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Ear834 Sound Issues

Hi,

It took a while, but I put together an EAR834 clone using a Hammond 369 Transformer and 3 electro-harmonix 7025 tubes. I have built one board from scratch, and I also bought a prebuilt one to test as well to see if I was doing something wrong.

I have an st-70 that I tried as an amplifier and a cheap chinese one and both give me the same results. The first track is the sound it makes when it first gets power. IT settles down after a minute. The second clip is the music at about 1/3 volume and it sounds terrible. The recordings are with the board straight from ebay with no real modifications. I also have one I built and they both sound the same. The only thing I can think of is maybe the solder connection to the rca jack is not the best. I am using the same ones as in the video.

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Greg

3 answers0 replies

3 Comments

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Skunkie

Oct 02

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I see you installed both the 68K and 220K on the output area, I normally don't install the 68K ones but I don't think that is the problem. I have seen them supply 68K for the ones in the 220K position, are you sure those are correct? It sounds super distorted like the output is overloaded.

Skunkie

Sep 15

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Can you share pictures of your build with as much detail as possible. And yeah something is seriously wrong!

Greg Brophy

Sep 17

Replying to

Hi Skunkie,

Thanks. The body is made out of wood and the top plate is a sheet of aluminum and a thin sheet of copper sandwiched together. I made a board from scratch and I was having the same issue so I bought one already done with the components soldered on. The only thing I soldered was the rcs jacks to the board, the transformer, choke and I had the boards separated and so I had to solder some wire across. I did not put metal in between the power board and the other board. I tried shielded wires on the other board I made, but I had a hard time soldering them in so I removed the shielding on this one. The front RCA jack is mounted onto a copper sheet and a knurled knob for the turntable ground. I have the plastic red and white rings on both sides of the RCA jacks.

The transformer is a Hammond 369AX. Other than that, with the board I made, I did not change the parts from what was in the video. What I am thinking is maybe I wired the RCA jacks to the board wrong or maybe an issue with grounding. I have it grounded from the transformer to the power connector and from the board to the copper from plate for the turntable ground. With the board I made, I tested all the voltages and they were the same values as the what I saw in the videos.

Thanks again!

Greg

wiring for the RCA jacks in the RIAA section