My second Bottlehead finshed!

[ike]

Years in the making, a second Bottlehead system finally finished

 

[denti alligator]

Beautiful! What are those speakers? And what's your turntable?

 

[ike]

Thank you!
The speakers are Bob Brines with Lowthers DX3.  The spheres on top are not tweeters for the Lowthers.  But rather, speakers for HT.  Turntable is Pro-ject perspective with Boston audio Mat-1, Music Hall control, DYI Cinemag Sut & Soundsmith modified Denon DL-103.

Here are some additional pics
Cheers!

 

[kgoss]

Wow, your system looks awesome and I bet it sounds as good as it looks!
Those have to be some of the coolest knobs on the FP3 I have seen.  Did you make them yourself?

Congratulations and Enjoy,
Ken

 

[earwaxxer]

Baeuutifull! Lust that stuff!

 

[ike]

Thanks Ken!

I got the knobs from e-bay.  I think they were from Taiwan.  I like them shiny!

 

[denti alligator]

Very cool! I wish Rega made a PSU that kept exact time. They're a bit fast, you know.

I see you have that Kishi Bashi record. I saw them open for Tinariwen and they were great. The record isn't quite as good.

 

[Hank Murrow]

Dear Ike;

How do you characterize the sound of those JJ 2A3-40's? I have been thinking about using them in the amp Paul Birkeland built for me. Any impressions of their sound would be welcome. I have been using National Union, GE, and RCA NOS.

Cheers, Hank

 

[ike]

Sam-
Wow, I would love to see Kishi Bashi live

 

[ike]

Hi Hank,

I can only make comments and comparisons based on these other 2A3s that I have.

Valve Art

 

[ditdah]

Ike,
Nice setup!  I'd like to ask you what the coily cable is that I'm seeing in your 4th picture?

 

[Grainger49]

Ike,

Beautiful work and an impressive system.  Wardsweb, a long time Bottlehead, had a polycarbonate table too.  I think one of the Clearaudio tables.  He used to have a picture on his site of it illuminated from below with a blue cold cathode tube.  Very cool in my book!

 

[ike]

Hi Kenneth,
The coily cables are interconnects by Anticables.  They connect my Pre to my amps.
Cheers

 

[Grainger49]

Wow!  I had to look up Anticable.  The center conductor is invisible in the above picture.  I see why looking at the huge conductor size difference visible on their site.

Their prices seem reasonable, particularly the shielding with a ground wire.

 

[jrebman]

Hi Ike,

Nice system there!  Congratulations on getting it all done.  I like the JJ 2a3s a lot myself -- best deal on the planet in 2a3s.

Can you tell me which version of the soundsmith dl-103 you have?

I'm continuing to build my full bh system too, and hopefully not too much longer until the basics are in place and making music.

Take care,

Jim

 

[ike]

Hi Jim,

Reeling back from memory, kind of a funny story about my Soundsmith cartridge, first of all, my cartridge precedes his current line-up of cartridges.  The journey started with my purchase of the Denon 103R directly from Japan.  I saw a Youtube video of Thomas Schick from Germany modifying the Denon.  Decided to give it a go, bought a wooden body from him

 

[4krow]

Hank,

  That is a great photo of a beautiful amp. I suppose that you did the 'pinstriping' yourself?

 

[jrebman]

Thanks, Ike.  I'm sure it sounds sweet and probably nowhere near the price of the new ones .

-- Jim

 

[Hank Murrow]

Well, Ike persuaded me to choose the JJ 2A3-40 tubes for my PB-built amp, and Eurotubes.com got them to me in two days along with a six-month warranty. I took the time to treat the tubes and sockets of my preamp and amp with DeoxIT & PresevIT; and began listening.

The Waterlily "Saudades" CD was first up with the "Transi

 

[jrebman]

Hank,

Give them 30-50 hours of music (not break-in discs) and all that stuff will get even better and the top end will fill in a bit more and smooth out considerably.

-- Jim