Wife Gave Me A Quickie For Christmas

Faustin

My thoughtful wife really took care of me this past Christmas, yes a Quickie!! Ok get your minds out of the gutter. A Bottlehead Quickie. My first attempt at a pre amp DIY kit. Best part was that after I assembled it, it actually worked! And for about $160 this little guy punches way above its weight class. Of course I could not be content with the stock build so I had to upgrade the coupling caps to some Mundorf Supremes. It will take some time for them to burn in but I am really impressed with this pre. Feeling like attempting something bigger and better. Not what the wife wants to hear.

hochpt21

Very nice. Always feels good to build something yourself!

mrbiron

How long do the batteries last on something like that?

mhardy6647

batteries. quickies. my prurient interests are getting -- interested.

I need to build my Quickie one of these days.

The batteries last for a reasonable while, methinks -- the idea of no AC power supply is pretty attractive. Lithium ion rechargeables would be a reasonably way to manage the cost of that bank of 9V batteries used to supply the B+

I played with one of these once and was quite favorably impressed (thus do I have one waiting to be built).

lightman1

Quit fookin around, Perfesser. Do it!

mrbiron

I told you Mr H., send me the quickie and I'll build it for you. Only problem is, I don't have an amp to hook it up too for testing.

mhardy6647

Oh -- I could, potentially, help with that

Indeed, I need to touch base with a certain -- benefactor -- and figure out what's next for a certain -- amplifier.

As usual, I've been meaning to do that. But

The road to heck is paved with good intentions.

Actually, I'd love to build the kit; just need to get my act together.
You have probably noticed how good I am at that.

Faustin

Batteries last for over 100 hrs. I don't know how many hours I have on these, but they are the original set. I am telling you, this is a easy build and you will be impressed. I am ready to move up to something like this:http://www.transcendentsound.com/Transcendent_Sound_BEAST_OTL_Tube_Amp.html

MrBuhl

Very cool, I'm so tempted by these kits.

mhardy6647

The Bottlehead kits/products are fine sounding and reasonably-priced (albeit, in most cases, not quite as 'reasonably priced' as they used to be).

The Quickie is a very cute, simple, inexpensive design with good sound.
The 3S4 tubes it uses tend to be microphonic, but they're also cheap. I pick 'em up whenever I see 'em -- I've got a cache of them to try if I ever build the darned preamp.



OK, I'll stop now and leave this side of the conversation to folks who actually have a Quickie in operational condition

Faustin

"The Quickie is a very cute, simple, inexpensive design with good sound.
The 3S4 tubes it uses tend to be microphonic, but they're also cheap. I pick 'em up whenever I see 'em -- I've got a cache of them to try if I ever build the darned preamp."

You are correct about the 3S4 tubes being microphonic. I have bought and tried 4 or 5 different brands and so far some RCA tubes from the 60's are the least microphonic. I will probably get a few more flavors to try. Build that darn thing mhardy, or send it to me and I will build it for you!

Jimbo18

mrbiron wrote: »

How long do the batteries last on something like that?

I asked my wife something like that once. Now no more quickies for me.

mhardy6647

heh -- this probably wouldn't be a good time to mention that I also have an unbuilt Bottlehead Foreplay preamp in its original shipping box in the basement, would it?



I had bought it for my father to build way back when. He'd wanted to build something again, so I bought it for him -- but he never did (build it). I inherited it back when he died... and so it sits in the basement. It's a plain vanilla Foreplay (I), so it would need some fairlysubstantial "upgrades" for best results, any way.

Faustin

You need to get on that as well. Have not heard one but it seems like it is well liked.

Faustin

nbrowser....... You can do it. Go for the Quickie!