Finished my Crack

[Sektor7G]

After a few days of painting, staining, and wood finishing the Crack is done. I started building yesterday around 5pm taking a few breaks for beers and food and I finished around 11:30pm. The build was so much fun and the end result is better than I expected. In the pics you will notice that there is a bit of extra slack on some of the pot cables, this is for a stepped attenuator I have coming soon. It was a good thing I tested all my resistances and tripled checked my connections since a piece of cut excess wire landed right across 13U and 12U under the 270K resistor as I was building. This piece of wire (perfectly hidden from view) caused all kinds of irregular resistance readings on terminals 1 and 2. For a second I thought I had made a mistake but after finding the issue all my readings were dead on. If you are wondering why there is an extra piece of black wire across the top going in to the ground terminal its because I decided to use a piece of shielded Canare cable for my RCA inputs with the shield braid going to ground to help isolate noise. Here are some crappy pics of my build, maybe later I will take some nicer pics. Thanks to the staff at Bottlehead for such a great kit and such clear instructions, you guys are the best.

[Doc B.]

Nicely done!

[Sektor7G]

Nicely done!

Thank you sir. Looking forward to the Speedball upgrade some time soon.

[Natural Sound]

Nice job! I see you have a Baldwin 12AU7 up front. I've always liked the way they sound.

[Sektor7G]

Nice job! I see you have a Baldwin 12AU7 up front. I've always liked the way they sound.

No complaints about the Baldwin, it came with the kit. I also got in the kit an RCA 6080 that not only did it looked from the WWII era but I think it actually participated in combat during WWII  . I replaced the 6080 with a 6AS7G from another kit (no noticable diffrences in power) looks a lot nicer IMO.

[Bacci]

Agree with the 6AS7G looking really nice (and matching the Bottlehead logo!). The 6080 looks like a dwarf next to it 
Love the finish! I find the Crack is not only a marvel to the ear, but also a conversation piece in the living room, like art if you want. It deserves a great finish, and yours looks fab!

[Natural Sound]

My experience is that while the 6AS7 looks better they tend to be a bit more microphonic than the 6080. The 6080 appears to have better mechanical construction. Especially some of the triple mica 6080's I have in my stash.

I hear that some of the Russian 6H13C tubes sound really good. I don't have any myself but they are on my wishlist of tubes I'd like to try.

[Sektor7G]

Agree with the 6AS7G looking really nice (and matching the Bottlehead logo!). The 6080 looks like a dwarf next to it 
Love the finish! I find the Crack is not only a marvel to the ear, but also a conversation piece in the living room, like art if you want. It deserves a great finish, and yours looks fab!

Thanks, the overall finish looks a lot better in the pics than in person, I did 3 coats of the minwax and there are still some inperfections. I'm sure I can give it 2 more coats, maybe I'll touch it up again some time.

My experience is that while the 6AS7 looks better they tend to be a bit more microphonic than the 6080. The 6080 appears to have better mechanical construction. Especially some of the triple mica 6080's I have in my stash.

I hear that some of the Russian 6H13C tubes sound really good. I don't have any myself but they are on my wishlist of tubes I'd like to try.

In my case it was the opposite the 6080 in the kit was slightly more microphonic than the  6AS7G. I'm thinking that I might start experimenting with other tubes after the Speedball. I have some Russian tubes on my Little Bear that sounded to me way better than some vintage GE JAN 5670W I previously owned. My thought is buy tubes from a reputable dealer who has tested each one thoroughly regardless of the tube manufacturer.