Building the Frigate

[BibBigDog]

Heh, clearly I am out of my depth here. Thank you for preventing me from buying some useless parts. I will probably get a Beyerdynamic because I need the sealed design.

The Frigate now sounds AMAZING with the headphones I have. Around 30 hours of break-in so far and you are right. The sound is warm and alive. I did not know my headphones could even sound that good. And this is using a first-gen iPad for the source. I stayed up way too late last night rediscovering recordings I thought I knew. Everything I tried sounded great: Black Sabbath, Phillip Glass, Miles, Prince, Dwight Yoakum.

Simply put, even with the "wrong" headphones, the Frigate provides the best sound I have ever heard. Selecting this kit was a leap of faith and I am VERY happy I did. It is incredibly satisfying to know that I built this myself. Thank you!

[Augustica.com]

It took some time to come up with the current Frigate's design. A lot of experimenting with parts and schematic went in to it. I am glad you like Frigate. You also made a right choice to buy the original Hammond toroidal transformers. That power supply and the transformers certainly make the difference.

You may regret close ear design headphones. Your ears will sweat after fifteen minutes. There is a reason why most of high end headphones have an open ear design.

[BibBigDog]

I really have no choice about needing sealed headphones. I work in close proximity to several people who could easily hear an open design. Maybe I'll have to build another one for home use and see what it's like with Sennheisers.

Again thank you so much for this kit. You might want to put something in the manual about the break-in time. It really did sound terrible for the first 15 or 20 hours.

I have two more questions:

Is there any way to wire it up so it could serve as a preamp? Given its ridiculously good sound I am curious what it could do for my regular system.

Is there a maximum recommended operating temperature and where should I be taking measurements? I did some testing with various case and ventilation designs and some got up to 130-140 degrees F on the Wima capacitors. In the open air, stacked above the power supply and toroids, they average around 108 F. I am considering a fan and various physical arrangements but I'd appreciate knowing what the designer feels are appropriate operating conditions.

[Augustica.com]

You are welcome. Enjoy.

I would not recommend to use Frigate as a pre-amplifier. You will run into problems with input and out impedance.

Frigate was not designed for stacked up operation - both boards generate a lot of heat. WIMA capacitors are far enough from the tubes and will not melt. The filament heatsinks can get upto 60 degrees Celsius. The 6h30PI are getting up to 80 degrees Celsius. You do not need a fan as long as the boards are positioned horizontally and side by side.