SOHA: Main board & test
Etched and populated the main amplifier board last night. Powered it on for the first time and... buzzzzzzzzz. Still sounded rather good with music in it. After a few hours of fussing around, I discovered it was my poor-quality temporary wiring input-side. Strange feedback loops and stuff. I'll be honest, analog circuits are still a dark art to me. Hopefully this project has helped dispel that 🙂 Anyways, now it's using shielded wire and... oh man. Let's just say this thing has broadened my musical horizons. I'll now listen to things on my playlist that I'd usually skip over - it's just such a pleasure to listen to this thing. Still some small noise when the music is stopped. I think that will go away once I finish up the wiring (still a bunch of unshielded sections). Even if it doesn't though, I'll be totally happy!
As for the design itself, I've got a bit more than a classic SOHA amp here (the VU meter stuff I talked about in my previous post). Unfortunately, I still haven't received all the parts for that (they're from Soviet Russia. Seriously.). So I'll hold off on posting the CAD designs and parts list until I know it all works. Here's some pics from the build, though.