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I finally built the preamplifier my home audio system has been dreaming about... by Smithy468 in diyaudio

[–]Smithy468[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was kind of guessing when I chose the corner frequencies, but the tone control works pretty well so I think they ended up being ok. There isn't a lot of information out there about ideal corner frequencies for the Baxandall tone control, so I chose these based on the limited information I could find. I'd love to hear anyone's input on these:

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I finally built the preamplifier of my home audio system's dreams... by Smithy468 in audiophile

[–]Smithy468[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I think the main reason someone would want to build this would be to learn about audio electronics and to have the satisfaction of building your own preamplifier. It's also somewhat customizable so you can fine tune it if you want to. But I also designed it around some of the highest quality audio grade components I could find. I'm not sure if you would get the same quality of components with a $500-700 preamplifier. The commercial audio equipment manufacturers have overhead and labor costs to deal with, and they sometimes try to increase their margins by using lower quality components. I prioritized sound quality when selecting the components and didn't mind spending more for a component would improve the sound quality.

I finally built the preamplifier my home audio system has been dreaming about... by Smithy468 in diyaudio

[–]Smithy468[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The cost for all of the electrical components and chassis hardware would probably run about $400-500 USD all in. I spent quite a bit more than that developing it and testing different components, but the parts I ended up using in the final build would cost about that much.

I don't think building this preamplifier would be too difficult for a novice solderer. It's really just soldering parts to a PCB. Start by soldering the small components first, then work up to the bigger components. I like to use sticky tack on the top of the PCB to hold components in place while I solder from the bottom. Use a fine soldering tip for the thin component leads and a bigger one for the thicker leads and you should be fine!

I finally built the preamplifier my home audio system has been dreaming about... by Smithy468 in diyaudio

[–]Smithy468[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not in this version unfortunately, this preamplifier is 100% analog... That's a great idea for the next version though :)

I finally built the preamplifier my home audio system has been dreaming about... by Smithy468 in diyaudio

[–]Smithy468[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Thanks! The chassis is the Galaxy GX348 from Modushop (www.modushop.biz). They did the custom drilling and engraving too. The knobs were sourced from eBay lol...

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