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Some Quick Impressions of the "Quickie"

Last night, I put together my long-awaited Quickie kit. The chassis plate was MIA in the first shipment, so "Queen" Eileen sent one out via USPS Priority Mail, which was very nice. I ended up with a black plate, which is great, since I had asked a few questions in another thread about what it would take to paint one of these. Now I won't have to worry about that.

Some early impressions:

a) They weren't lying when they named this thing the "Quickie" - it went together so fast that I was just starting to enjoy myself (or, perhaps the solder fumes were starting to get to me) when the next thing I knew, the amp was done! Like all of my Bottlehead gear, it fired up the first time with no problems or debugging needed.

b) The dinky 3S4 pentode tubes draw so little current that the heaters are nearly invisible when on - you can just make out a tiny, dim sliver of orange if you look close enough. An indicator LED might be a good idea for a modification.

c) The transformer mod mentioned in another thread is very easy and seems to work well. Where to put the headphone jack is another story. Can I drill through this plate without cracking or shattering it? The only other option, I suppose, would be to whittle out some of the wooden base down to about 1/8" thickness, then drill a hole through that. The headphone jack I have doesn't have a very long "neck" (it's a non-shorting leftover from my SEX amp) and I'm using a Seduction base, which is at least 1/2" thick. I don't have any fancy woodworking tools, unfortunately.

d) I'd guesstimate that I'm getting somewhere from 6 and 8dB of gain with a fresh set of Energizers.

e) Sound is very good, though perceptibly different than my C4S'ed SEX amp. The Quickie seems fresh, lively and perhaps a little less refined....but the biggest difference is that the SEX seems to have an enormous soundstage, whereas the Quickie's is noticeably "closer" to the listener. The SEX has a magic to it, a cohesiveness and refinement, if you will, that the Quickie doesn't seem to have - maybe it's the beefier tubes, two stages, higher gain, or C4S boards. But, for $99, the Quickie is an incredible deal! Just don't expect it to be a $99 SEX amp "knockoff" with headphones - they do sound a bit different.

f) Using Specos wired as 8000/500ohm autoformers, taken off of the coupling caps (i.e., parafeed), I get enough juice to drive a pair of Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro (250ohm) quite loudly with about 2V input. A pair of Grado SR60's also can be driven loudly (even though they are only 32ohms, they seem quite sensitive), but they sound honky and have flabby bass due to the impedance mismatch. I don't like how Grado's sound on my SEX amp, either - they seem to be better for coaxing good sound from not-so-good sources like iPods.

g) Here's a thought - what if I were to get a pair of transformers with ultra-linear taps? Could I connect them to the screens of the pentodes? Or would I lose too much quality by going away from a no NFB design?

I'll post some photos once I stain and seal the base, as well as stuff a headphone jack somewhere. I'd appreciate some advice about whether or not the plate is a bad idea to be drilling through....


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Topic - Some Quick Impressions of the "Quickie" - Dr. Toobz 21:43:22 10/09/09 (5)

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