Crack in SW Missouri

[porcupunctis]

Finally finished stage one of my "npr" special Crack.  At this stage it is pretty much stock.  The chassis has been anodized and the transformer bell has been blued so it will match my Foreplay even though they will not be in the same room.  The only other change is the RCA 6AS7 tube which I will be auditioning tonight.  The 6080 sounded awesome and will be hard to beat.

If I ever get another free weekend I will install the speedball and the Solen Polys for the output. 

Most of all, it sounds fantastic just plain stock.  Even with the electrolytics in the output it is still a joy to listen to.  I don't normally do a lot of headphone listening but I may become a convert.

[porcupunctis]

Here is the belly of the beast.

[magnafuzz]

Nicely done, I dig the green!

[Laudanum]

Stock sounds great in it's own right, doesnt it?   Mine was initially built stock with the exception of a couple of Mills resistors and an Alps pot.   Really dont need any mods to have a great sounding headphone amp for Hi-Z cans.  Even stock it's got to be near impossible to beat for the price.  Speedball is an upgrade and so are film caps (not as dramatic), but I could have lived exceedingly happily with the stock version. And those electrolytic output caps sound surpisingly good.  I like the green, simple but different and kinda cool looking. 

[porcupunctis]

You're right, if I hadn't gotten the "Crack with Speedball special" I would probably put off the speedball until I got some of my other projects caught up.  That could be forever.  I was listening to it last night with my iPhone as a source.  It even made the iPhone sound pretty good.  I can't wait to try it with better sources. 

[jrihs]

Are those the "arrow tip" spikes from the sports dept. at wallmart? I've heard others suggest that on this forum somewhere. I thought that was a great idea.

PS...Looks great!

[porcupunctis]

Yep, those are arrow tips.  I shamelessly stole the idea from the Wardsweb.org site.  I have them on my Foreplay III, my Paramours, my Crack and on my soon to be built seduction.  You can't beat the price.

I like them because they do the job, yet their presence is not overstated.

[porcupunctis]

Finally finished (for now).  The speedball is in and I managed to wedge in a Khozmo stepped attenuator.  Be prepared to to dremel away part of the base if you want to put one of these in.  The khozmo has size, feel, and heft like you can't imagine.  It's about the most excessive overkill I've ever built into any project I've done.  I love it.  So far, it has sound to match.

[porcupunctis]

Here is a close-up of the Khozmo.

[porcupunctis]

And just to compare the old with the new:

[Grainger49]

Randall,

That is amazing.  I wouldn't have thought that it would fit.

I particularly like the Vlecro around the Solen Caps.

[porcupunctis]

Yeah, my first thought when that thing finally showed up in the mail was "No freaking way is that going to fit into the Crack or anything else I could use it in".  I decided to give it a try and only had to dremel out a little bit of the wooden base.  I used cloth friction tape to hold down the leads and to insulate it from the c4s board that had to be unscrewed from its post.

The velcro is working for now but I will probably have to try something different in the future.  I found some plastic "thingies" at Radio Shack.  They look like hair barrettes with sticky tape on the bottom.  That is what I'm using to hold the velcro for now but I can't imagine that they will hold in the long run.

I built the Crack mostly because I like building things and couldn't pass up the NPR deal.  Now that I'm listening to it I'm enjoying it way more than I anticipated.  Compared to my listening room it's not a case of better/worse its more a case of "different".  I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what the difference is.  They are just different ways to really enjoy listening to music. 

Nothing wrong with that.

[Noskipallwd]

Wow Randall, you really had to shoehorn that in there. You should be happy with the Khozmo, I have one in my Bijou, having 48 steps is great on a HP amp. Thought about putting one in the Crack but did not think it would fit! Enjoy.

Cheers,
Shawn P.

[porcupunctis]

I'm really very happy with the Khozmo.  When I opened the box that it came in, I figured there was no way this was going to work.  I actually spent several days wondering what I was going to do with it.

Finally, I did some more careful measurements and found I could wedge it in with a little grinding out of the base.  I goes right up to the edge of the chassis on the left side.  The good news is that it doesn't extend beyond the chassis.  If it did, the changes might be noticeable from the top.  As it is, it looks perfect with the chassis on.

It can be done if you want to do it.  Take your time.