Questions for Olli1324

[idc]

Hi,

I linked into your website to have a nosy and was surprised, unless I have been daft to find no picture of your amp. Have you got any images?

I see the power output is very high for a headphone amp. Why did you chose to go down that route?

You also mention a bespoke volume pot. IMO the volume control on amps is highly under rated in the quality of the sound. I had a X-CANS which went from too quiet to too loud in a turn from 7 to 9 o'clock. It was modded for me and that included an alps pot (good AFAIK) and the volume control was much better. I also have an X-CANV8P which at 1.3w into 32 ohms is supposed to be pretty powerful. It can drive all of my collection of headphones from 5 to 10,000 ohms with the volume ranging from 7 to 2 o'clock. Fine tuning the volume is also easy because of the range.

 

[Olli1324]

Erm, no, unfortunately, there are no photos at the moment! Only fairly shoddy placeholder logos/pics (made by me!). We are just entering the prototyping stage and are getting all the case work manufactured now. I should have photos in a couple of weeks, dependant on lead times from the manufacturers.

3W is indeed very powerful; but not so powerful as to begin to add in noice and distortion. It is worth noting, that the actual power output may be a touch less if needs be, and that will be refined during prototyping. Ultimately, I am going for utmost power and absolute sonic accuracy.

The volume control is the Alps Blue Velvet - a very nice premium pot which you don't find in a number of more expensive, What HiFi award winning amps. You are right in saying that it is a very important part for sound quality. It's quality it matched by the premium component choices made elsewhere in the amp (again, stuff you will not find anywhere else anywhere near this price catagory: 0.1% resistors, polypropylene caps, really nice low ESR caps in the power supply...)

What affects the 'usefulness' of the volume control range more is the gain. This will be refined to give as much control as possible (so as not to give the problem of the X-CANS which you described in your post).

I will actually upload the mechanical drawing pdf of the front panel which has a 3D displayer so people can see the front panel design. Unfortunately, it doesn't show the beautiful finish of the Walnut coated with Danish oil. I don't know why I didnt think of doing so before. I will also add dimensions, which have been now been finalised (189mm deep exclusing volume knob, 155mm wide and 50mm tall). The enclosure itself is a simple matt black steel affair.

Edit: I have updated the website to include the PDF. Scroll down to the rendering and click on the rendering to activate the 3D control wizadry. The recess in the middle will hold a nice shiny brass nameplate with 'Epiphany Acoustics' etched and filled in black ink.

 

[idc]

Thanks for the reply. I tried clicking on the link, but I get an error 404, the sever cannot find the URL.

I had a go at making a C-moy, but failed to much sound out of it and then trying to sort the problem burnt through the volume pot. I should gtry again, but doubt I have the skills.

There have been some great build threads on the forum, most recently Lonely Boy and his headphone amp. I admire you for doing somethign I would love to do.

I did successfully make my own cables!

 

[Olli1324]

Sorry about that - I fixed them last night and just checked again so they should be working. (I had a problem where I needed to refresh the page after I had updated the website, because my browser had taken me to the cached page with the broken link).

I should be getting a quote for the case work next week which I am looking forward to because it means I can finalise that RRP. Also, the soner they start manufacturing them, the sooner I can get some pics up on the website!

Of course you should have another crack at a cmoy! It was the first thing I built and was a great feeling when the thing finally worked! Since then I had built a number of other amps (my display pic is an AMB B22 I built for someone else - I quickly built myself one after that!).

I currently have a DIY project going on at the moment over in the accessories forum - I am converting my DIY ProAc clones into fully active monsters. The *huge* transformers for the amps arrived yesterday... They are a sight to behold! The project is waiting for me to get home on the 10th next month when I will build the pre amp and power amps and start playing with the crossover. I also managed to convince myself to buy 100m of shielded cable for interconnects. That will give rise to a lot of cable building

 

[idc]

Link works now.

 

[Olli1324]

Thanks for checking, idc.