NAD Some Assembly Required - Build Complete

  • Thread starter Thread starter MadAsAHatter
  • Start date Start date
I made a bunch of progress today to the point where I'm nearing completion. Pretty much the whole preamp board is done minus a couple of turrets where resistors connect the board to the tube sockets. I also wired up all the front panel controls. All that's left is to finish wiring up the V2 & V3 sockets, connect the preamp board to the power supply board, and wire the PT to the board and jacks. And of course go throught everything to make sure all the solder joints are good, make sure I didn't mis-wire anything, and do some final checks. If all goes well I may be able to finish it off tomorrow.

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Well shit..... I have a working amp! Finished up all the wiring this morning, did all final checks and fired it up with no troubles. Of course I'm going to be a little biased, but it sounds pretty damn good. It gives that really nice and thick power tube saturation at manageable volumes. It definitely has the classic "British" rock & roll sound. I messed around with a couple of boost and overdrive pedals and was able to get into some decently heavy crunch, but it's not going to make it into full high gain territory. Overall I'm quite pleased with the way it sounds.

One thing that I'm super shocked about is it is dead quiet. Even with everything dimed there is no hum or noise. And for 5 watts it can get decently loud. At full power with gain & master maxed and the tone stack bypassed it moved some air. I don't think it's going to keep up with a loud drummer and/or a full band on it's own, but I think it'd be just fine to gig if it's a small venue or mic'd up. What it will do with no troubles is be perfect for bedroom playing or would work really well in a studio.

On the build side, this was a really fun project. Total build time was around 2-3 days worth of work and it wasn't overly complex. I think anyone with good soldering skills and the ability to follow directions could successfully build one. There was one minor challenge of soldering wires to the power supply board with the board mounted in the chassis and all the components on as the instructions said. Because of that, when I got to the preamp board I skipped around in the instructions a bit. It said to populate the board first then add lead wires. I ended up adding the leads as I populated the board. I found that easier than trying to maneuver the soldering iron around components. I also did it outside the chassis instead of inside like the instructions said. I didn't mount the board until I was at the point of connecting to the sockets and controls. If someone was wanting to build an amp for the first time I'd for sure recommend this kit as a good place to start.

The only thing I have left to do to make this 100% done is finish off the headshell and mount the amp in it. As it stand now it's fully functioning, playable and sounds pretty darn good.

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You'll be ready for one of my PCB builds now! haha.

Congrats man, nice feeling building tone out of a box of parts isn't it?
 
burger said:
You'll be ready for one of my PCB builds now! haha.

Congrats man, nice feeling building tone out of a box of parts isn't it?
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It was a fun project and I really enjoyed doing it. I was optimistic yet somewhat expecting it to start smoking the first time I turned it on. It was a good feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment when it all worked the first go around.

I wouldn't mind giving one of your PCB builds a shot at some point. As long as it's not overly complex I'm confident I could at least put one together having a parts list and a wiring layout to follow. I can mostly follow a path through a schematic, but can't really translate it in a practical sense. My other pitfall is knowing where the test points are & what they should read. Which one would be the most straightforward to build?
 
MadAsAHatter said:
One thing that I'm super shocked about is it is dead quiet. Even with everything dimed there is no hum or noise. And for 5 watts it can get decently loud.
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I'm not a tech but isn't that the sign of clean build right? And it sounds like you made your own decisions on some of the instructions to make it easier on you so I think that is a great example of thinking outside of the box (in this case, chassis) :D

Congrats :cheers: looks great.
 
Just to cap this thread off I finished up the headshell and mounted the amp. I originally made the shell for the IronHorse amp that fell through. So I repurposed it for the N5X. I didn't really know what to do for a badge then found a metal Cthulhu cutout on Etsy that seemed to be fitting.

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MadAsAHatter said:
It was a fun project and I really enjoyed doing it. I was optimistic yet somewhat expecting it to start smoking the first time I turned it on. It was a good feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment when it all worked the first go around.

I wouldn't mind giving one of your PCB builds a shot at some point. As long as it's not overly complex I'm confident I could at least put one together having a parts list and a wiring layout to follow. I can mostly follow a path through a schematic, but can't really translate it in a practical sense. My other pitfall is knowing where the test points are & what they should read. Which one would be the most straightforward to build?
Click to expand...

Hard to wrong with a 2 x Master vol Cali, plus based on your collection I think you’ll really dig the tones it will deliver.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
Just to cap this thread off I finished up the headshell and mounted the amp. I originally made the shell for the IronHorse amp that fell through. So I repurposed it for the N5X. I didn't really know what to do for a badge then found a metal Cthulhu cutout on Etsy that seemed to be fitting.

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badass dude.
 
burger said:
Hard to wrong with a 2 x Master vol Cali, plus based on your collection I think you’ll really dig the tones it will deliver.
Click to expand...
why am I confused as to who you are? What are these PCB builds that you speak of?
 
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