Jarring sound & clarity lost

[Jameson]

You’d have to remove all the connections going to the power transformer (the one in the middle), then unattach it from the chassis. Then you should follow the instructions for the order of screws, star washers, shoulder washers, and the bell housing in the manual, but the power transformer will sit on your bench on top of the bell housing with the mounting screws already inserted, then you’ll place the amp face down on top of those screws. Make sure you have the terminals oriented the way the manual indicates.

You do have connections to make underneath but there will be plenty of room in the cutout provided.

 

[mcandmar]

FYI - One of those electrolytic capacitors is about to let go, top of it has started to swell out.  I would'nt attempt to power the amplifier up again until you have moved the transformer and run through all the resistance checks in the assembly manual as something isnt right.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

"Oh Well"- I guess i either would need to fix that. Do you happen to have any picture i could follow as i am still couple of things. I did check out the manual but still unclear.

The manual is abundantly clear on how this is supposed to be done.  We have been using the same set of power transformer mounting instructions for about 15 years and this isn't something that has ever happened.

 

[Gobes]

Yes Of course. It is "ME" who dint get this right... LOL... Of course it was my first time... Paul, Anyway I can send this to you guys to help me fix this at this point. I am happy to pay the required fee..Totally loved the experience, but definitely, not my strength and of course love the Amplifier and do not want to further mess it up. Truly respect and appreciate your help!

 

[Paul Birkeland]

I think you could get it built properly and I would encourage you to give it another shot!

 

[Gobes]

Thank you Paul. I appreciate kind your words. I think i must have put in around 65 hours (LOL) which i am sure will take you 6 hours to build this whole thing. I would truly respect the fact if you can help me and let me know how i could ship this out and i will be happy to pay the service fee. Again, just doing this exercise has given me a lot of perspective of what goes in to build an amp and the components involve experience has been absolutely wonderful.
Thank you again!

 

[Deke609]

Before you pull the trigger on sending it in for repair, I'll mention that a lot of folks seem not to know that the photos in the BH pdf manuals are very high resolution and can be expanded to fit your entire computer screen (e.g., using the magnifying glass symbol in Adobe Acrobat Reader).  This gives you a very clear and detailed photo of every installation step.  If you simply printed the manual and worked from the printed copy, you might want to explore this.

cheers, Derek

 

[Gobes]

Thank you Deke609. I appreciate your input.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

let me know how i could ship this out and i will be happy to pay the service fee.

The cost of doing this is very high.  It would take me some hours to carefully disassemble what you have, then I would have to start from scratch and build a fresh kit with fresh parts.  This would well exceed the cost of a completely new SEX kit.

 

[Gobes]

Paul, thank you. Let me ask with respect to the the amp built and the instruction (for which I have taken a picture), can you help pin point where exactly the issue is? That would help me a lot. Does the Power Transformer  need to be installed from the top of the chasis?

 

[Thermioniclife]

Yes it installed on top of the chassis plate. re read pages 16,17 and 18 of the manual.

 

[Doc B]

You can look at the product shot on this page to see how the power transformer should be installed -

https://bottlehead.com/product/single-ended-experimenters-kit-3-0-for-headphones-sensitive-speakers/

That photo is also on the first page of your assembly manual.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Is that power transformer installed on the top or the bottom of the chassis?

The power transformer mounting instructions start on page 16.  You need to follow these, not eyeball a photo later in the manual to determine what you're supposed to do.  If you followed just the first two steps on mounting the power transformer, it wouldn't have been possible to mount it on the bottom of the chassis.

I see similar mistakes in your build with how you have the plate chokes mounted.

I would suggest rebuilding the amp.

 

[Gobes]

Hi Paul/Doc

Thank you for your input. I spent the whole day today pretty much rebuilding the whole amp. I also checked every single step from the beginning. Attached are the pictures and the .wav file. The volume was at 50%-60* of the max volume. Please let me know your thoughts..  I still seem to get the jarring/cracking noise. To make sure there was no headphone issue i recorded this on a HiFi Sundara which was different compared to the last time which was on HD6XX

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ur3qcrx6fjo7eaf/AADyc59tVbtovaCrC8AuEHOma?dl=0

 

[Paul Birkeland]

There is a maximum power that headphones can handle and a maximum output level thereabouts.  If you need really loud listening levels, you might want to look into some Grado headphones.

 

[Gobes]

Paul, thank you. I went back and measured, I am starting to hear the cracking noise starting at 30% of the volume. I'm just reporting what I am hearing and I'm sure you guys are amazing and will be able to help me out. At the end of the day the product is amazing and sometimes things go wrong and thats why I appreciate all your help here..As mentioned yesterday, I went through and did a whole rebuild  as well.

 

[barbz]

Is that the volume of your dac or volume of the amp?

If it's the volume of your dac what volume is your amp set too?