I finally finished the Ear + ( about 2 weeks ago actually). Took time to get the upgrade parts ordered and time to let my daugher, Morgan do most of the component placement and soldering.
The changes I made from the original are as follows:
Audience hook up wire: 21 ga stranded that is highly polished (the copper looks almost pink) with polypropylene(sic) insulation. Very easy to work with and tins like no other wire I have used
Auricaps in the signal output coupling positions: Very good sounding caps with smooth top ends and holographic imaging. Wanted to go with a direct 33uf replacemnt for the headphone out, but the caps were to big (2" x 2" is bigger than it sounds). I bypassed the supplied electrolytics with 1uf Auricaps instead.
RS carbon film resistors at the input: Good and bad. I will likely go with a high quality film here in the end.
THe sound was terrific. Absolutely quiet and grain free with a more holograhic (if that's possible inside my head) presentation than my Grado RA-1.
I had a probelm though. Too much gain. I could not use the pre-amp at all, and the headphone was limited to the first 1/3 of the poteniometer range (using Grado SR-225). I spoke with Doc and padded the input with a 100K resistor replacing the 23.4 K. This gave me more volume range on the pre, but it was to much on the headphone out , plus the sound took on a duller character. After conuslting with the Doc and Mark O'Brien of Rogue Audio (my amp manufacturer), it became apparent that the power amp was where the real gain problem was. Mark gave me a reccomended construction of a voltage divider for his amp's input and I am putting that in place tonight. Based on that outcome I will order higher quality resistors for this voltage divider as well as the input to the Ear+ and will give a full review here and on AudioAsylum.
This kit was lots of fun to build and is a wonerful sounding unit.
I'll keep ya posted,
Rob
