My first Bottlehead Crack :)

[Tom620]

Hello,

Today I completed the build of my Bottlehead Crack. I painted the transformer and enclosure to give it a little extra.

I was afraid that the tube sound and my Sennheiser HD 650 would be too warm sounding for my preference. Boy, I was wrong. I've never heared such a lucious and spacious sound in my entire life. I am amazed. Thanks to Doc and Queen Eileen for this wonderful amp.

One more thing to do: The Speedball Upgrade

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Clean and classy!  Well done.

 

[Doc B]

Wow, beautiful build. Thanks for the kind words!

 

[JamieMcC]

Classic finish nice, if you like it now wait till you hear it with the speedball!

 

[Kris]

Cool.
How about some pics from underside 

 

[Tom620]

Here you are. I hope the pics are good enough. It is getting dark in The Netherlands

 

[Kris]

Nice clean build. Congrats.
I would just trim few leads a little shorter, but maybe it's just me

 

[Kris]

Ooh... and it's worth to consider this mod http://bottlehead.com/smf/index.php/topic,2946.0.html.

Regards,
Kris

 

[Tom620]

Thanks for your advice, Kris. It is my first big DIY job.

I will check all the leads again and apply the mod you mentioned.

 

[Grainger49]

Tom,

That is nice, neat, tidy work.  The solder joints are shiny and have just the right amount of solder on them.

Excellent work in my book!

 

[Doc B]

I wouldn't mess with it, the leads look plenty short.

 

[Tom620]

Thanks for the kind words, guys

 

[Tom620]

And with finished Speedball upgrade.

Everything has improved a lot, more texture and cleaner sound.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Thanks for your advice, Kris. It is my first big DIY job.

I will check all the leads again and apply the mod you mentioned.

Man, that is incredibly clean work, especially for a first project!

 

[Karl5150]

Ditto: Clean and neat.

 

[W.David]

Congratulations! Just finished my first a couple weeks ago and am really pleased by the quality of the sound with my Beyerdynamic DT770 headphones. During the post build check found a number of errors but all the resistance and voltage measures were correct and it worked. My previous effort was in early 1960's building a Heathkit portable radio.
Next project hopefully will be SEX amp.

 

[Tom620]

Nice build

I am also thinking about upgrading to a S.E.X. amp to drive my Westone ES3x in ear monitors. Not sure if this will work out, the iem's are very sensitive.