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On a slightly lower level of sophistication, i need a cheap-ass tablet to live in a closet and play music from wifi over the stereo. That's all it will ever need to do. Cheap and works are the only words I really care about. What should I buy online right now while I'm thinking of it?
Would an Amazon Echo Dot or Google Home Mini work?Quote:
Originally Posted by ötzi
Well I dunno it just needs be Android or ios so I can put a couple apps for internet radio on it and have a 3.5 mm headphone jack. An old iphone would work actually fine. I had an android tablet that I bought on Amazon for literally $27.00 that was a complete piece of shit but worked for a year before it crapped out completely. edit: I looked those two up Chup, they're not what I'm looking for but thanks.
I picked up two ONN 10 inch tablets refurbished on eBay for under $100 ea. They're Walmart's house brand. The kids, 6 & 3, have been using them CONSTANTLY for the last 8 months. It's unreal, apparently they're bulletproof, and might cure cancer.
Victory is mine! For one channel anyways. Check it out! Source is laptop, to Sony preamp, to honey badger amp board. Took my sweet ass time adjusting the DC offset to around 1mv, bias to about 20mv. Made sure the input tail current was around 3.5ma. everything checked out, moved the plug to unprotected ac wall plug, and she works! Gotta work on the other side now and do some more building to get the case stuff wrapped up. But it's alive!
https://youtu.be/aKxUZ2CA1_U
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Setup on the bench...Attachment 335453
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That's fukin wild. We had a power outage some months ago that lasted well into the night. I generally appreciate the absolute silence you get but this one went on a bit too long, especially if you don't have data.I remember my battery powered radio and fired it up. The volume pot was crackly as hell and the decent stations I could get sounded like crap. Inspired (but completely not performing on the same level) by this thread I made a point to learn how to fix the pot and upgraded the rotted old speaker in it.Sounds way better now, thanks for the inspiration.
Deoxit works wonders on old potentiometers. Like brings old stereos back to life good.
This thing beauty took nothing but some simple green and deoxit to go from looking like shit, smelling like shit, working like shit, to looking pretty good, and working great.
Attachment 335647
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Based on your recommendation I ended up buying a new 7" onn tablet from walmart.com for $45 and it works fine and actually seems pretty solid.Quote:
Originally Posted by YourMomJustCalled
Ok, didn’t read the whole thread cause it makes my head spin. This may have been covered so feel free to tell me to piss off, but I’ve got two amps (one kinda crappy, one a really cool old tube Technics amp) that both have a channel that mostly works fine but sometimes fades in and out. Is there an easy way to tell me how to try to fix that, or do I need a PhD?
fuck yeah, that old Marantz gear is excellent.
model 2238b in my house
My stuff is old. When It dies I take it to the Vintage Audio repair. I am not OP smart or patient. BB, I know you want to build your own amp, but I have a Hafler 500 that comes as a kit (if you can find one) that is a monster through my Klipsch Forte's. Honest to god concert loud and really clean sounding. No wonder I am going deaf.Quote:
Originally Posted by EWG
I had a hafler dh200 for a while that was a nice little amp. Had the matching preamp as well. Not the most aethetically pleasing stuff, but I thought sound quality and power was quite good.
I just picked up a broken Denon poa2200 and matching preamp yesterday. Denon is a beast, rated at 200wpc @8ohms, most say they measure out at 220w+. It has a power supply issue.
As for the amps where a channel goes in and out, are there gain knobs? Does it change if you turn the knob back and forth? Deoxit! Otherwise, you need to dive into the circuit, as it could be many things. If you have one good channel, and know how to use a dmm, you can give it a signal (no speaker) and start poking around and see where your voltage begins to stray from the good channel.
Norseman, the old marantz stuff is nice. Good looking and sounding. I recently fixed this one up and sold it. Fixed a power supply problem and relamped it. Cleaned all potentiometers. That was all it needed.
Attachment 335762Attachment 335763
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BB, I love old Marantz receivers. If you ever have one you want to sell with power and a turntable in jack, I may be your guy. As much as I love the present system my B & K pre-amp does not have a turntable in jack and I would love to listen to some of my 200 vinyl albums again someday. I thought the Hafler had more juice than this: The Hafler DH-500 is a two channel audio power amplifier designed to the very highest performance stan-dards. It is available as a kit, or factory assembled. Its power rating of 255 watts per channel is very conservative, and it can deliver appreciably higher powers into impe-dances below the rated 8 ohms. That Denon should rock for you.
Guess I’ll start with deox. It doesn’t really cut in and out if I change the balance but if it’s out and you turn the volume up a little it will pop back in.
Classic case for deoxit. Open up the case, get good access to pot, (make sure it is unplugged, and caps have had time to discharge.) Put a tissue or something to catch the dripping. Spray liberally into the pot where the contacts are and turn back and forth like 50 times. Then do it again. Do it for all pots in the unit.
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You can get an external phono preamp and then feed the bk a line level signal into any input. There are lots out there, or you could take a crack at diy. Make sure you are getting the right gain for your turntable. Moving magnet and moving coil needle assemblies require different levels of gain. Some preamps have a switch to allow for either.Quote:
Originally Posted by liv2ski
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I just gotta know, and maybe its been mentioned, but BB you do a tons of wrenching (very complicated sometimes) and now this electronics shit...are you just a genius or are you an engineer or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by basinbeater
Feel free not to divulge, but damn you know how to do some cool shit...im not geeky like that, but its cool to read for sure.
Probably should have been an engineer, but I'm just a bored mid level desk jockey for a large financial Corp. I have sort migrated naturally into the tech/strategic planning/problem solving side of things. Building automated solutions, getting around intentionally set up road blocks, streamlining stuff, data integrity, that sort of shit. But it's sort of a drag.
I just like messing around with stuff, and going down different rabbit holes. Figuring out how stuff works and tinkering. Really digging the electronics stuff right now though. Trying to figure out how to use ltspice so I can simulate circuits. I wouldn't mind plagiarizing/modifying/designing my own circuits and making some runs of amps or preamps or whatever. Maybe I can turn it into a business. Others have.
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Also, if anybody has cool old stereo shit, pm me and see if im interested in taking it off your hands. [emoji16]
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If you guys want to learn more go hang around diyaudio.com. I stumbled across it when I fixed my first amplifier, someone there helped me abit. Excellent forum with tons of info, and frequented by many professional ee.
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Thanks. Interesting hobbies.Quote:
Originally Posted by basinbeater
Sent from my Pixel 2 using TGR Forums mobile app
It's alive! I added a speaker turn on delay and DC protection circuit to the output, and buttoned everything up. I tested it in the basement with some less fancy speakers, then brought it up closer to it's destination resting place to give it a whirl. Lots of power. I need to run it a while and set the bias a little warmer. Check DC offset again on both channels. I want to add some Vu meters for the front, and resurface the faceplate so it doesn't say arcam or HDMI, or any of that crap. But that's all cosmetics. How's it sound so far? So far sounds great. Lots of power. Lots. I'm headed out of town, final tuning and critical listening will be postponed.... Anyway, project getting closer to completion. STOKED!
https://youtu.be/Ie27LiQb_skAttachment 336020Attachment 336021
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Well, the amp is done. I pulled it back out and made final adjustments to bias, DC offset, and input stage current. It is nicely set up now. I wired up the fans underneath the heatsinks to run about 40% of max speed, and they are nice and quiet and keep the temps in check. The maximum sustained output voltage is right around 38v ac rms(root mean square). Knowing that my speakers are nominal impedance 8 ohm, then I can calculate power output. 38vac^2/(8ohms)=180 watts. So 180watts per channel. Lots of power. How does it sound? It sounds awesome! More detail and power than I have ever heard from an amp. Bass slams hard on hip hop and is beautifully controlled for rock and classical. High are gorgeous and smooth. Mids are also very detailed and clear with strong punch. Maybe I'm biased (geek joke) because I built it, but it easily blows my old amp out of the water. But now when you have classical music turned up loud, it sounds like a goddamned orchestra is in the living room. Gotta spend some more time listening to really listen for imaging and sound stage and dynamics blah blah, but initial impressions are very very good.
Even the wife said it sounds better than the other one. But maybe she was just being nice so I will shut up about it.
Anyway, next project... Another amp! Going to build an amp based on the ksa gb150 by Greg ball. This one should be similar power, but in a more compact package. I will use a dead Yamaha receiver case, transformer, and heatsink. The heatsinks are tight together, and have a fan that blows through them and up a 'chimney'.
Fun stuff.
Oh, I dug into the dead Denon poa2200, and found bad output transistors. So I will replace those and see if that brings this thing back to life.
Attachment 336878Attachment 336879Attachment 336880Attachment 336881
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You need the TK421 modification.
https://youtu.be/La3U41b0WSU
Indeed.
https://youtu.be/Ie27LiQb_sk
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So what's wrong with this radio?
Huh? No problems. It's kicking ass.
The Denon amp has problems, but hopefully will be all fixed up this evening.
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Does this make you horny, basinbeater?
Attachment 336927
Yeah baby.
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Denon amplifier is fixed. Had 3 blown output transistors. I happened to have 8 that are different, but I thought they should work and they do.
Amp is fixed. Now on to the matching preamp.
Attachment 336945
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Hey Viva, on that sr3a, if it is intermittently cutting out on you, before you send it anywhere, get a can of this stuff, pop the hood, and undo the two lateral switches from the board. Spray the deoxit in there liberally, and move the switch back and forth a bunch of times. Make sure the switch is all the way forward, or all the way back, move the knob to your chosen position (all the way one way or the other way) and put it back together. You may find your problem is solved for just the cost of deoxit.
These pics show the two switches you really want to get to, and are from an sr4a.Attachment 336962Attachment 336964Attachment 336965
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Heh. Buck was right. Get up under it, lube everything up, maybe tear off the front end.
We had some printers that came with shitty solder coated board contacts and it was necessary to reseat the cards constantly so the workaround was a few drops of Stabilant contact enhancer which i could easily get from parts and so I used it on a lot of things ... good stuff
dang BB, those Bang & Olufson cabs are beautiful! I love the angled risers on 'em. how tight is the stereo imaging - eg, how big of a "sweet spot" do they have? do you use them just for 2channel audio or as part of your TV setup?
i'm a big klipsch nerd myself, so my two setups are a pair of Heresy's and a pair of La Scala's. I recently rebuilt the crossover networks on my La Scala's, which was fun but not nearly as involved of a project as what you're tackling. i do love that i can knock picture frames off the wall with a measly 3 watts per channel, though!
Sweet spot isn't huge, you do kind of need to be on the sofa in front of them, but anywhere on that sofa, the speakers kind of disappear. You don't hear the speakers per se, more the room just fills with sound, and you can sort of pick out where the instruments are voices are coming from on the soundstage. Really nice. Imaging goes away as you move from the sofa, but thats to be expected. Because they really produce big sound, even over in the kitchen or dining room, it sounds like you have live music going on in the next room. Bass response suffers a little bit as you move from optimal position, but sort of comes back as you really move away. Something is loose in the grandfather clock in the corner, and it rattles with lots of bass.
We use them 2 channel only, but they do provide sound for the tv as well. The dsp on the Sony let's you switch to a different preset (can store 10 user defined) and dynamics are adjustable to make watching TV or movies loud or quiet very enjoyable. Explosions go BOOM!
I've cycled through a few different speakers including a couple of higher end ($2k+ ok mid end PSB, infinity kappas 7. Kappas were nice) towers and high quality 2 ways (Canton, Polk) to see if I was missing out on anything with the b and o, and these have just blown everything else out of the water. The three way (with phase link driver, so 4 drivers per cabinet) result in 0 slop or muddiness at any frequency. These were b and o pull out all the stops top of the line speakers in the early 80s. Seas drivers throughout. Little bit of a power sponge, but the honey badger amp has taken care of that. No lack of power now. I don't have the original stands, but was able to find measurements, so I built the stands to put them in the right factory position.
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Tgapp, post pics of your setup.
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Oh, I think you need all that bass.
dude those stands are awesome! well done man, you're clearly operating on a much different level than i am. and the cabs are beautiful. is a phase link driver basically a 3 way CX network driving 4 drivers? or is one of those drivers a passive bass radiator?Quote:
Originally Posted by basinbeater
for me, i'm just a sucker for klipsch horns. miles davis comes alive in a way that i haven't found elsewhere. sure, they lack presence in their lows, and they also beam hard (very narrow listening range), but they're also super economical. both of my amps are single-ended triode setups, and they drive them very well (don't let galibier numero uno see this thread though!!)
Attachment 336973
downstairs - klipsch la scalas with updated CX's and new tweeters - gonna do cabs sometime in the next few years, but they don't rattle so i haven't fucked with them. these guys are powered by an APPJ KT-77 amp (running gold lions), an SMSL DAC, and a ProJect Debut Carbon TT with matching phono stage.
Attachment 336974
upstairs are gen2 heresy's powered by a miniwatt (6N1 based) SET amp with a hifimediy sabre DAC.
the whole house is zoned and linked with chromecast audios, including my desk "hifi" system (edifier speakers) - so we can have a 'sonos-lite' experience when entertaining. who are we kidding, we never entertain.