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The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

#10,361
Mark Sandoval said:
Hello TB and Sushi Box! Long time reader/lurker here, first time poster. I thought I’d might as well start somewhere. I have a Dr. Watson X and a Vampire Slayer and have been enjoying them very much!
I wanted to maybe get your thoughts on what you are planning for the headphone amp. I haven’t really done a ton of research, but I’ve recently seen some info on the Cafe Walter Audio HA-1A. Quite a few people saying it’s one of the best and cleanest headphone amps around. I will probably be needing to get a headphone amp in the future. I know you are working on the Gondwana, that will include a headphone amp, Aux in, and IR capabilities, as well as other features. I guess, if I’m not going to be able to use my power amp and cab, having an awesome quality headphone amp that truly gives you a clean and honest representation of your own signal is what I’d be interested in. Of course, having the switchable amp and cab sims and aux in would be a very nice option as well. Have you heard of the Cafe Walter? I don’t know if they are still being made, I could only find a fb page, but there’s not much updated info. Would your creation, for the headphone amp, be perhaps similar in design to this?
Also… I’m very interested in the up coming Greenhouse. Will this be available in the Hand-wired option?
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Hey there, I'm awake now and can address questions :P

I'm not familiar with the Cafe Walter, I'll have to check it out. I have a prototype board for the headphone amp I'm planning for Gondwana but haven't gotten around to wiring it up and testing it yet. On a standalone headphone amp you're going to have some kind of preamp, and that will have a lot more impact on the character than the headphone driver itself. This will also be the case with Gondwana, there will be a tube preamp and an IR module, and possibly some digital effects (if I get that far), all of which will impact the headphone section.

Greenhouse will get built eventually. Man I'm really bad at time management. If I like it and decide it's a winner then it will probably be held off and released straight as handwired, rather than offer it briefly as SMD before releasing a handwired version.
 
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#10,362
I wanted to make this a separate post as I'm on my phone (in the waiting room during my daughter's piano lesson) and it's easier to organize that way.

It's looking like I may take March off. Getting the handwired versions put together hasn't been smooth sailing like I expected, and I want more time to focus on it better. Initial prototypes for HWUA, HW Slampegg and HW Finally were good and I redesigned the layout just to make them easier to assemble, but I assembled prototypes for HWBE and HWSH this weekend and neither one is working. How did I mess up Space Heater? There's like 12 components!

So my general plan is finish up January batch, get them all shipped out, get organized for February batch, then spend a little time debugging the HW prototypes that aren't working before I start building February batch.

March I want to take time to get organized for handwired stuff. It takes more time to assemble so I want to be able to streamline the process as best as possible so I'm not killing myself trying to do a bunch of HW in one month. This would also give me extra time to make sure I have verified, 100% working designs with no issues so I can release them without having a "whoops" period.

After I have the HW stuff running smoothly I'm planning to completely stop tube preamp R&D for a while and focus all of my R&D time on figuring out the digital module that I'm hoping will eventually become the IR module in Gondwana, and which could also potentially replace the FV-1 in things like Echosaurus and Robot Butterfly. It's a capable platform and especially since digital isn't really my main jam I want to make sure I can focus on it until I really get it right.
 
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#10,366
bassbrad said:
@Sushi Box FX while the move to HW is understandable and even desirable - abandoning SMD designs completely will leave some perhaps many potential SB customers of us behind because of the additional expense, that $60-80 is a make or break pain point that will keep me out of the market.
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Focus on buying all the old stuff you’re interested in on the used market.
 
#10,369
bassbrad said:
@Sushi Box FX while the move to HW is understandable and even desirable - abandoning SMD designs completely will leave some perhaps many potential SB customers of us behind because of the additional expense, that $60-80 is a make or break pain point that will keep me out of the market.
Click to expand...
I understand, and I'm not planning on immediately dropping SMD in favor of HW, I plan to keep both going at the same time to gauge interest. If SMD continues to outsell HW then there would obviously be no reason for me to switch. If some models are more successful in HW but others remain more successful in SMD then it would make sense for me to do a mixed lineup.

Admittedly more complex designs like Gondwana I don't think would ever go handwired, it just doesn't make sense.

jbybj said:
Focus on buying all the old stuff you’re interested in on the used market.
Click to expand...
And I do expect when HW stuff comes out a number of people will dump SMD versions and upgrade, just like some did when I made the switch from mini tubes to X series.
 
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#10,370
jbybj said:
Focus on buying all the old stuff you’re interested in on the used market.
Click to expand...
You have not been playing attention it seems...
IMG_20220121_150507192_HDR.jpg
 
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#10,372
Sushi Box FX said:
I understand, and I'm not planning on immediately dropping SMD in favor of HW, I plan to keep both going at the same time to gauge interest. If SMD continues to outsell HW then there would obviously be no reason for me to switch. If some models are more successful in HW but others remain more successful in SMD then it would make sense for me to do a mixed lineup.

Admittedly more complex designs like Gondwana I don't think would ever go handwired, it just doesn't make sense.


And I do expect when HW stuff comes out a number of people will dump SMD versions and upgrade, just like some did when I made the switch from mini tubes to X series.
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Would you kindly reiterate what the advantages of the HW design are over SMD?
 
#10,375
Freightshaker said:
I'm really interested to see how the Gondwana progresses. I see a big gap in current IR offerings. IR has endless possibilities with no need to be skinny string oriented or overly complicated.

I've skimmed the Boss IR200 manual. I would never remember the multi-function press, hold, jump maneuvers. Load a driver and laptop edit is easier for me.
Click to expand...

That's one reason why I really like how Shift-Line uses manual controls for IR selection on their CabZone X.

shiftline-cabzone-x_600x.jpg

CabZone-X-Scheme-EN.png
 
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#10,377
@Sushi Box FX
I have a finally coming with the January build and plan to use it for my church IEM board. I believe they use phantom power for some mics. Does the finally have protection against phantom power, or do I need to get a phantom blocker for it?
Thanks
 
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#10,378
FronTowardEnemy said:
@Sushi Box FX
I have a finally coming with the January build and plan to use it for my church IEM board. I believe they use phantom power for some mics. Does the finally have protection against phantom power, or do I need to get a phantom blocker for it?
Thanks
Click to expand...
That's a solid question. I don't have anything specifically designed as protection against phantom power, but I don't expect any issue based on the way the circuit is designed. BUT NOBODY PLUG THEIRS INTO PHANTOM POWER YET I'm going to plug in my personal unit and see if phantom power damages it at all. I don't expect it to, but I should be the one taking the risk to find that out, so everyone hold tight.
 
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#10,380
JKos said:
Doesn’t they finally! have a transformer for the DI output?
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It certainly does. And since there is nothing else connected to the DI transformer output besides the XLR jack there should be absolutely no damage sustained by phantom power being applied. Passive (i.e. transformer-based) DI boxes block phantom power because to a DC signal the transformer secondary just looks like a wire completely isolated from the transformer primary and the preamp, so there shouldn't be any way for phantom power to damage the circuit.

But I haven't tested it yet, so my anxiety wants me not to promise anything until I've tested it (which I'm setting up for right now).
 
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