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Community

Welcome to the Bottlehead Community Page. One of the most important things about a Bottlehead kit is that when you build it you become a member of a community with a support structure second to none in audio. This is the place where we organize all the creative loose bits that community comes up with – talented Bottlehead’s DIY upgrades to kits, construction tips, interesting schematics, photos of completed and modified kits, etc., etc., and so on. Need a tutorial on a the assembly of the kit you just bought? Dying to try out some of the mods you’ve heard about? This is the place to find answers.

New

Signals, Noise and Signal-to-noise Ratio
Bottlehead’s head of R&D Paul Joppa on how to get all those different components in your system to work well with your volume knob

A S.E.X.y DIY speaker system to go with your S.E.X. kit!

NEW – a bit more advanced DIY speaker system – the Climax

Need to pack your Bottlehead gear for shipping?

 

Preamps

Foreplay III (10Mb PDF Archive)

Manual errata

Corrections to Foreplay III manuals through the 1-24-06 revision
the 5-16-06 revision and any after that incorporate these corrections

Corrections to first version of Extended Foreplay III Upgrade manual
the 6-27-06 revision and any after that incorporate these corrections

Sweetest Whispers Stuff

Sweetest Whispers questions, with answers by designer Paul Joppa

Here’s Ed B’s tips on what to do if you goof up the positioning of the resistors on the Sweetest Whispers switch.

Getting a little bit of bleed through on the mute setting? Here’s some tips

Switch cutting out at certain settings? Try this

Add another step

Seduction (14Mb PDF Archive)

Wardsweb’s Seduction Construction Page
Detailed assembly pics of another superbly crafted Seduction kit, this one by Luther Ward

Seduction tape head preamp mod (11Mb PDF Archive)

 

Amps

S.E.X. amp

Wardsweb’s S.E.X. amp construction site

planetWav’s S.E.X. amp construction photos

dgb’s S.E.X amp
nice custom walnut chassis

push-pull S.E.X? Sure!
buy two kits and make some PP monoblocks

Paramount

Mirror image Paramounts
We don’t support this at all, but that doesn’t stop some folks from taking a stab at it. Remember, you’re on your own with this mod – be very careful!

 

Legacy Products

Paraglow (4Mb PDF Archive)

Paraglow mod to avoid wear and tear on TJ Meshplates

PGP 8.1 power transformer installation notes
Here’s info on how to install the bell end cover and also the terminal identification info of our versatile, exclusive MagneQuest PGP 8.1 power transformer

Paramour stuff (9Mb PDF Archive)

Wardsweb’s Paramour construction site
An absolutely gorgeous set of Paramours, with super detailed assembly notes and lots of pictures. This is a must see if you are building your own Paramours, and a great look at what you can do to beautify any Bottlehead kit using a little elbow grease and some patience.

Did you just get black Teflon wire in your Paramour kit? Here’s why

Converting the Paramour to use 45 tubes

955 tube as Paramour driver

John EH’s Paramour

A Bottlehead expresses his feelings on the tube vs. SS debate

Foreplay 1 and 2 (15Mb PDF Archive)

PRC’s Foreplay page
A very creative page showing Randy’s heavily modded Foreplay and other audio projects

hifitom’s Foreplay page
Not just one, but three custom Foreplays and links to Foreplays by other talented builders

jsn’s foreplay page
An interesting wesbite with lots of non – bottlehead stuff too.

Wardsweb’s customized Foreplay
A very cool looking new cabinet

Anticipation Stuff
Here’s Voltsecond’s notes on debugging the Anticipation

Sweet Whispers Stuff

Here’s links to the original Sweet Whispers kit mods at Voltsecond’s tremendous site:

+/- 1 dB Trimmer for Sweet Whispers Attenuator

Fixing the popping noise when adjusting the volume with a Sweet Whispers Attenuator

Single Series Single Shunt Stepped Attenuator + other attenuator ideas (with XLS spread sheet)

Here’s a nice simple JAVA program to calculate any impedance and step separation that you might want to modify your Sweet Whispers kit to.

 

 

Speakers

Straight 8 (1Mb PDF Archive)

The updated Straight 8 crossover
This is the finalized crossover design for the now retired Straight 8s.

beautiful round tops on the mahogany cabinets and lots of pics of the assembly

Other Designs

The Whamodyne Files
This is the archive of all the DIY speaker designs we developed over the past five years, leading up to the design of the Straight 8 loudspeaker.

 

Technical Stuff

Resistor color codes

Four band

Five band

Slick calculators to help you figure out any resistor substitutions you may find in your kit:

Capacitor value conversions
uF to nF to pF and back again

Troubleshooting
Some basic guidelines to get you up and running

Safety and the Bottlehead
A few basic tips to keep you from getting a jolt!

 

 

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