Crossover For 2-way SB Acoustic Speaker System

About eight years ago, I was built a 2-way speaker system using SB Acoustic drivers. The driver for woofer is SB16PFC25-08 and for tweeter is SB19ST-C000-4. You can visit the post here.

Although this speaker is sound good, but it is not perfect. This is because working on multi driver is challenging. The crossover is the components module to split the frequency range between woofer for low pass and tweeter for high pass. The crossover should make the sound from each of the drivers well blending with the correct phase, so the sound will be coherent. This is not an easy task since the crossover calculation should be made correctly. I made many changes since the day this speaker finished and the last update is on last August here. The goal for those changes is to make the sound enjoyable to listen, less dip and peak especially on the cross-over point, and make the sound fuller and wider.

So, in this post, I made other changes in this speaker system by using the detail parameter on each driver, then I calculate for the correct crossover point and components related to it. The damping materials inside also changed.

Let's take a look.

Parasound HCA-1206 Multi Channel Amplifier, Optimized For Stereo Only

This Parasound HCA-1206 is a multi-channel amplifier that intended for home theater audio setup.

No wonder this amplifier has 6-channel identical amplifier in one chassis, together with the THX certified label, it delivers 120-watt power per channel.

This amplifier is my fresh catch not long time ago after I got the Parasound DAC-1000 before. The condition is like new and I was thinking that this amplifier would be a match pair with my DAC since they are built at the same year.

And I was right! This amplifier is sound wonderful. It really matching with the DAC in term of the style and sound.

That is why, in this post, I will make this multi-channel amplifier optimized for use in the stereo system only.

300B Amplifier Hum Problem Solved

My previous post about the 300B tube amplifier build was a breakthrough. At least for myself. That was my first 300B amplifier build which if I remember, a decade ago, it will never across my mind to build such this expensive amplifier.

I learn a lot from that build and the 300B tube by its nature is direct-heated triode which I read everywhere saying that DHT will always have small hum present at the output, especially when pairing with the speaker sensitivity above 90 db.

My 300B amplifier built intended to drive a headphone. It is also can act as pre-amplifier. Small hum might be a problem for the listening enjoyment. Probably I should accept it.

But when the amplifier is done, the hum is worse than my expectation. It is loud and not at the acceptable level at all. The hum always presents at all time, even with the volume control fully closed.

I think more than a month and I tried to figure it out how to solve this issue. With the help of my friends, now this 300B amplifier is completely free of hum.

Yes, you are read it correctly. No hum at all, it is dead silent.

Only great music.

Portable TDA1543 DAC Preamp & Headphone Amplifier

I've built DAC with pre-amp and headphone amplifier combo several times which surprisingly sound good. Moreover, this might become more practical unit that act as headphone amplifier and can be also connect to home audio system with the same output from the unit itself.

I made PCM63 DAC with this combo here, long before that, I also made portable TDA1543 DAC combo here. The secret of those combo lies on the current output booster that act as buffer, lowering the output impedance which easily drive any headphone or as a signal output to feed the home audio system.

Especially in this post, I will share my latest upgrade for my previous TDA1543 portable DAC combo that I've built last time. This upgrade resulting to better sound quality.