Successful First Crack Build

[Moe]

After reading about them for years I had my wife pick up a Bottlehead Crack kit as Christmas present. I did a little soldering as young man but am really an electronics newb. Kudos to the Bottlehead folks with their wonderful manual, after three days of work I completed the build today. I still have some finishing touches to put on, but it sounds great. I'm going to live with it for a few months before installing the Speedball.

Some of my solder joints are embarrassing, and I caught a few mistakes I was able to back out during the process (wire to wrong terminal). I was nervous leading up to the resistance check, and had just one failure during that test (an incomplete solder joint) I was able to repair. Passed the voltage check first try, and fired up with a sacrificial set of headphones before trying something nicer.

This was the most fun I've had in quite some time, and quite satisfying to enjoy the results. Thank you!

 

[bucketofguts]

Way to go Moe!

 

[Urshurak776]

Nice work!

 

[Moe]

One thing I did notice after putting the knob on the volume pot today, it seems to run loud. My source is a Schiit Bifrost 2/64 (XLR) running into Schiit Lokius and RCA out from the Lokius into the Crack.

I clamped the knob on so that 0% volume is 6 o'clock. Reasonable listening volume on an HD6XX is 8 or 9 o'clock. Is that expected?

 

[Urshurak776]

One thing I did notice after putting the knob on the volume pot today, it seems to run loud. My source is a Schiit Bifrost 2/64 (XLR) running into Schiit Lokius and RCA out from the Lokius into the Crack.

I clamped the knob on so that 0% volume is 6 o'clock. Reasonable listening volume on an HD6XX is 8 or 9 o'clock. Is that expected?

For some sources, yes. FAQ #3:


3. I can barely turn my Crack up at all before it's far too loud, what do I do?

Disconnect the white wire at the pot that originated at the left RCA jack. Install a 75K resistor between this wire and where it connected on the pot.
Repeat this step for the red wire coming from the right RCA jack.
Attach and solder one 33K resistor between each outer pair of lugs on each level of the volume pot and the ground lugs on the pot.
Resistor wattage is unimportant, 1/10 Watt or greater will work nicely.

 

[Moe]

Amazing, thank you for spotting that for me. I'm going to have to read the FAQ to see if it answers any other questions and I'll give this mod a try. I'll try another source (phono) and make sure that I won't be painting myself into a corner.