Audiophiles - This is what your Mega Dollar Cables Connect to inside your amps

[cosmicray]

Oh crap - the shipping costs would be a little on the high side though.

Promote it as a "white gloves" service, where you show up on site and do the upgrade there. 

[macboy]

Ha - I just thought of a new business opportunity. Just advertise to audiophools to install Mega De-oxygenated wire (or whatever catch-word turns them on) on the inside of the amp from the terminals to the circuitry. Just show them pics like I took, where their Mega cables transfer to little cheap wires, and they'll freak out. 


Oh crap - the shipping costs would be a little on the high side though.

Can't see them caring about the shipping cost when they're paying thousands for their space-heating amplifiers.

This, sadly, is not a new idea. People do such upgrades, installing boutique RCA jacks wired to the PCB with teflon insulated solid silver wire, and custom oxygen-free cryogenically treated power cords. Sheeple will spend more on these upgrades than they do on the gear in the first place.

[dannyf]

Can't see them caring about the shipping cost when they're paying thousands for their space-heating amplifiers.

A friend of ours is in the business of helping mid-aged women pregnant - those tend to be empty nesters from (extremely) well-off families. The doctors compete on good service, results, and surprisingly, VERY high fees. You want to be known as the most expensive clinic in town, not the other way around.

Same here.

[xwarp]

A friend of mine who brings me "vintage" receivers to service brought me one of those subs.

I normally don't work on anything I can't find a schematic for, but did check a few of the caps on the boards and foud more than half a dozen with extremely high esr.

Gave it back to him and told him to send that POS to some company in Phoenix, AZ that reworks them. It wasn't worth my time with the problems it had.

[xrunner]

A friend of mine who brings me "vintage" receivers to service brought me one of those subs.

I normally don't work on anything I can't find a schematic for, but did check a few of the caps on the boards and foud more than half a dozen with extremely high esr.

Well this one is fixed. 

The El Cheapo ground loop isolator from Ebay did the trick. I'm calling brother tomorrow and he can come get it.

Thanks for all the responses. 

[LektroiD]

Just because something is expensive, it doesn't make it good. There's loads of new overpriced brands popping up which are simply white van junk.

As for audio cables, I run a recording studio with 96 analogue channels at mixdown. Cables often get stood on, pulled, or run over by the castor wheels of a swivel chair. They also run alongside mains and data cables so shielding is a must. It's a no brainer to buy industry standard double shielded Van Damme cable and Neutrik jacks for a solid connection, avoid crosstalk and be durable enough to withstand heavy studio usage. I certainly wouldn't dream of hooking up the audio element of my studio with bell wire!

That said, there are some companies (like the manufacturer of the dodgy subwoofer in the OP) who thrive on selling cheap junk at high prices to gullible folk. Overpriced power cables is a common one.

[timofonic]

Are there some good schematics to make cheap & DIY true audiophile hardware without snake oil nor magic? I wonder, because I'm newbie and want to practice building my home equipment, and try to get some money for spending it in student stuff (test equipment, private tutor, public transport, English academy and saving for ERASMUS or working overseas).

[wiss]

http://www.douglas-self.com/
and
http://www.cordellaudio.com/

[LektroiD]

Are there some good schematics to make cheap & DIY true audiophile hardware without snake oil nor magic? I wonder, because I'm newbie and want to practice building my home equipment, and try to get some money for spending it in student stuff (test equipment, private tutor, public transport, English academy and saving for ERASMUS or working overseas).

Not always cheap, as many good audio designs will use expensive hi precision rail to rail opamps, etc. although you can usually drop in cheaper TL07x opamps. Since I build for audio I always use metal film resistors too. Polystyrene film and silver mica capacitors can soon make a project expensive too.

For studio gear, there's a load of Neve schematics here. They make some of the best designed stuff in the industry.
 
but if you're after straight audio separates, amplifiers, etc. just google for schematics and manufacturer of your choice. Some older service manuals even have the PCB trace screens so you can etch your own single sided boards.

[dannyf]

cheaper TL07x opamps.

If you peek inside a studio mixers, etc., you will find lots of lm324 in them, and maybe a few TL0xx chips on the high end units.

Think about how little your "precious" audio-grade opamps can do to sound that has gone through those LM324s,

[Kevman]

Are there some good schematics to make cheap & DIY true audiophile hardware without snake oil nor magic? I wonder, because I'm newbie and want to practice building my home equipment, and try to get some money for spending it in student stuff (test equipment, private tutor, public transport, English academy and saving for ERASMUS or working overseas).

http://sound.westhost.com/

Some of his information is slightly... Redacted, though- reserved for those who buy his PCBs.

[Yansi]

cheaper TL07x opamps.

If you peek inside a studio mixers, etc., you will find lots of lm324 in them, and maybe a few TL0xx chips on the high end units.

Think about how little your "precious" audio-grade opamps can do to sound that has gone through those LM324s,

What professional mixing consoles do use LM324 in their signal path? Give direct examples.

Even Uli Behringer does not use this shit in his cheap consoles.  The only thing where 324s were seen to be present, was the lo-freq part of 31 band GEQ from the same company. There is the right spot to use these.

[Zero999]

cheaper TL07x opamps.

If you peek inside a studio mixers, etc., you will find lots of lm324 in them, and maybe a few TL0xx chips on the high end units.

Think about how little your "precious" audio-grade opamps can do to sound that has gone through those LM324s,

What professional mixing consoles do use LM324 in their signal path? Give direct examples.

Even Uli Behringer does not use this shit in his cheap consoles.  The only thing where 324s were seen to be present, was the lo-freq part of 31 band GEQ from the same company. There is the right spot to use these.

I doubted that too. The LM324 really doesn't have enough bandwidth for audio use.

[Yansi]

Bandwidth is not the only issue, also the slew rate matters. Considering proffesional audio equipment using relatively high signal levels, faster opamps are needed to keep signal distortion low.  Especially the 324 is quite slow.

Cheap mixing consoles (like that ones from Behringer) use NJM4560 and 4580. "Standard" level proffesional mixing consoles like Allen & Heath use mostly TL072 and NE5532 on the more critical places. Maybe some really crap quality consoles might use st. like JRC4558, but never seen them in any mixing console. Even the chinese crap like Omnitronic use NE5532. (but if they are original parts one can only guess)

Your doubt was right, only dannyf again pushing his number of posts, in every thread he can.

[Zero999]

Yes, due to the poor slew rate, the LM324 only has a full power bandwidth of 5kHz.
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm124-n.pdf

[Yansi]

Heh, have you noticed the layout on page 23? 

[TimFox]

Are there some good schematics to make cheap & DIY true audiophile hardware without snake oil nor magic? I wonder, because I'm newbie and want to practice building my home equipment, and try to get some money for spending it in student stuff (test equipment, private tutor, public transport, English academy and saving for ERASMUS or working overseas).

Try this book (apparently a new edition is almost out):

High-Power Audio Amplifier Construction Manual Paperback – May 1 1999
by G. Randy Slone (Author)

ISBN: 0071341196

The author has strong opinions in favor of bipolar transistors, but he discusses real technical details of the difference between bipolars and mosfets.   He also includes practical full schematics for each type of device.   He is too dismissive of vacuum tubes, in my opinion, but he is reacting against some of the recent extreme tube opinions, especially single-ended triodes.

[dannyf]

but he discusses real technical details of the difference between bipolars and mosfets.

The mosfets he was talking about in that book are not your run-off-the-mill mosfets you often see today.

[Yansi]

Maybe this one will also help: Bob Cordell, Designing Audio Power Amplifiers

//sorry if some have already mentioned it

[suicidaleggroll]

Are there some good schematics to make cheap & DIY true audiophile hardware without snake oil nor magic? I wonder, because I'm newbie and want to practice building my home equipment, and try to get some money for spending it in student stuff (test equipment, private tutor, public transport, English academy and saving for ERASMUS or working overseas).

Check out www.amb.org

Full schematics, board layout, BOM, with the blank PCBs and some of the hard-to-find or matched components available from his store to simplify the build process.

Most of the designs are for headphones, but there are some bigger amps for real speakers (the parts are not cheap though).

[Gringo]

Does Marc Vincent have a new name now?