Electronics! Falling into the geek rabbit hole.

[basinbeater]

The Denon poa2200 is no longer. Now it is a Honey Badger. Wrapped up the transformation into the D-Badger a little while ago. Played some tom petty in the garage for a while for testing. All original diagnostic features still work, as well as DC speaker protection, thermal protection, transformer soft start, and speaker impedance check.
Gonna hook it up in the living room tomorrow and have a honey badger shootout. Yeehaw!
Attachment 339637

sent from Utah.

[tgapp]

Geez BB, this is one of the cooler things I've seen on TGR. Well done!!

If it wasn't for COVID I'd say you should have a mag meetup to show us your work and play some jams. Really cool shit here!

What's your audio source feeding the amp?

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

[riser4]

I still can't get Boogie Nights out if my head. All DIY stereo projects need a TK-421 case badge. Oh, you need all that bass.

[basinbeater]

Ha, thanks tgapp. One day this will be behind us and we can do it. I'm glad a few of you like these posts. It's funny, I got all my old cars working and decided this would be the next thing to learn, and I think I like working on this stuff more than the old cars.
I keep having ideas that I would like to make my own circuit and figure out how to make a run of like 50 to sell. But there is SO MUCH to learn to get to that point. So who knows ...
But I digress....
The rest of the system right now, I use a Sony ta-e1000esd. It is a 100% digital preamp, and being older, it doesn't do great with analog signals as it converts them to digital and then back to analog. But the dac is a very good one, so it makes a great preamp for digital sources like the optical signal from the tv, or a cd player with digital out. It has all the dsp stuff that can easily get one lost and actually sound worse, but I've got it to where it really works very well, and I have different presets for watching movies, playing music, etc. I recapped the whole thing, and put opamp sockets in, and tried several different opamps before settling in what I use now. Biggest improvement was switching the opamp that converts the dac current out to voltage (known as the I/v converter) to one with higher slew rate. It really came alive with that mod. I also yanked the video board out since it is pretty much useless with newer tvs and video sources. I liked it enough that I bought another one, and I use that one in my garage as a source to my garage amp, and for testing amps I fix or build.
I use a Sony es CD changer that I also like a lot. It had issues when I got it and I repaired it. I use a Yamaha t1020 tuner. So basically the whole system has been built or repaired by me. The speakers are early 80s top of the line bang and olufsen. Was their biggest baddest speaker ever at the time, and they kick ass. 10" subwoofers, 8" woofers, 4" mid phase links, and tweeters. All seas drivers. I refoamed them and rebuilt the crossovers, and reattached the coils to the 4" domes.
My wife tolerates it, but wishes the speakers were smaller and that there were no wires. She is happy with a tiny bose bluetooth speaker.
Here is the system currently with the two honey badgers sitting on top of each other.


sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

The arcam honey badger got some add ons and a refinish on the faceplate. Filled sanded and painted the faceplate, then mounted up some Vu meters from an old tape player, and finally wired up the power light indicator. Back in the saddle.





sent from Utah.

[liv2ski]

Nice system BB. The girls will never appreciate real systems. I know I am a little hard of hearing but jeezuz, all I ever hear is "Can you turn it down"? I like it when she goes out, I tell the animals to go hide in the back of the house and I get to listen to mine cranked up. The bass rumbles the house through the Klipsch Forte's. I mean you can really feel it and it sounds sooooo good.

[basinbeater]

Snagged some more stuff yesterday. For cheap. A phase linear 200 amp for $10, that looked like hell, but cleaned up very nicely and sounds great. Someone else has already made a repair on the meter board. It works fine and sounds very nice paired with my other score, a NAD 1155, also $10. This is my first NAD piece, and it needed a little work. I had to repair the rca terminals on the back, and while I was in there I replaced a bunch of electrolytic capacitors.
I listened to the amp today for a while with the Denon pra1500 preamp (which I like) I had hooked up in the basement. But when I hooked the NAD up, it is another level. Incredible soundstage from this combo. Very impressed. I'm going to give the NAD a shot at the main living room with the big honey badger and the big b and o speakers. Very nice little preamp.
I'm sure the kids appreciate the basement sound system.

sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

It's important to crank it up when the other half is out of the house. I've got rattles in a couple places in the living room that need attention when the bass is rockin.

sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

Latest amp project continues to move forward. Ordered the last of the transistors I need. This amplifier uses mosfets in the output stage. Power supply is sorted, amplifier and mounting to heat sinks is sorted, get those last transistors in, and mount it back in the case, and wire it up. Test.
This amp will use the rotel case, rotel transformer, heat sinks. It will use capacitors and rectifier from the arcam unit I turned into a honey badger. So 40,000uf of capacitance. The amp is capable of 150 watt per channel, but the rotel receiver it came out of was rated at 100 per channel, so I may modify the negative feedback circuitry to reduce the closed loop gain of the amp. I plan on installing an attenuator to the amp as well, but this only attenuates the input voltage to the amp, and does not affect the overall gain of the amplifier. I would prefer to use full strength signal voltage, and reduce overall gain and run the source wide open.
Attenuators introduce other issues. A dual gang potentiometer has issues with balance. The more resistance applied to the potentiometer, the worse the side to side balance issue becomes.

sent from Utah.

[Skidog]

Latest amp project continues to move forward. Ordered the last of the transistors I need. This amplifier uses mosfets in the output stage. Power supply is sorted, amplifier and mounting to heat sinks is sorted, get those last transistors in, and mount it back in the case, and wire it up. Test.
This amp will use the rotel case, rotel transformer, heat sinks. It will use capacitors and rectifier from the arcam unit I turned into a honey badger. So 40,000uf of capacitance. The amp is capable of 150 watt per channel, but the rotel receiver it came out of was rated at 100 per channel, so I may modify the negative feedback circuitry to reduce the closed loop gain of the amp. I plan on installing an attenuator to the amp as well, but this only attenuates the input voltage to the amp, and does not affect the overall gain of the amplifier. I would prefer to use full strength signal voltage, and reduce overall gain and run the source wide open.
Attenuators introduce other issues. A dual gang potentiometer has issues with balance. The more resistance applied to the potentiometer, the worse the side to side balance issue becomes.

sent from Utah.

I dont recall if I asked, because I know I have asked you questions, but what was your field of study in school, if you went? Im just a sys admin, this stuff is crazy to me..

[basinbeater]

I was an international studies and spanish double major. I didn't like school, and when they said you would have to take an extra year of math to go in engineering, I sort of thought, fuck that. Took the easy way out. Poor choice in retrospect. But I do like politics. Or I used to.
I am working on my math again now, and learning how to apply it to this stuff. This stuff is way more fun that what I do for work.

sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

You seem to be curious about this stuff, and it really is not that hard to get started on it if you wanted to. And there is a lot you can do with basic knowledge. If you want pointers on how to get started, happy to chat and give some pointers on where to start.

sent from Utah.

[tgapp]

You seem to be curious about this stuff, and it really is not that hard to get started on it if you wanted to. And there is a lot you can do with basic knowledge. If you want pointers on how to get started, happy to chat and give some pointers on where to start.

sent from Utah.

+100 for pointers!

i think i am just going to buy a kit amp and try that first. something relatively basic.

[basinbeater]

Post up what you are looking at. Also, search for diyaudio.com and first to try and build (or something along those lines).

sent from Utah.

[unitofstuff]

Poor choice in retrospect.
...
This stuff is way more fun that what I do for work.

I used to tinker with all sorts of random crap. Now I work as an engineer and hardly tinker at all in my off time, so maybe you made the better choice than I did. I definitely think there's something to the concept of not ruining your hobbies by turning it into a job.

[4matic]

Those white box cassettes generally had pretty crappy sound..

[basinbeater]

Yeah, not a lot of cassettes. Mostly a few of my parents old ones laying around, and of course, I found a box of phish tapes that were poorly copied in college. So, tape player doesn't get much use. Jackson browne is in there right now. Doesn't sound terrible.

sent from Utah.

[basinbeater]

More progress last night on the rotel/gb150d.

Unit, that's probably right. If I had to do it everyday for work and have deadlines to meet and all that other stuff, it'd be more of a drag. I do try to make sure my car and audio hobbies pay for themselves. So far so good there. I think I'm in the black a bout $1500 over the course of messing around with stereos. And am up thousands when it comes to cars. So fun hobbies that pay for themselves. Makes it tougher for the wife to complain.

sent from Utah.

[Skiwurrel]

random question i wonder if anyone would have some help for; got an old stanton digital turntable, after a bit its developed a scraping sound, i guess the turntable is powered by a magnet which is loose, scratching the computer board below. Could i just use super glue or something to refix the magnet? cant seem to find a way to get it to stick, does not scew off

[basinbeater]

I would think gluing a magnet back on would require a stronger glue than regular cyanoacrylate glue aka super glue. It often dries brittle, and if there is some vibration because it is not perfect, (and nothing is ever perfect) eventually it will fail again. I would try something like e6000. I like that stuff for random gotta glue it jobs. Sand a little bit to scuff up the mating surfaces. Post a pic of what you are dealing and maybe we can come up with a solution.

sent from Utah.

[billyk]

I used to tinker with all sorts of random crap. Now I work as an engineer and hardly tinker at all in my off time, so maybe you made the better choice than I did. I definitely think there's something to the concept of not ruining your hobbies by turning it into a job.

I can certainly relate to this, although I don’t regret the choices I made. I was working a blue collar job in a machine shop when I started tinkering around with Radio Shack projects. I wanted to understand how they worked so I studied up on the resistors, capacitors, and inductors, to the point where that all made sense.

But then there were the transistors. So I got to one level of understanding of them as being switches, but there were some complicated equations and explanations about how they worked that got more and more complicated the further I dug into it.

Eventually I went back to school to try to understand this stuff better, and I did - to a point. But there was always another layer of abstraction that proved difficult to penetrate. But in the meantime, I got my EE degree and a job, and there was no more time for tinkering anymore.

[basinbeater]

Yeah, I don't regret my choices, but a career in engineering would have been fun. I just got a raise today, so that is good.

So, billy k, Mr. EE. Want to help me reverse engineer an unobtainium chip? I have an old Yamaha r2000 receiver that has a blown voltage amp chip an stk3156. These are now impossible to find, except for cheap ass chinese fakes. I tried one of those already and it let the magic smoke out after about 10 mins. I have a schematic for the chip. It should be doable to rebuild it as discrete on a proto board.
This project has been shelved for awhile as I got into the amp building.

sent from Utah.

[abraham]

After you get it on a proto board I could lay it out and give you files to buy it from osh park so it's a bit cleaner

[riser4]

Yeah, I don't regret my choices, but a career in engineering would have been fun. I just got a raise today, so that is good.

So, billy k, Mr. EE. Want to help me reverse engineer an unobtainium chip? I have an old Yamaha r2000 receiver that has a blown voltage amp chip an stk3156. These are now impossible to find, except for cheap ass chinese fakes. I tried one of those already and it let the magic smoke out after about 10 mins. I have a schematic for the chip. It should be doable to rebuild it as discrete on a proto board.
This project has been shelved for awhile as I got into the amp building.

sent from Utah.

How DO they fit all that magic smoke in such a small space???

[basinbeater]

Beats the hell out of me, but the shit sure don't work when it gets out.

sent from Utah.