Hello all,
well it's been months since I got my Aska 55 kit and I have finally finished it
Everything went smoothly during construction thanks to the good instructions.
I mounted everything in a 2U 300mm deep case from CPC (made by Vero). I split the heatsink in two, the modules are mounted across the centre of the case with the PCB's facing the back panel. The mains runs from an IEC socket at the centre of the back panel to the transformers mounted behind the front panel. I like this layout because the back panel connectors are very close to the modules and the wires are short.
After reading the thread about a dual mono setup I realised I could improve my layout by splitting the PSU PCB. The PSU's are now mounted at the back corners of the case near the amp modules. I didn't actually make the amp earth into the start earth point - there were just too many wires and those from the transformer centre-tap wouldn't reach. So I simply have a star earth point on each half-PSU board.
What does it sound like? Well, it's hard to say! I don't yet have a pre-amp or volume control so I can't use it with my CD player. I have plugged it into the headphone socket of my DVD player which has a tiny volume control on the front panel. Before this I had never listed to CD's on my DVD player (why would I?) and certainly not via the headphone socket so I can't make any comparisons. I know that it works and it sounds pretty good, that'll have to do for now
The next job is a remote controlled relay switched resistor network volume control. I don't know if this 'pre-amp' will remain passive I may need a buffer for the TV input as the leads may start getting a bit long. On the other hand I may build a DAC with several inputs and feed it from my TV, DVD and CD. We'll see..
I post some pictures as soon as I can borrow a digital camera.
Sim
