Electronics! Falling into the geek rabbit hole.

[up an down]

Oh, and the car amps have increased to 3 and a dsp. The railing I was going to use to build the rack got pilfered and used for those speaker stands and a rack for some jbl amps I have laying around.
Attachment 322804Attachment 322805

sent from Utah.

You didn't increase the volume level available to 11??? ..(face palm)

[basinbeater]

Hehe, always to 11.

I just hooked up the refreshed Sony. Initial test with the kids going bonkers reveals much much much improved detail, power, and general liveliness to the music. Then I did some A b testing.

I used a Sony ES CD player with The Black Crowds playing jealous again. Amplifier is a hafler dh200. CD player sends a digital optical signal out to the Yamaha receiver and Sony preamplifier, and an analog signal out to the hafler preamplifier. All units then send their signal to the hafler amplifier and out to the big b and o speakers.

First up, the Yamaha htr 5960 and the Sony. The Yamaha has been doing the tv audio duty for the last while, and is heads and shoulders above the soundbar that I unilaterally dismounted and sold on ksl. The Sony now blows the Yamaha out of the water. Much more dynamic and lively, better bass, better treble, more clarity and detail. Better everything. I had spent considerable time fiddling with the Yamaha settings to get it to where it sounded decent, so this is not without taking proper settings into account. Keep in mind with the Sony, this is without any settings changed. After all the work I did, it had a full memory reset. So that was easy.

Next up, hafler dh110 preamplifier and the Sony. I really like the hafler. It's not much to look at, but it sounds great. I got the preamp and the amp as a package deal for $200. It is the first unit I have had that finally displaced the nakamichi SR4A from main stereo duty. It has a great phono amp, and just has great power and smooth sound. So. This is just from 30 seconds listening to the same Black Crowes track, jealous again. But I can't pick which one. Need to take more time to really sit and listen. I think the Sony is producing more powerful bass now. I did play with a little bit of bass boost on the Sony, and the bass tone knob on the hafler. Both sound very good.

More testing to be done. But I can't believe the level of improvement with the sony. It is substantial. It had sounded quite good in the basement in a smaller space, but it had been a bit flat when more power was required for larger space. It got a recap and has different opamps in it.


sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

The rabbit hole deepens. I decided to build my own amp from (sort of) scratch. I decided to build my own 150 watt per channel class ab amplifier. I ordered circuit boards from diyaudio.com (great site if you like this sort of thing). I made some component choices and ordered a bunch of crap from mouser. The circuit was designed and posted by a forum member, and the store made up circuit boards for it. I needed a case, heatsinks, a power supply, and a way to softly turn it on, and protect the speakers from dc if something were to go awry.
I found a dead arcam receiver (was originally $5000). It came complete with a functional power supply, big heat sinks just the right size, and a huge case that will make setting up the layout for the amp flexible, and I can even add more to it down the road.
Check it out.


sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

A few more pics.... I've learned a shitload, and the next step for me is figuring out the math to apply to the circuit so I can begin to design my own amplifier circuits. I understand the concepts, and what happens at each stage, but the math is tricky.



sent from Utah.

[4matic]

That’s cool you do that. Crazy skill. Are you a ham?

[Core Shot]

Holy jeebus
I’m jealous

[basinbeater]

No ham. Just like playing cracker loud in the living room.



sent from Utah.

[fatnslow]

Sounds like some folks with stereo knowledge here. I have a Kenwood car stereo that turns off after 5-10 minutes and won't come back on until the next car start. I have taken a look at the power and it seems just fine. Do car decks have some sort of thermal fuse link that can cause something like this ? I actually know my way around electronics a bit so just looking for some direction bsinc I can't seem to find any info online and would rather try repair than replace.

[basinbeater]

It may be getting hot, and some ic that is involved in the power circuitry is shutting down, or an amp piece is getting hot and triggering the power supply to shut down. Toss it and get another one. Each of my 5 cars has a $40 used pioneer deck.

sent from Utah.

[abraham]

My guess would be a cracked solder joint that fails after the board/part is heated enough. Could waste a ton of time troubleshooting a problem like that

[basinbeater]

My power supply on my diy amp is together and putting out the right voltage.
I've retained the arcam factory soft start circuitry, as well as the other power supplies should I want to add things like an active crossover circuit, etc... I had to trick the startup board that controls the relays for the transformers into thinking it was getting the right signal from the (removed) cpu that controlled everything in the arcam. With that trick in place, it fires up like it is supposed to, and I get +-63.3v at the rails that will power the amp. The power supply cap board also serves as the star ground for all amp related circuits. Voltages shown are with a bad LED. with that fixed I get the 63.3 value. More power!


sent from Utah.

[CarlMega]

My guess would be a cracked solder joint that fails after the board/part is heated enough. Could waste a ton of time troubleshooting a problem like that

Cold solder joints are almost fun when you can see them or detect & repair them. Great solder practice. However, multilayer PCB with conductive glue are no fun at all...micro breaks that are essentially in-between layers are maddening.

So try if you want or are interest, or jsut toss if you want "results"..lol.

Solid work basin btw. I enjoy your posts here - great project.

[basinbeater]

I'm surprised at how much fun this stuff is. I'm trying to get a simulation of the amp circuit up and running. Someone else built it along with a virtual test bench, that when I get to trying to design my own stuff, will be very handy. Instead of futzing around with a breadboard and little wires, you just build it on the computer and see if it works, and tweak it there. When you like what you get, test it in real life. This stuff is all like a big puzzle.

sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

Making progress. One side of the amp is finished being built. We'll fire it up tonight and adjust and see if the smoke stays inside. All electronics run on smoke, and when you let it out, then it won't work anymore.


sent from Utah.

[The Reverend Floater]

Yup. Basin got mad man-skills. Jealous.

[ötzi]

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?

[El Chupacabra]

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?

[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.

[Touring_Sedan]

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.

[basinbeater]

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


sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

Setup on the bench...

sent from Utah.

[Thaleia]

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.

[basinbeater]

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.


sent from Utah.

[ötzi]

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.

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.

[EWG]

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?