[eisenia]

Hello --

I am interested in buying a mapletree pre-amp (magic 5) within the next month or two and I am wondering about the kit form.  Is it pretty easy?  Can a first timer with little understanding of electronics do it?  I am interested in a kit form because I want to learn a bit more and the tweaking that I read about sounds fun.  BUT I don't want to spend the $$ only to fry it with my ineptness...   Is it easy to do serious damage?   Any feedback would be appreciated.

Aaron

[JYD]

Aaron,

Take your time and follow the instructions and you should have no problems. I built an Octal 6 over a couple of weekends. Dr Peppard answered any questions I had as I went along. I wanted to have a home theater pass thru which the good Doctor helped me accomplish.  Go for it you'll have fun and it's a great addition to any system.  

Jim

[Yverzone]

My only experience before starting on the Ear + amplifier was fixing my brother's clock radio... with a ball peen hammer. Compared to the Ear and the Stealth, The Magic 5 appears simple with no tight spots.

http://www.mapletreeaudio.com/O6Aspecialunder.jpg

I completed both my projects easily and sucessfully. I also learned a great deal. As Jim has pointed out, the instruction and wiring diagrammes are very clear and easy to follow: Dr. Peppard is a teacher after all. The projects were a  a pleasure and the ultimate was, of course, flicking the switch... nothing.. until the track started... music... clean, clean, clean.

Dr. Peppard is easy to contact and it is hard to see how any serious attempt at building Mapletree kit can result in anything short of success.

Aarron, do learn to solder, find someone to teach you, practice... any serious tweaker should learn to solder or at least read Laurence Sterne.

Now, Jim, tell us about your Home cinema adaptions to your preamp.

Also, what did happen to the Magic Eye? My levels depend on my ears.. not good.

Dominique

[JYD]

Dominique,

I have a Bryston power amp which I use to drive the front speaker in my  HT setup. I wanted to use the Bryston for my two channel setup using the Octal 6 as the pre-amp (replacing the HT receiver) and didn't want to recable when going between 2 channel and 5.1. I gave up 1 source input whereby the HT signal is passed directly through the pre-amp to the Bryston. It works great.

I had some initial concerns on impedance mismatching between the octal 6 and the Bryston while assembling the unit, however, to my ears the combo sounds great.

Jim