it's alive

after 2 weeks of tinkering, soldering and worrying......my WAD kit 6550 has finally poured forth with music.


I can not begin to describe how pleased i am that the project is complete.
i have not picked up a soldering iron or looked at a circuit diagram in 15yrs, yet here i am with a beauty of a home built valve int.
defineately the the most satisfying result i have had from hifi so far.
valves rule

i recommend this kit to anyone considering an amp upgrade. £615 for the kit and around £50 for irons and snips, solder suckers etc.

a big thankyou to ANEX - he said 'a monkey could build one' and he was not wrong (i know how that sounds btw).

and so on....so chuffed.....etc

 

congrats!
but whats it sound like??

 

to tell the truth i have not given it the full going over yet.

since i bought the kit in the second week in march, i have also bought the ae309's and a new denon dl34 cart. my deck has been upgraded to gorb and as i was waiting for the amp to be finished the deck/cart is not properly set up...yet. i'm off tomorrow though.

i played some cd's through it meanwhile and i am very excited about the TT stretching it's legs.

the 'valve sound' as i understood it, was always about smoothness, this is apparent. thom yorke sounded, for the first time, not like a whiney ponce, but a singer.
the bass is the shock to me though, i can find little wrong with it. it may not be the last word in 'tight' but the ability to diffirentiate(?) between notes and follow subtle bass lines is far superior to any kit i previously owned.

i primarily listened to some m.o.r pop and the results are favourable. 'say what you want' by texas was bizzare, the new levels of detail catching me off guard. as it started i heard maracas of different types in different speakers, something i have never noticed before.my cdp is a 330 asda dvd player btw.. time to re-discover my music collection i think

now to get a tuner

 

No problem, glad you like it. You can tighten the bass up by doing some upgrades, plenty of debate about those on the WAD forum.