soon to be all bottlehead

by thirdstoogebass on Opinions Please
pic of the system in its current state
coolest dog ever! (mine)

Description

A DIY system on a tight budget. I love to do things by myself and by hand, and being a grad student doesn't let me work on my hotrod much (especially since its 400 miles away). A close second is hotrodding stereos, which is a hobby that I was infected with not too long ago.

Seduction phono pre completed with the exception of the Lundahl step-up transformers (1:5) to make the low-output Grado on the Scout a little more user-friendly.

The Straight 8 speakers are in, and the cabs will be completed soon.

I plan to have a buddy of mine pinstripe the 8's and the Seduction to give my system a little personality.
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Components Toggle details

    • VPI Industries Scout
    Quite a step up from the sony I had before.
    • VPI Industries JMW
    "precision equipment" just as was stated in the stated in the instruction manual
    • Grado Reference
    Made low output especially for the JMW tonearm.
    • Bottlehead Seduction
    A fantastic pre for the money, and the folks at bottlehead are a blast to deal with. If they don't know something--then it can probably be found by those people on the forum. Makes me glad that I put the effort into constructing it.
    • Pioneer DV-563A-S
    Described in reviews as not having much bass--I don't have this problem in my setup. This thing will play anything that is circlualr shaped and has a hole in the middle.
    • DIY solid silver interconnect
    18ga pure silver shielded interconnect. Canare RCA ends. Leave feedback if you know of better RCA's or if different size wire works better for different components
    • DIY Cat 5 speaker cable
    sound a million times better than the monsters that were on there. Will be compared to Kimber 8tc shortly.
    • VPI HW 16.5
    I've got a lot of records, so this cleaner was a no-brainer, especially with the VPI table. Does a wonderful job of taking a lot of pops out of recordings
    • M-Audio USB
    great for playing mp3's and digitizing records
    • bottlehead foreplay III
    an excellent tube preamp, that compliments the tube sound of my system well.
    • bottlehead straight 8
    augmented with version 3 crossover. excellent speakers with lots of audible range
    • ART di/o
    used so far as the dac for my cd player, soon to be replaced with the channel islands dac and supplimental power supply. the di/o will be moved to the m-audio
    • atari power supply
    higher current power supply for the art di/o as well as the m-audio audiophile usb. worked well, especially for the price of 8 bucks a shot
    • Channel Island vda-1
    chanel island dac, and external power supply
    • Channel Island vmb-1
    channel island monoblocks....super sweet...at least until i get my paramounts in
    • diy venhaus flavor 4
    home-made venhaus flavor 4 power cords on pretty much everything.

Comments 9

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Owner
hmmm...the website isn't what most people consider porno.
i would consider it art, and very tastefully done. Doc and Queen are stellar people who will do just about anything for you if you call and ask. oh, and the bottlehead stuff speaks for itself pretty well, too.
so keep both of your hands on the keyboard and check out what people say about their products, visit the forum and see what kind of community help you can get, and meet all of the nice people that have gotten past the possibly risque pictures of a nude model (god forbid!) to become a perfectly quirky audio family.

thirdstoogebass

I dig the way-hip hi-fi pooch...

Nice system too...

perfectionist

I dig the bottle head stuff but did you notice there website is basicly a porn site ?
Have you ever checked out welborne labs They have nice stuff too but without the porn.

Mark

mark02131

Owner
System edited: added some new amps, a new dac, and some new pictures

thirdstoogebass

Owner
System edited: added and deleted some of the components of my system. soon to be added are a pair of bottlehead paramount 300b monoblocks. (i'm not sure whether or not to go 300b or 2a3, opinions on this would be most appreciated)

thirdstoogebass

Yes, I'd like and appreciate. [email protected]

robm321

Owner
I did a comparison between what I made and some pbj's. For my ears, the silver surpassed the pbj's in fullness and bass (equal or a little less in clarity). I figure I could put the ic's together for about a dollar an inch for the pair (3ft=$36). I could use a good reference for the rca ends, as I am using regular parts express cardas ends, which have thier good and bad benefits.

I can spill the beans for my process of making the cables if you'd like.

thirdstoogebass

way to go with the budget diy. I admire that more than someone dropping big bucks. Anyone with money can do that, but not everyone can put together a decent system for little money.

The solid silver IC's might work, but in my system (I made a pair a while back) it made everything thin and bright. I have a name brand now that is copper and believe that it works much better than the silver. You might try making one of those and compare to your silver ICs.

robm321

Owner
new pics of the system, and new components at:

www.flickr.com/photos/windpoweredwagon

thirdstoogebass

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