n_maher

It's bad, it's nationwide. At the start of last week gas was just barely over $3 here, it's now over $3.40. Personally I think we're about at critical mass when it comes to gas prices so the next 6 months should be, uh, interesting...

Quite possibly, yes, but it does limit you to USB only so if you don't want to feed it USB all the time you're SOL. If USB is your primary source it's the best choice I can think of.

aha, pretty crazy that there's only one man'f for a given tube. And the electrolytics appear to be a mix of Panasonic FC or FM series (hard to tell apart in pictures) and Nichicon UPW (or similar).

How long are you going to leave that JJ tube in there? Glad to hear that it finally arrived and more importantly fully intact.

I think you're on to something. I wasn't you man, if it was we'd be razzing you like there was no tomorrow.

Another option if you'd like something that can take inputs other than USB would be the Headroom Micro Portable. In my book it's still portable enough and might work better on a desktop where some of the smaller amps actually become a liability (at least for me they do).

When?

Slyvania 5U4GBs (quad), Cetron 5998s (matched pair), CBS 5692 brown base (x2) and a few other good quality used tubes to use for testing. The Menace is quickly turning me into a tube whore.

I ain't sayin' nothin'! He appears to do truly top-flight work. I'd really be interested in seeing some of it live at some point and meeting him, seems like a cool guy. I've quoted my prices for another beta: single-ended, two chassis = $3k, balanced, dual PS, two chassis = $5k. It's not worth it to do it for less.

Good news arrived in my inbox this morning in the form of a "you didn't screw anything up" message. Woot! Final wiring to commence at 7pm EST.

I can only speak for me but I built it myself and then stupidly sold it. :| One point of clarification though, I'm not aware of anyone currently accepting orders to build beta22's. MisterX did for a while and I'd certainly ask him if he would again, thrice did for a while but I'm not sure that he's going to continue and I've seen at least one truly awful build by someone on head-fi who did a custom build for someone. So my advice on that front is choose your builder wisely (not necessarily directed at you Constrastique), it's a pretty straightforward build but there are a lot of things that can go wrong.

Yeah, me too. I'm pretty sure that I'm ok but when it comes to matter of high voltage I'm going to defer to the expert and see what he says.

Had to stop tonight for two reasons: 1. I was beat after working on it till 11:30. 2. I think that I screwed up part of the wiring, that if screwed up will mean that I don't have enough parts to finish the amp. \

Not Safe For Work

She linked to this poll over there.

No interest in what's going on here but Mark, feel free to say whatever you want. We're not much for moderation here.

I haven't heard enough to be able to compare but someday I'll own another beta22, preferably of the balanced variety. Commercial gear just isn't my thing.

Would it be too evil of me to just remove a couple options from the poll?

That's cold man, just cold.

That's all the hard mounted parts but there are definitely a few more (just resistors and caps) to go that will be wired into the circuit and either attach to the tube sockets, terminal strips or otherwise. I ended up adding a second terminal strip last night to use as a grounding point. I drew up a wiring diagram for the whole amp and I just wasn't happy with how things were being routed and by the number of connections that I was having to tie to a single point. This is mostly because as a starting point the ground of the amp is going to be floated and not tied to the chassis while the amp chassis will be tied to AC ground via the umbilical cord. We'll see what I get for hum, hey at this point I'd be happy with hum, and then figure out if I need to work on an alternate grounding scheme. I'm pretty sure that there was no way this was ever going to be a single chassis amp. Here's to hoping I can get the wiring finished up tonight and maybe test it tomorrow night. A box of tubes just arrived so I've got my test tubes ready to go. Nate

Wiring will commence withing the hour, but first a couple of pictures since fabrication is now complete baring the need for another terminal strip. I haven't quite made up my mind about that just yet. I couldn't resist mocking it up with tubes Upskirt

I hope that it isn't that ghetto looking to you guys.

Very nice work, man. Those look seriously sweet.

Yeah, I have a press and I've got a vice so really it shouldn't be all that bad. Just be a bummer if I torch a $30 knob from THL that I don't even want to use for this project but it's the only one that I have on hand that will really work w/ the rest of the project (scale wise).

In a word, no.