California Crack... well almost.

[castelletti]

Well, I finally finished the build and learned a big lesson.  DON'T BE IN A HURRY.  I suppose I took it for granted because my Seduction build was so easy.  So far I blew up the power switch in the 2nd step... and smoked the LED's.  I attempted to build this thing under hostile conditions (wife +baby+wife's friend+ oh can you BBQ for us?)

When doing resistance checks I got funny readings on terminals 7 and 9 and noticed what looked like a melted LED and when I went to remove it I pulled the leg off..BOTH of them.

So as of yet I have yet to take my first hit of Crack.  In the mean time I built the Speedball and have it ready to go once I get her up and running.

FWIW I have never owned a good pair of headphones and have never used a headphone amp before.  I now have some HD600's that I have been listening out of my ancient G4 and am dying of anticipation.

I am jonesing....hard!  If this thing is anything like my Seduction + C4S I will be very pleased.

 

[Doc B]

Hi John,

Got your email, we'll get some LEDs in the mail on Monday.

 

[JC]

Sure looks nice, though!  I love the stripes, how did you do those?

 

[castelletti]

Thanks Doc!  I really appreciate it.  I can't believe how bad I gooned this one up!

 

[castelletti]

Sure looks nice, though!  I love the stripes, how did you do those?

Thanks-it's super easy to do.  I painted the base plate metallic gold with krylon spray paint and then just laid down 2 pieces of 1/8" pinstriping tape and shot the hammer finish over it - you just have to peel up the tape before the hammer finish (or whatever other color you might use) completely dries.  As far as the wood goes its just Danish Oil I wet sanded to 2000 grit.  I decided to cold blue the bell housing instead of painting it for a bit of contrast.

It was a fun build minus my screwups, but it's all about the journey right?  Here's a better shot of the stripes, you can see it's not hard...unless you have 16 month old doing his best to get the can of spray paint away from you...lol

 

[Hank Murrow]

You will love the HD 600's with your Crack! I use mine with a Custom Bottlehead linestage that Paul Birkeland built for me with Mikey's lovely Cobalt B7's for outputs and it is a joy to listen through with the HD 600's. The Cardas cable is an improvement over stock.

Cheers, Hank