Built a music server

Swats said:
Lastly Tin, what is the thing with the vacuum tubes?
Click to expand...

Thats the power amplifier I built this time last year. Its a 3WPC single-ended triode (SET). Its not much power, but efficient speakers (above 93dB 1W/m) will get pretty damn loud with it. Triodes have a very lifelike sound, and are the simplest audio amplification devices. Theres nothing more than one signal capacitor and one resistor in the signal path between the RCA inputs and the speaker outputs. THD is about 4%, but nearly all of that THD is 2nd order harmonics, which is pleasing to the ear. It produces a very sweet and holographic sound.
 
Swats said:
Can someone recommend me a pair of head phones? I will be using them with my Ipod. I would like them to be relatively small. No ear buds. Noise canceling would be nice, as I travel. I will be mainly using them at work. Lastly try to keep it under $50 because of me traveling and using them at work. Lastly Tin, what is the thing with the vacuum tubes?
Click to expand...

My smaller set of cans for school were Senn PX200. I liked how compact they folded up.
 
Tin said:
I can offer you some guidance...no problem. Vintage hifi is good, but most of it needs restoration work, as capacitors and resistor values drift with age. Regardless of what you may hear people say about "vintage sound", theres no such thing. A 40 year old Marantz receiver shouldnt have a warm sound, it should open and airy, characteristic of how it sounded new. When components drift out of spec, this introduces distortion or limits the bandwidth it would otherwise be capable of with new components. I can give you a hand, but older stuff will most definitely need some work. This goes for speakers as well...the passive components in them drift out of spec with age, too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply! I'm going to try and start piecing a system together shortly. Any recommendations on sites I should start perusing from a research stand point? While a budget isn't the main driver, I don't want to drop a couple grand regardless how great it sounds. I'm just not at that audiophile level yet. I'd have to think I can put a decent set-up together with a decent budget, but please tell me if I'm wrong. :lol:

I'm looking for a nice turn table, amp, and a nice set of speakers. The system I'm hoping to put together is almost solely going to be used for listening to vinyl.
 
Have a look at www.audiokarma.org, theres more knowledge there than you can shake a stick at. Thats where I learned most of what I know. Youd be surprised at what you can do on a small budget, quite a few guys there pick up quite a bit of gear off of craigslist, garage sales, thrift stores, estate sales, etc. If you want to learn about tubes, one of the best things you can do is grab an old Magnavox, Zenith, Stromberg Carlsson, or Motorola stereo console...pull the amp section, and convert it to standalone use. You can convert an old console amp for less than $50 in most cases. This includes adding speaker binding posts, a standard power cord, replacing worn out components, and a nice wooden base. Tubes used in hifi last a very long time, as theyre not overdriven like tubes in guitar amps. If you look hard enough, you can find people literally giving away the old consoles. Most older tube gear is easy to work on, as its all point to point wiring...kind of like playing connect the dots. Schematics are readily available for nearly every one of them too. I see old tube consoles quite regularly for less than $100. As an added bonus, quite a bit of the Soviet military tubes can be found quite cheap, and they sound excellent to boot. Every American and British tube has a Soviet counterpart. Up until the Cold War, the Soviets used the same names for their tubes as the Americans and Brits. Once they Cold War set in, Nikita Kruschev forced all Soviet tube manufacturers to use Cyrillic names on their tubes as a gesture of patriotism.
 
Last edited:
Very Cool work as usual!

Tin said:
If you want something American made, check out Grado headphones...theyre one of the best out there, and the price isnt too shabby either. Grados are one of the finest rock headphones around...hand made right in New York. The whole SR series and Reference series is made here in America...only one model they make is built overseas.
Click to expand...

x2 and i only have to low end sr80i's
 
http://detroit.craigslist.org/wyn/ele/2182044520.html

Somebody please run and grab this piece of classic American hifi :D. Id love it, but just dont have the space. It will need work, but once restored itll be easily worth 3x as much. Probably just needs a simple recap and maybe some new tubes. $250 could have you putting all the hifi shops on Woodward to shame ;).
 
Tin said:
Have a look at www.audiokarma.org, theres more knowledge there than you can shake a stick at. Thats where I learned most of what I know. Youd be surprised at what you can do on a small budget, quite a few guys there pick up quite a bit of gear off of craigslist, garage sales, thrift stores, estate sales, etc. If you want to learn about tubes, one of the best things you can do is grab an old Magnavox, Zenith, Stromberg Carlsson, or Motorola stereo console...pull the amp section, and convert it to standalone use. You can convert an old console amp for less than $50 in most cases. This includes adding speaker binding posts, a standard power cord, replacing worn out components, and a nice wooden base. Tubes used in hifi last a very long time, as theyre not overdriven like tubes in guitar amps. If you look hard enough, you can find people literally giving away the old consoles. Most older tube gear is easy to work on, as its all point to point wiring...kind of like playing connect the dots. Schematics are readily available for nearly every one of them too. I see old tube consoles quite regularly for less than $100. As an added bonus, quite a bit of the Soviet military tubes can be found quite cheap, and they sound excellent to boot. Every American and British tube has a Soviet counterpart. Up until the Cold War, the Soviets used the same names for their tubes as the Americans and Brits. Once they Cold War set in, Nikita Kruschev forced all Soviet tube manufacturers to use Cyrillic names on their tubes as a gesture of patriotism.
Click to expand...

Awesome! Thanks a ton for all the info. I also just emailed the individual regarding the Craigslist posting you linked over. Hopefully I can get some traction on this audio project. :-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top