Bottlehead crack speedball manual






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As an experiment, I tried some of the little Russian teflon's in mine for a while. In addition to anodising the chassis plate, other options are to polish the plate or paint it. I get where you upgraded the Solen 100 and 220 uF caps, but how did you wire the Auricap and Audiophiller bypass caps, and what benefit does this give?
Once again the instructions are exceptionally clear and well thought out. Reality Check Just like I did for the , I upgraded the tubes in the Crack to see how close I could get it to the Mainline. It was quite subtle to these ears.
It was good before — outstanding even, but it definitely seems even better to these ears now. I knew that this simple little amp had met my Hong Kong-made Little Dot MkIII and my artisanally crafted Japanese Almarro A205a Mk2 to second-tier status. I've read about following the ground, but didn't fully understand the the casing of the RCA jacks need to be grounded as well. As a piano player myself, I find it rare to con a system truly recreate the proper acoustic sound of a piano with all of its richness and subtlety. Both tube amps were significantly softer and lusher sounding. You basically receive a bunch of parts and wires, along with four pieces of wood, a bottlehead crack speedball manual chassis and a responsible of tubes. These are among the smaller of the 100uF Caps available. The same techniques are used, but there are many more connections, many more wires, some slightly tricky components, and various wiring options. 
Bottlehead Crack + Speedball OTL Amplifier - $299 + shipping - What I can tell you by way of a summary is that the S.
This first part of this review refers to the non-C4S modded version of the S. The same techniques are used, but there are many more connections, many more wires, some slightly tricky components, and various wiring options. This means you need to keep your wits about you and allow plenty of time. I built the S. It then took us from 11am until 2am to complete the hook-up and soldering stage including a long lunch and moderate length dinner. X kit, plus a few hours for assembly and an hour or so for testing assuming no issues arise. In addition to the aluminium chassis plate, the S. As per the and all Bottlehead kits as I understand it , instructions are provided on a CD so you can print it out or view the manual electronically. Personally, I recommend printing the manual so you can cross off each step as you go. Once again the instructions are exceptionally clear and well thought out. Also just like the Crack, the first step for the S. This is just a simple case of following the instructions and wielding a screw driver and pair of long nose pliers from time-to-time. At whichever stage you choose to install the chokes, etc. You can wire the S. If using the S. Once again similar to the Crack, the final step of assembly is attacking your chassis plate with a permanent marker to number each terminal for the upcoming hook-up stage. This numbering system is truly a godsend and helps both with wiring and trouble-shooting if needed. Custom Appearance When I built the Crack I was too excited to pause for any kind of custom painting or finish except for staining the wooden base so the S. I was fortunate that I had to wait while we found a date that worked for all 3 of us in the build group so I had idle time to play with the looks of my S. I really wanted a vintage, art deco look for my S. In addition to anodising the chassis plate, other options are to polish the plate or paint it. As already mentioned, the S. The only real tip I have for this section is plenty of patience. There are 4 rectifiers to install and not a lot of space so it can get mighty frustrating and a break and a few deep breaths may well come in handy. That said, now is probably a good time to include some general tips which apply to both the Crack and the S. This includes the tube sockets, power switch, diodes, and capacitors. One error here can completely ruin your day and may destroy the component in the case of capacitors. Not only that, but de-soldering is a real pain in the proverbial, especially in cramped spaces with lots of components. We found a few times that the lengths specified in the manual were a little too generous or a little tight. This might be because we were working with the metric measurements mm not inches and a few of these had minor errors or, more likely, we made errors with the routing of the cables and so the lengths seemed wrong because of the path we took. My approach next time will be to check the origin and destination of each wire and trace its path around obstacles and components to get a tidier and easier solution. All of the information and guidance is there, but it can be easy to miss a key detail so always read each instruction again before finalising your work. SET designs are simple i. For our purposes though driving headphones and sensitive speakers they appear to be a good choice and knowing the amount of testing and planning conducted by the crew at Bottelehead, the SET design has no doubt been chosen for its combination of performance and affordability with neither being compromised, just maximised. Compatibility By including an output transformer in the S. I tried my s and found the hum to be pretty bad amp wired for 8ohms so to me this is a headphone and speaker amp, not an IEM, headphone and speaker amp. In all cases, the S. Back to the 6DN7 tubes… There are some variants floating around where the base is much thinner. These are referred to as coin-base tubes and may look preferable depending on your tastes, but are no different in sound as far as I can tell. Sound So here we are at the part that really matters. Remember that the following comments are based on the S. One aside before I break down the sound: when I first went to test the S. I plugged in my as a source and my old, cheap AKG K-66s as a test headphone. I have literally never heard such an amazing transformation caused by an amplifier. What the K-66 experience showed me was that the S. My other headphones still sound clearly better, but where the gap from the is exponential between the K-66 and other headphones, the gap becomes much narrower with the S. Treble The treble from the S. Through the s which can be aggressive with the wrong treble signal , the S. Where the Crack seemed to offer a slight bump to the lower treble, the S. Across a variety of tracks and with all different headphones, the treble presentation is consistently excellent. Cymbals and percussion have really nice energy with the S. Mids The mids from the S. Turning to Sierra by Boz Scaggs, the S. The presentation is clean and clear with no sense of slowness or blur. One thing I really like about the mid-range from the S. Having used the T1s with the Crack for some time now, I thought I was hearing everything in my music, but the S. As a piano player myself, I find it rare to hear a system truly recreate the proper acoustic sound of a piano with all of its richness and subtlety. What I find amazing about the S. I personally like the S. On the plus side, the S. The bass hits and rumbles when it needs to, but it never blurs the edges of other frequencies. It was staging and imaging that I heard with the K-66s that told me I was in for a treat. With the T1s the soundstage from the S. What I mean by that is that the soundstage from the S. To the left and right of the centre there is equivalent depth to the centre and sides. Everything is perfectly placed with space around each sound, but without separating one instrument from the next. It does everything the Crack does well and a little bit more when it comes to staging and imaging. I used Good Excuse by John Butler Trio to check the S. While completing this review I got a bit tired of the same songs over and over so I switched to a different playlist. One of the tracks that followed was Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz. Listening on the S. Sound Summary To summarise the sound from the S. It just finds a really nice balance that has instantly placed it as my favourite amplifier of all time so far. I will also briefly compare the Crack with the GEC 6AS7G brown base, but want to start with the 2 kits in essentially their baseline states. Moving between amps, both using the same DAC, RCA cables and headphones , the difference is stark, but not in the way you might expect. Both are enviably good so my aim here is more to help you choose which you might prefer. The bass is more present, the mids are lush and creamy, and the treble is ever-so-slightly rolled off to a smooth, but detailed finish. Returning to the S. I find a cooler presentation, but not cold. Both amps are probably on the warm side of neutral, but the S. Bass is reduced on the S. My point in raising the RE earphones is to clarify that the S. Is it leaner than the Crack? Yes, without a doubt. Would I describe it as lean or analytical? No, not at all. Accurate, clean and quick, but not lean or analytical. For some that will be desirable. For others, it may be a detractor. I know many people who like one or the other so this is once again a question of taste. Imaging though is a little different. There is absolutely no doubt that the imaging from the S. Where the Crack has accurate imaging, the S. This might be in part due to the extra space available in the S. The reason this is so important is the difference in resolution and detail retrieved by each amp. The Crack is very good with detail and clarity, but the S. There are sounds I hear from the S. I think this is in part due to the extra treble extension from the S. Firstly because I wanted to confirm if I can match the S. I began by installing just the Cleartop 12AU7 in the Crack to see what the affordable little marvel could do… The sound was clearly better defined once the Cleartop was in the circuit, but was it as good? Next step was to pull out the big guns with the GEC 6AS7G and the results were actually very interesting. In my mind the S. Not taking into account the fact that the cost of materials is undoubtedly higher, the sound from the S. Since building the S. I love the subtleties in music. These subtleties help me to continue rediscovering my music collection and the S. The Crack is an incredibly enjoyable amplifier and is flat-out unbeatable for the price when driving high impedance cans , but the S. Of course, if you want to drive speakers and headphones or if your headphone collection consists of 300ohm cans. DAC Upgrade Update — 27th October 2013 A recent upgrade to my DAC has brought some very interesting changes. The new DAC is a based on the very detailed ES9018 Sabre DAC chip. The extra separation and clarity offered by this DAC compared to the previous has brought the Crack with Speedball very close to the S. For lower impedance cans, the S. I think the key to this change is the signature of the DACs. The X-Sabre is still musical, but a little closer to neutral than the NFB-5. The result is a cleaner sound from the Crack — still warm and rich, but not smoothed over at all. I chose this particular attenuator because the Dale resistors are known to be very transparent and are actually the same as those used in the Mainline kit. By all accounts, you can achieve similar results with other options — the key is transparency. Thankfully, the aluminium chassis plate is easy to work with using either a hand-file or a dremel. You can see in the image to the right that I lengthened and slightly enlarged the stock groove in the chassis plate. Once the hole is ready, mounting the new attenuator is as easy as the stock one. The next step is wiring and that can change depending on the model of attenuator you choose so please refer to the provided instructions for your attenuator of choice and the instructions from the S. If you get stuck, the wonderful people on the Bottlehead Forum can also usually help. Do be aware at this point though that you may find the stock volume knob sits a little higher than it used to. As an upgrade, I would say it is absolutely worth it. Including the time taken to modify the hole in the chassis I would say this is a 1-2 hour project and delivers a sound upgrade second only to the C4S mod. Capacitor Upgrades Next on my list was a double-barrelled capacitor upgrade. I approached the upgrade in 2 stages at the excellent advice of some fellow Bottlehead enthusiasts over on Head-Fi, JamieMcC and mcandmar. Both deserve kudos for their input and support over the course of multiple mod discussions around capacitors and the like. Hopefully that makes sense… I started off installing some FT-3 0. Early improvements I noticed were cleaner, clearer textures in the sound and better layering of instruments in the soundstage i. Stage 2 was the installation of output capacitors — the ones that connect the sound to your ears kind of. I decided that the Mainline should stay as neutral as possible while the S. I wanted musical, enjoyable sound that was still nimble, agile, liquid and accurate. The good news is that the mods were a resounding success. With the Mundorfs installed, the S. All of the sound was warmer and fuller, but not at all heavy or thick. Music is still well-paced and lively, but with a little more note weight not quite as good as the in this regard, but closer and more present mids. The staging from the S. What I can tell you by way of a summary is that the S. I imagine you could get similar improvements with different cap combinations too and encourage you to give it a go. Changing these 2 caps on the S.