Another Forplay enters the world

Bottlehead Forum

Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share you ideas and experiences.

Finished my Foreplay Tuesday evening (thanks Quest).
Sounds, well, astonishing. I’m running it through my DH 220 into Klipsch KG-4 speakers. I’m going to need LOTS more attenuation here, the DH 220 is too big for the Foreplay and Klipsch. I just barely crack the Foreplay open and the KG-4’s produce a wall of near ear damaging sound. Balancing the two sides with the pots on the Foreplay is just plain impossible.
I was going to do Paraglows next but the DH 220 is so sweet that I might just wait. I built that from a kit in 1980 or so and I think it was pretty much the last series of amps Dave Halfler designed before he died. I don’t have a lot to compare it too but I think it may be the most tube-like SS amp ever made.
I was listening to Melanie, Tangerine Dream, Miles Davis, and Michael Hedges. On that silly Melanie song about ringing bells, there are background vocals I’d never heard before. Michael Hedges guitar work is transparent, even austere. I can hear his fingers crossing frets. Tangerine Dream is vivid to the point of, well, not discomfort as such, but something.
The down side is that my jazz collection is mostly vinyl and for some reason the change in sound for my vinyl isn’t as vivid or astonishing as for the CD’s. I was really hoping to get more out of the Music Hall mmf-5 (now I’m really going to have to get serious about upgrading the interconnects on that puppy) and the Rotel RQ970BX phono-stage. I know that the Music Hall does really pretty music. The Rotel has served me reasonably well (I'm not thrilled but, what the heck). Still, something is just not happy there. Time for a Seduction I suppose.
The Foreplay has a heck of a hum. Probably my sloppy solder work somewhere. Going to have to live on VoltSeconds web site for a while debugging that.
Let’s see what to do next:
1) need (a lot) more attenuation. What is the fastest way to cut output in half (at least)?
2) Debug the *&(^*$ hum….
3) Snubber.
4) The cascode.
My wife is pretty calm about this. It was her birthday yesterday and she was happy to spend the evening (after we came back from a birthday dinner, I’m not a complete lummox) listening to music with me. Apparently the decaffeinated Prozac is working. Her opinion is that I got a winner here as soon as I get rid of the *&(^ hum.
Starting to babble. I’m going away now.

Finish this line:
Have Soldering Iron, will....
1) spend weekends in the basement.
2) hold up bits of twisted metal and wire making maniacal laughter.
3) burn myself.
4) expend enormous amounts of money.
5) cauterize the thumb I took off with the band saw.
6) ...

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Topic - Another Forplay enters the world - Carl F 14:49:54 05/08/03 (11)

Attenuation - Paul Joppa 16:57:47 05/09/03 (1)

Re: Attenuation - Carl F 06:24:17 05/14/03 (0)

Off Topic: Michael Hedges - Jonathan Babiak 16:12:07 05/09/03 (1)

Re: Off Topic: Michael Hedges - Carl F 07:31:58 05/12/03 (0)

David Hafler is still alive and ... - CharleyW 15:31:34 05/08/03 (5)

Re: David Hafler is still alive and ... - Carl F 16:37:44 05/08/03 (4)

Re: David Hafler is still alive and ... - CharleyW 09:09:52 05/09/03 (2)

Re: David Hafler is still alive and ... - guycom 12:09:24 05/09/03 (1)

DH-500 - CharleyW 13:03:19 05/09/03 (0)

Glad you got it rolling - Sturgus 18:17:37 05/08/03 (0)

Congrats...suggestions - kdy 15:24:22 05/08/03 (0)

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