Jump to content

loop_

Senior Member
  • Content Count

    407
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by loop_

  1. Yep..so long as you use a metal conductor at the other one. Provides enough power for about 10 hours or more I think, depending on what opamps you use. Some opamps cannot use 1 battery only too... enough photos la...
  2. Some photos: The supermini came in an padded envelope, with the biggest joke for a box from anything I've ever purchased! Good attempt by Xin to improve his packaging, but it's really just a folded piece of paper. Came crumpled too.. Compared with an EZlink card. Using a 'paperclip' mod here in place of another AAA battery to reduce background noise on certain opamp configurations. Xin's instructions. Nice engraving, and it comes with a blue LED Great thing about this amp is that it can be tweaked by swapping opamps. Many permutations here, and you can discern the changes in the way it sounds easily. First thing I asked myself when I heard it was...why did I build my twinkle??? The twinkle isn't a step down, but it's not a step up either. Just a different sound. But then again, at a price of $199usd compared to $75sgd for the twinkle, plus a three month wait, I expected it to sound great. For those unfamiliar with Xin amps: http://www.fixup.net/products/ http://www.fixup.net/talk/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1759
  3. loop_

    New toy

    how about this? Modded Olive Symphony/Musica. http://www.redwineaudio.com/Olive.html It has a transport for CD players, and a hard drive to store your encoded music. Best of both worlds in my opinion. 6moons did a review: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/roadtour5/roadtour5.html
  4. that's a very nice casing..did you secure the board with a glue gun? what are those black resistors? Holco? from farnell?
  5. Thanks for the encouragement! Hope to bring this amp for the next meet, if there's one, at the end of the year...Heady, I wonder how the twinkle sounds compared to your PPA... Top-Gun, the kit doesn't come with the casing. I bought the casing from here: http://shop.hifidiy.net/product/46.htm Comes with all parts, switches, knob, IEC socket, but not the RCA jacks
  6. which diode? for the LED one? thanks for the advice man. I will try it one day. I've worked and done troubleshooting for more than 1 week already...and school is starting! Bo lat liao.
  7. tried already leh..no use... The poly cap is meant to be some kind of gound loop breaker. I connected it to the casing from the rca. Supposed to help reduce the hum. I think it would be more effective if the PCB ground wasn't connected to the casing. For some reason, it helps though...or maybe it's just some placebo. But really, the hum is not something that bothers me...can't be heard 99% of the time.
  8. be lenient pls...don't scold and warn...
  9. Posting a review of this kit. The main purpose is to encourage those who are interested into going into audio diy but think that they don't possess the requisite skills. It's not that difficult really, if you start with the right kit. The main problem I faced was the lack of good safety practices i.e. I let electric current pass through me more than once.... I got introduced to audio DIY just under a year ago, when I bought a zen headphone amp from Digi, and got Huangyong to change the caps for me. Thanks to huangyong, I have lost a lot of money since.... =( Anyway, I was an arts student in JC, and only have sec 4 physics skills, which is nonsense. I still don't know what current, voltage and wattage means, but I can do a proper solder. Frankly, that, and some guts, is all you need, plus lots of ppl on MSN whom you can bug. haha INFO I bought the kit from erji.net from Mr. Dou. http://www.erji.net/read.php?tid=260272&fpage=1 Basically, this is s a 3 channel design (you can make it 2 only as well) which employs an OPAMP plus Diamond buffer, a little similar to the PPA. The kit comes with everything you'll need to set the boards up except for the opamps. It also comes with a manual, in chinese, on how to set this thing up. The manual is a great help (it's in .pdf on the forum link), but is in chinese. Reading a chinese storybook is one thing, reading a chinese technical manual is quite another! You'll still need to get your own casing, toroid, and other stuff for your case like switches and volume knob etc. Total cost for the kit including shipping (shared EMS with 2 others to Singapore) was about 75-80sgd. I bought my casing from www.hifidiy.net. Also bought a 50K alps pot, and a great multimeter (the UT52 for $23sgd only) The total cost for this purchase was high, because of the shipping ($40, not EMS). The casing is very heavy, but well built. All in all, the buying experience from Mr. Dou and hifidiy was very pleasant. Shipping was prompt and there was communication throughout. The only problem was that I paid hifidiy using western union, and the retailer was not familiar with it. However, he still bothered to take 2-3 trips to the post office and we finally figured it out. He also shipped me a 100k alps pot erroneously, but rectified it immediately by sending me a 50K pot. So I got a free 100K pot! SETUP Setting the twinkle up was very easy. I just took care to solder everything where it should be. In particular, Mr. Dou made an error in his design, and one cap was drawn in the opposite direction in the PCB. However, ample warning was given in the manual. After completing each channel, you just need to take 2 measurements. The first one is for the voltage, which requires adjusting to 12-18V, depending on your preference and opamp. There are also 3 jumpers which allow you to disconnect the power supply from the amp, for setup purposes. Mr. Dou also includes a protection board for each channel, which reduces the power supplied to only 0.1V if there are any problems detected. It will light up if there is a problem. However, I got an faulty one which lit up for no reason, had a real tough time yanking it out. Second one is for the output DC offset. Make sure it's below a certain value, and one channel is done! When they work, all LEDs light up. The main problem I faced was hum due to poor grounding. One reason could be that the pcbs have one mounting hole connected to the ground, and I screwed it in so tight i can't take it out now to try and isolate it. Anyway I played around and now the hum is only noticeable on my w1000 (not on my hd600 and hf-1), and only if I really pay attention to it. For example, if I plug my w1000 in and out and carefully listen for the difference, it's discernable. Otherwised, it's very quiet. Completely black quiet on my other 2 phones. At all times when I faced problems, I just asked Mr. Dou on MSN and other experienced diyers like squalle, huangyong, and a friend from China. Be shameless, just keep disturbing them. For example, I bugged huangyong to teach me how to diy an LED using a resistor and diode. Had to ask him what direction, what value, what is an anode and a cathode... SOUND My source is a 4g ipod modded by www.redwineaudio.com. I use a hf-1, W1000, and HD600 with equinox cable. I am using opa627s. I have been listening to this amp for about 2 weeks now. Its strengths lie in its separation, detail and bass control. However, its main weakness is that its highs can be a little weak and shrill at times. Tonally, its closer to clean and musical rather than warm and fat. Very good contrast with my zen, which has a much smoother sound, but has less details and poorer soundstaging. At this price point, you can't expect perfection. I have tried to tame the highs by changing my rca-mini cable to a copper one, and changing some of the caps to a WIMA cap and blackgates. Much happier now. *edit: After another 2 weeks of solid, daily listening, I'm really amazed by this amp. It is just so different from all the amps I own and have heard in that the soundstage is so big! Everything sounds so far away. This is not something everyone likes though..could be a little too distant for some To sidetrack a little, I bought my cables (internal and RCA-mini) from SimlimSquare, UPOCC copper, at $4.50 a metre. Braided them myself, copying homegrownaudio's 4 braid. Quite fun. The main thing, though, is that although I like my zen alot (it has a more serious noise issue though), I keep returning to the twinkle. Why? Because I built it all by myself. Every solder is made by me (except the protection board), and I wired and drilled everything. There is just so much satisfaction listening out of something you made yourself. I even find myself staring at the LED because I made it myself. Eye pain... All in all, if you're interested in starting something for kicks, the twinkle is easy to recommend. It is fairly easy to build, and provides great music for the price. Make sure you never touch anything with your bare hands when it's powered though... Hansel
  10. bump plenty left, except for the single DIP to dual DIP (5 left only)
  11. http://www.sgheadphones.net/index.php?show...t=0entry76346 Looks like Wilson has second-guessed us in this forum, again!
  12. heck, even if he was a 50 year old millionaire i'd still go over his rig...
  13. The UE10 pro probably ranks as number 1 when it comes to IEMs, and arguably even headphones. I once saw a post from some forum with photos from a UE10pro meet in China, where around 15 UE10pro owners met up just for kicks! If I could afford to own one i would...
  14. i think they are referring to DIP sockets, not adaptors. From a casual look, SLT sells many DIP sockets, but I haven't found gold plated ones. Anyone?
  15. loop_

    Hobbies

    nicely done! if you told me they were real cars and the photo was taken from a car show I would've believed you.
  16. for some reason, this amp really looks like a pig. What is its sound like? Fat bass and warm tones? Or rounded highs?
  17. Hi Leroy, Welcome! Well basically, if you are new to audiophile terms (actually you can read the definitions for months on end and still not get it sometimes, because this is a very subjective field and is filled with alot of verbal diarrhoea). So just go and listen. To give you a feel about where you might want to audition them, Jaben has a more congenial atmosphere - you're almost obligated to socialise with whoever's there - whereas Stereo Electronics is a less personal experience, but arguably, that allows you to just bother about listening. My 2 cents, get an ER4P/S! but it's out of your budget. If you really get into this though, you'll probably upgrade very soon anyway.
  18. try http://www.sennheiserasia.com/EnquiryForm.aspx?type=G just shoot them an email i emailed them about replacement earpads a couple of days ago, and they mentioned that I can go directly to their branch here in Singapore to buy one. You can ask them there is any such service, or viable alternative, in Sri Lanka.
  19. you can try maybe moving the transformer outside of the casing for awhile, as far as possible, and see if there is still any noise. if there is then shouldn't be the transformer?
  20. no more legs left. selling boards only
  21. One experience i had whilst burning cds is that when I continue to use the computer whilst burning cds, there is a higher chance of an error, probably either due to the CPU or memory usage. You can try maybe closing some of your processes and not multitask when burning the cds, if you haven't done so of course.
  22. boards have arrived. Have the following number for sale: 36 x SMD-DIP 11 x single DIP - dual DIP 15 x single SOIC - dual DIP Picture of the single to dual boards $4 per piece. PM if interested.
  23. loop_

    LHS

    if you know what cables you want, you can give LHS a call and I believe they can do it for you. You can collect during lunch hour i guess. I was down today buying some cables. It was 7.30.. Boss was still there, but everyone else had left
×
×
  • Create New...