Hi All

Here we go again

Well so, when I decided to build the DCB1 I bought 2 boards from Mr Teabag over at DIY audio. My original intention was to try and build a pre without spending too much in the way of fancy parts just to see if I could get something working and then maybe use the 2nd board to make one with some fancy parts to make it sound better. Anyway It's all worked better than I expected , especially with some help along the way from the usual suspects , thanks guys!

Anyway, the build is great and while I didn't spend silly money on it , it has good quality parts , case , sockets, wiring and transformer which give a good basis for better electronics I think.

Original build thread below for ref, I thought it might be better to start a new one to list my improvements/experiments/disasters (in no particular order!!)

https://theartofsound.net/forum/show...-s-getting-fat

The sound has settled down now as the component have bedded in and this means that I'll be able to gauge the effect of any changes more accurately.

After considering things I decided that it might be more fun to make changes to the original on a step by step basis and see what effect they had rather than going for a big bang approach of slotting in a whole new board. Also some of the parts are now getting scarce and expensive - matched quads of JFETS in particular, which makes stuffing an entirely new board a bit more problematic , not to say expensive

The other advantage of staging the upgrades is that it spreads the cost over the course of a few months. I intend to live with each one for a month or so before another change so that I can see if it was worth it or not .

So my order of battle is as follows -


1. Swap the cheap stepped attenuator for an AD Acoustics part. The original sounds fine for the £23 it cost and does a job, but feels very clunky to use - think Soviet industrial quality

2. Swap in new Mundorf power caps for the power supply. I am curious to see what difference this will make (if any) as most focus in on the caps and resisters for bang/ buck. But I sort of subscribe to the theory (completely unscientifically ) that everything in the chain matters and can make a difference. So only 1 way to test this out!!

3. Try some different signal caps instead of the Wimas, have got a couple of interesting options here so we'll see what happens with that!

4. Try out some Audio Note resisters in the bang per buck part of the board, non magnetic tantalums.

5. Any other numpty randomness I can think of.

On to part 1.....