I fully expect that after some burn in time it will mature even more. SEX has never been better! lol
