It's great that with some research and drive one can make something better and cheaper than the engineered factory version.
Time well invested.
Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
111–120 of 270 posts
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#112The majority of all active speakers produced nowadays are Class-D, it's nothing really new (and the fact they are super cheap). No idea how this guy wrote this article and didn't come across DIY Audio (or he just didn't mention it in the article). There is a tonne of information here: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/class-d/
I have some questions. My son has been taking guitar lessons using a classic guitar. Using the advice of his instructor we are getting him a begginer's electric guitar for christmas. We also need to get him an amp. Is the amp in this article the same kind of amp that you could plug an electric guitar into? I know nothing about music or instruments, but I do know about electronics so I was thinking it might be fun to…
Your practical options are:
* Get a standard amp/cab combo.
* DIY something, I'm sure there are guides and such you can follow, but this is only practical in so far as it's a fun project.
* Use your computer. You can get inexpensive cables that plug into your computer USB and there's a variety of software to emulate amps.
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#113Any recommendations for people that are tempted to build this but should really put their time elsewhere?
People discard old electronics, some of them of very good quality. Short of that, you can find this stuff on craigslist. The used value of some nice gear is very modest. I'm running one set of my chromecast audio linked speakers on a vintage Pioneer receiver with those funky proprietary speaker jacks I found on the "take it or leave it" table at the dump. I also found a McIntosh with a funky combination of a tube tuner and transistor amp literally on the scrap metal pile. But it needs new power caps.
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a huge gap in quality between most onboard DACs and externals. It’s not necessarily because the onboard is worse at C-ing the Ds to the As, but because they’re not isolated from the noisy electronics that share the power supply. My laptop emits different squeals when I scroll a window, for example.
That's just shitty grounding. Try putting one of those 3-to-2 prong adapters on your charging cable and you'll see right away.
Nope, occurs even just on battery.
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, guitar amps are a totally different beast with many different components.
Amen. Ask a guitarist. Kid needs a real guitar amp. And a couple of decent FX pedals.
Well... I dunno about that. Digital has gotten really really good. I bought a Helix about a year ago and sold my tube amps a few months ago... not that they were BAD, but I could get all the sounds (and way more) out of the Helix.
But obviously a new player isn't going to want to drop $1500 on a rig like that.
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#116The majority of all active speakers produced nowadays are Class-D, it's nothing really new (and the fact they are super cheap). No idea how this guy wrote this article and didn't come across DIY Audio (or he just didn't mention it in the article). There is a tonne of information here: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/class-d/
I have some questions. My son has been taking guitar lessons using a classic guitar. Using the advice of his instructor we are getting him a begginer's electric guitar for christmas. We also need to get him an amp. Is the amp in this article the same kind of amp that you could plug an electric guitar into? I know nothing about music or instruments, but I do know about electronics so I was thinking it might be fun to…
An amplifier like in this article does just one of the many things a normal combo guitar amp does.
1. Preamp with hi-Z input from guitar to line level
2. Ability to drive into distortion
3. EQ of some sort
4. (Sometimes) reverb
5. Amplify line to speaker level (this article)
6. Midrangey speaker+cabinet that sounds nothing like a normal flat speaker cabinet used for HiFi/PA/keyboard/etc.
However, as others have said, you can use a guitar modeler which performs steps 1-4 outright and simulates step 6 leaving only a need for step 5 and a "normal" speaker.
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your generalisation is unfair. Most Audiophiles just want to listen to music the way the artists intended. This is not easy in a industry where colouring the sound is even celebrated, e.g. 'Beats by Dre'. I recently tried the latest noise cancelling headphones by Sony (1000XM3). The noise cancelling was excellent, but the bass was +5db overblown, boomy and drowned out most of the mids, the treble was dark to hide the…
> Your generalisation is unfair. Most Audiophiles just want to listen to music the way the artists intended. That is not my experience at all. Audio gear that is 'flat', in that it outputs as close a representation to the recording as possible is largely shunned in audiophile circles. They mostly want to listen to something that 'sounds good', with all the psychoacoustic baggage that comes with such a statement. As a…
>audiophile circles
>They mostly want to listen to something that 'sounds good', with all the psychoacoustic baggage that comes with such a statement
TL;DR the technology is so good and so cheap now that what you get from a $150 set-up today rivals stuff costing much more from a decade ago. I still recommend spending 90+% of your budget over a few hundred dollars on better actual reproduction equipment, be it speakers or headphones.
Not in my audiophile circle (which is mostly head-fi). There are all different price points, and different goals within those. Most reviews I've read in the past decade talk about if the headphones / IEMs are more targeting accuracy or a "fun" sound, but most of the reviews I've ever read on head-fi are very concerned with accuracy and true-to-recording representation. FWIW I'm very much not alone in my interest in things like super low distortion class D, solid-state headphone amps with digital volume control (so you don't introduce a potentiometer / stepped attenuator / LDR into the signal path), ear measuring mics (e.g. https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/ears-h... ), digital parametric EQs to adjust for not-perfect frequency response, room correction, etc.
The technology in modern decent (decent = what most people would call "high-end", but I'm talking few-hundred-dollar Class D for amps and something along the lines of a properly-engineered ESS 9018-based DAC, maybe $100-200, OR a ~$200-300 headphone DAC+AMP combo, think Oppo HA2-SE level) equipment is so good IMO that headphones / speakers / IEMs make a MUCH MUCH bigger difference than jumping to equipment 10x the cost at the DAC or amp level does. $200 headphones are not bad, but $1000 headphones are damn amazing comparatively. I've owned a dozen pairs of IEMs, and while my gaming 'phones are Shure SE215s, they're not in the same league as my Westone ES60s. Even with that said, most people who have never owned any serious music gear would likely be blown away by just how good the SE215s are, coming out of something like a Fiio K1 or a smartphone / laptop / desktop with a decent DAC+AMP.
Tube amps are still fun to play with, but maybe aside from some 300B snobs, I don't think many people really believe that they're more accurate than modern solid state. Some people also still like vinyl, and will happily spend $10k+ on a record player.
There are also the high-sampling-frequency crowd and the high-bitrate geeks. It's fun to think about, but I personally can't hear a difference between 192kHz/24bit and Spotify "high quality" 44.1/16 with an RME ADI-2 Pro and HD 800S headphones or the ES60s (both balanced, which does sound slightly better to me in both cases). I actually showed up to a headphone meet in Tokyo and pulled out Spotify to demo some flagship IEMs with, and the guy was trying to explain to me how that was like ~eating caviar on a donut.
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#118The majority of all active speakers produced nowadays are Class-D, it's nothing really new (and the fact they are super cheap). No idea how this guy wrote this article and didn't come across DIY Audio (or he just didn't mention it in the article). There is a tonne of information here: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/class-d/
I have some questions. My son has been taking guitar lessons using a classic guitar. Using the advice of his instructor we are getting him a begginer's electric guitar for christmas. We also need to get him an amp. Is the amp in this article the same kind of amp that you could plug an electric guitar into? I know nothing about music or instruments, but I do know about electronics so I was thinking it might be fun to…
I would go with one of the new generation of solid state guitar amps like the Boss Katana. These are Class D amps like the one in the article, but voiced for guitar, and with distortion and reverb effects built in. They're very reasonably priced, and get good reviews from enthusiasts (much better than the solid state amps of 10+ years ago).
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your generalisation is unfair. Most Audiophiles just want to listen to music the way the artists intended. That is not my experience at all. Audio gear that is 'flat', in that it outputs as close a representation to the recording as possible is largely shunned in audiophile circles. They mostly want to listen to something that 'sounds good', with all the psychoacoustic baggage that comes with such a statement. As a…
>audiophile circles >They mostly want to listen to something that 'sounds good', with all the psychoacoustic baggage that comes with such a statement TL;DR the technology is so good and so cheap now that what you get from a $150 set-up today rivals stuff costing much more from a decade ago. I still recommend spending 90+% of your budget over a few hundred dollars on better actual reproduction equipment, be it speaker…
> ear measuring mics (e.g. https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/ears-h.... )
That one sounds suspect but the only way to correctly measure headphones is on a binaural head.
Re: Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
#120Any recommendations for people that are tempted to build this but should really put their time elsewhere?
Just do some research and get a cheap class D amp off a chinese website. I forgot the one I chose(I'm at work now), but other than some sparks if you jiggle the power connector(haha seriously. can be fixed with a tiny bit of effort), it is an amazing little amp. It also supports optical and bluetooth connections which is really nice. I put my efforts into building speakers instead. I got a cheap kit ( https://www.diy…
> Yeah, shellac isn't the most durable finish, but it sure is pretty.
+1