Since there are several members here who enjoy good music, I'm guessing there's a few audiophiles in the group too. After I passed the Architecture Registration Exams, I decided to give myself a headphone amp and nice set of headphones so I could enjoy high quality music at the office since that's where I do most of my listening. After extensive research, I ended up deciding on a kit from Bottlehead. Since the amp was going to live at my office, I wanted to dress it up a little over the stock kit, so I had the transformer bell chromed and had a new top plate cut out of mirror finish stainless to replace the stock brushed aluminum. A new base was also constructed from a nice piece of figured black walnut to replace the stock alder base: Here's the build photos: The pile of parts: The base hardware bolted in place including some upgraded parts that would be difficult to swap out later and some 3D printed standoffs for future capacitor upgrades: Initial "stock" build: Final build after a few upgrades installed: I'm very happy with how it turned out and of course it sounds great too. As soon as the Dell mini laptop I just picked up on eBay arrives I'll be moving the amp to my new office.
Thanks Tim! The coolest part is that the kit instructions are so well written that I think anyone could build it. Knowing how to solder would help, but I think anyone could manage on this.
