Portable HiFi anyone?

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Shimo
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Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by Shimo »

So I've only just started getting into audiophilia, and I wanted to show off some of my portable gear.

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My headphones are the Sennheiser HD 202 and the ipod is the classic 6g 120gig running rockbox and playing lossless flac files. So what do you guys think?
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Re: Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by bad_brain »

a portable headphone amp? that's pretty awesome... :-k
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Shimo
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Re: Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by Shimo »

bad_brain wrote:a portable headphone amp? that's pretty awesome... :-k
Works well too, my music has never been clearer. The ipod does a terrible job of boosting volume, so anything above a whisper starts to get distorted. This amp lets me boost up the volume without the loss in fidelity.
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Re: Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by bad_brain »

yeah, the smaller the parts the more the quality usually sucks, especially in context with amplifiers. never seen the amplifier board of an ipod, but it surely has max. the size of a thumbnail...so all the signals run through tiny conductor paths which are, to make it even worse, very close to each other so the more output the more the signals interfere with each other.

now compare that with the size of a high end headphone amp like the Orpheus from Sennheiser:
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=P~
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Shimo
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Re: Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by Shimo »

Now that one looks like fun, I somehow think it takes a 110 outlet though. So, does a hifi veteran like you have any tips for a newbie like me?
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Re: Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by bad_brain »

um, yeah, it also has electrostatic headphones, not dynamic ones....which means while listening you have 400 Volts circling around your ears. :lol:

well, tips....the key to good sound is the material, starting with the electronic components. often needed are electrolytic capacitors, don't take the simple ones used in any washing machine or microwave too, look for silver foil ones....they are of course more expensive, but if you don't need too high capacities it's affordable.
next step is the wiring, better than conductor paths are real wires, best also with a high silver percentage (sounds more expensive than it actually is). to make it perfect use soldering tin with a high silver percentage too...the downside of it is that you need pretty high temperatures for it, so you need to be cautious with the components.
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Re: Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by floodhound2 »

Wow Shimo

Is that a PCB you made? If so I can see that the ground plane was omitted./? Might I suggest adding a ground plane to the "voids" on the copper layer/s. This will not only improve signal quality but a whole arena of non trivial issues can be rectified. Just a design pointer :D

I think its cool man and hope to see you make some cool shit. If you want help or if I need help lets chew the fat.

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Re: Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by floodhound2 »

Looking further in to the photographs I can see that the two 9Vs would suggest that the amp is in a "pushpull" configuration. I wonder? #-o

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push%E2%80%93pull_output

Also are those to-220 package transistors?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TO-220
or are they to-92 its hard to make out in that picture?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TO-92
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Re: Portable HiFi anyone?

Post by Shimo »

Ah those are actually jumpers. Also here you go.

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Edit. I also swapped out that blindingly bright blue led for a much dimmer red one and dropped it right to the pcb. I was thinking of drilling another hole in the box and running the led to it but decided against it, I also threw in a better toggle switch and routed it to the back.
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