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Pass / Hypnotoad / Salas Preamp in Walnut

bonsai said:
Some serious wood working skills!!!

A zero gain preamp built around a nice attenuator and followed by a DCB1 (Nelson Pass B1 buffer with a killer regulated power supply) is unreal good. Got one myself and highly recommend it. I prefer this with my tube amps over any of the tube preamps I've had. Great combo IMHO
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Thanks; and that's good to hear. I have yet to audition a tube preamp but this one sounds great. My hope plan was, one and done; I want to keep this thing a long time.
 
Thanks! Dado; I just tried a bunch of different cuts until it looked right. I had them way too wide before.

Thing was, I had this piece of 8-4ths walnut lying around for months and I was determined to use it; it wound up becoming the side pieces.

I also played a visual trick in that the guts were too tall to fit in the desired cabinet profile, so the "plinth" is actually holding about 25% of the height.

I'm halfway through making a different, lower-profile lid for it, but I'm still thinking about that. :dunno:
 
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Wow that pre and those amps are beautiful, great work Zonkers!

Also, loving your avatar and signature.

"I'll tell you what he said! He asked me to forcibly insert the lifeline exercise card into my anus!"
 
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Thanks! I spent the afternoon listening to it and I think the imaging and detail are substantially better than my Adcom GPA-565. Just delighted.
 
The DCB1 with a solid attenuator and a killer good preamp. Love mine as well.

odd combo I really like sound wise... I have an Ecofan Sound Boost it product that I run my DVD player into. I was listening to Mad Season the other night in concert from a DVD/Blue Ray... The gain from the Boost it into the DCB1 preamp is unreal good!

I built my DCB1 preamp with a Khozmo attenuator and some 22ga 99.9% pure internal wire.

http://www.ecofansound.com/boost-it/
 
bonsai said:
The DCB1 with a solid attenuator and a killer good preamp. Love mine as well.

odd combo I really like sound wise... I have an Ecofan Sound Boost it product that I run my DVD player into. I was listening to Mad Season the other night in concert from a DVD/Blue Ray... The gain from the Boost it into the DCB1 preamp is unreal good!

I built my DCB1 preamp with a Khozmo attenuator and some 22ga 99.9% pure internal wire.

http://www.ecofansound.com/boost-it/
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A buffer into another buffer, eh? Does the boost just apply gain then and the DCB1 just removes that gain?
 
dodog said:
A buffer into another buffer, eh? Does the boost just apply gain then and the DCB1 just removes that gain?
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The "Boost It" is more of a stand alone gain stage the I run from my CD/DVD/Blueray player. I think of it as if I had a more robust output stage on the CD/DVD/Blueray player. The Boost It has some gain and buffer as you mention.

I run that to the DCB1 based preamp which is basically a passive preamp with a buffer on the way out. I had a few good preamps and then tried the passive preamp. I have 2 output from a passive with pretty good length RCA cable runs so the DCB1 did help.

Here is an interesting read on the gain stage ran into a passive pre and the gain stage by the source in general. Decware ZSTAGE which is similar to the Ecofan Sound Boost It.

http://www.decware.com/newsite/ZSTAGEMANUAL.pdf

All I can say is it sounds pretty good.
 
:D Man, I spent the day making attachment points for a backyard shade sail. If you ever want a workout, try digging a post hole in hard pan. :rolleyes:

I have a bunch of little audio projects lined up, like putting new Radian diaphragms and binding posts in my JBL 4430s. And I might shop for a LOMC cartridge one of these days, now that I have a worthy phono stage for it. :D

But in terms of DIY and/or woodworking? I got nothin. I'm sure something will occur to me soon, though. I'd love to build a nice turntable plinth for a thrashed Technics SL1200 turntable, for example.

Hmmm ... Maybe I'll post a WTB in BT ...

And someday maybe I'll build some 4435 knockoffs, or restore a pair ...
 
bonsai said:
So what is next Zonker92?
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Here's my latest:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=612659

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