Bottlehead and Zu

apholden

apholden

Well-Known Member
I'm thinking of picking up a set of Zu Dirty Weekends and need an amp to go with them. I'm kinda interested in the DIY option and curious about the Bottlehead Stereomour. Does anyone have any experience with this combination? Any recommendations for which options to consider?
I'll also welcome suggestions for other DIY amps to consider. It can even just be a power amp since my Valhalla has preamp outs.
 
apholden said:
Once it arrives, I'll do some posts about building it unless you guys say nobody wants to see that. No ETA on when that will happen, but I don't think a human has seen my order yet.
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Please post photos! I'm jealous! If you are anything like me you'll find the build process to be very relaxing and therapeutic. I've built 3 kits and had mixed emotions when I was finished. I had a great sense of accomplishment but was disappointed that the build process was complete.
 
Nice! I had a Seduction that my father in law and I built (from back in the day when the owner's wife would post nude with all of the "offerings" - yikes). It served me well. I moved to a PS Audio phono stage but definitely loved the Bottlehead (I kept it, of course). Let us know how it goes. They have excellent customer service.
 
Have you ever built something like this before @apholden ? I built a solid state (Amp Camp Amp) that was pretty basic - no onboard power supplies or transformers to contend with - so I'm very curious to see how it goes for you if this is your first build. For me, good directions and patience made all the difference. Good Luck!
 
My biggest builds were a Heathkit power supply in the late 80s, where I learned the hard way not to pick up a soldering iron by the wrong end, and a model railroad throttle built from a schematic in a book in the late 90s, which included a PCB that I made by drawing the traces with a sharpie and dunking it in ferric chloride.

Since then, I've had trouble finding anything worth building, so I'm probably a bit rusty.
 
apholden said:
Not bad for an evening's work. I need to call them about one of the vacuum tube sockets, but otherwise, the bolt-on part of the assembly went easily.
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This is awesome, keep posting. How much experience do you have with soldering and electronics? And are you handy? I've done some really minor soldering but I'm generally not very handy. Curious if I could build something from a kit like that.
 
So, I've done the occasional electronics kit, but I've otherwise wasted the hardware side of my computer engineering degree. As for being handy, I can turn screws, but I have no experience with anything more advanced.

Full disclosure: right now, the wood base is just taped together. I'm still building up the nerve to glue it (and I need to buy glue).

I also haven't started wiring this. Tonight's work was just screwing in the sockets, terminal strips, and transformers.
 
Also, Bottlehead's instructions are excellent. Each step has a photograph of the part you're working on, and they clearly state where each screw, washer, and nut goes. If you can follow instructions and aren't too scared of high voltages, you should be fine.
 
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I guess a lot of people wreck their power switches, because Bottlehead lists replacements right on the site. They also said they would toss in a replacement tube socket for the one that got mangled in shipping.
I'll be back on track in no time!
 
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