Upgraded Crackatwoa with TwoQuiet

[jjhcunningham]

Got my TwoQuiet upgrade and installed it the same night. It made a very noticeable difference.  The separation from silence to music is pretty amazing.  Also seemed to enhance the bass.  Here are some pictures after the upgrade.

Next upgrade for this amp will probably be some nice large output capacitors.  I am about to search the forum for recommendations, but if anyone has any let me know.  Also any other suggestions?  These next upgrades are a mix of wanted to try to make it even better and just wanting to tinker.  This has been my first year doing any kind of soldering and have become addicted.

Current kits in order of build include:
1. Quickie (Pretty amazing Price/Performance)
2. Quicksand (Used only for low impedance headphones right now)
3. Crack-a-two-a
3. Eros
4. TwoQuiet upgrade for Crack-a-two-a

Future Plans
0. Making a Raspberri Pi based audio server with I2S (No USB or SPDIF) DAC
1. Yet to be named Bottlehead Speaker
2. Kaiju
3. BeePree 300B

 

[Doc B]

Man, you work fast!

 

[ZenAudio]

Looks great, too!  What did you use on your base?

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Looks squeaky clean!

 

[jjhcunningham]

Looks great, too!  What did you use on your base?

I used Minmax espresso oil based stain.  Tried to not leave it on too long to reduce how dark it got.  Thinking about also adding a clearcoat.

 

[kritpoon]

The top plate color look very nice!!! Is it metallic paint?

 

[jjhcunningham]

The top plate color look very nice!!! Is it metallic paint?

Yes. I sanded the top plate with 220 then did multiple coats of metallic rose gold paint.  I then did multiple coats of clear coat.

--
JC

 

[JamieMcC]

+1 on the top plate, nice colour choice.

 

[kritpoon]

Yes. I sanded the top plate with 220 then did multiple coats of metallic rose gold paint.  I then did multiple coats of clear coat.


--
JC

Thank u JC I am gonna try that on my next Bottlehead kit.

Krit

 

[NCFisher]

Yes. I sanded the top plate with 220 then did multiple coats of metallic rose gold paint.  I then did multiple coats of clear coat.

--
JC

I did a similar paint job - Rustoleum gold flake - on a S.E.X. but experienced paint crushing when tightening the screws.  I used small washers to cover them.  It doesn't appear you had a similar problem?
Tom

 

[Doc B]

Could be that he let the paint cure for a longer time period than you might have. It's usually best to let the panel sit for a week or more before attaching hardware. The paint under the top skin can take quite a while to polymerize.