Norge 1000's Modded Avatar Lands!

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here in bangalore, i have seen amplifier cases for sale. the build quality is not that good. but come with lot lot of options for knobs and connectors. even one model i saw was with brushed metal front plate which was quite eye catching. the case was quoted at 650.
 
Mostly such cases are par metal which are powder coated with thin metal front plate with volume balance, bass treble written on it a plastic knobs although the one you are mentioning sounds nice. Do you have any pictures. If this one is OK will purchase a few for a few STK and discrete amplifier boards that are awaiting a home for 10 long years.
 
i dont have any pictures. how much metal thinkness and what kind of coating do you recommend while selecting such enclosures? i can search for them in local market.
 
Ideal ones are those of aluminum but they are not available. Parmetal with a thickness of 1.5 to 2mm is OK as they are stiffer than aluminum which should be at lest 3 mm. A 5mm brushed aluminum front plate should be the bare minimum so you can drill broader holes for volume knobs, pot fixing and /or backlighting. For lettering the best method is laser etching however I have come against no one with such a facility nearby.
 
I got the "DEXA" box last week from SP rd in Bangalore. This was to house my MyRef which was in a "breadboard" state for more than a year. Finally bit the bullet and decided to do the "most easily available route". The box as such is made of parmetal (I think) the base and front and back are slightly more than
2mm thick while the side and top is of about 1mm. I found the base quite rigid
as I mounted my Miracle toroid on it and it was holding quite well even if I lifted it from the opposite side. The front and back had a lot of holes for pots and so on (see pics). The additional holes that I needed on the base I could easily drill.

I would now like to enclose this appropriately - maybe wood, maybe corian....let me see what I can scrounge around..... The cost - 325 + 25(for the hardware including spacers, feet, nuts, bolts and so on). There is a standard faceplate available for 50 which has the usual HI_FI Stereo Amplifier stuff...I did not take it.

On the whole for DIY I think this is a good one for putting your stuff together and till you get the burnished/anodised professional looking stuff, will house your creation together...
 
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The best thing to do is a make a wooden front plate then varnish it. You can add a pot in the centre.
 
@soundnovice

You were telling of a cabinet with aluminum front panels and parmetal body. What about that.
 
gopi has bought only enclosure with default front panel i guess. the same guy sells only front panel which is in silver aluminum finish which i have seen (it may be the one that gopi has referred it as standard face plate). gopi has to confirm. i have seen both black and silver colored front plates, but the silver one looked nice
 
soundnovice said:
gopi has bought only enclosure with default front panel i guess. the same guy sells only front panel which is in silver aluminum finish which i have seen (it may be the one that gopi has referred it as standard face plate). gopi has to confirm. i have seen both black and silver colored front plates, but the silver one looked nice
Click to expand...

The front panel is customisable. it is very thin material. I did not check whether it is aluminium or otherwise. He offered to cut it as required. I was not interested in this so did not explore further. Yes he has both black and silver.

This is a very basic housing. Of course very functional.
 
4mm should be the minimum thickness of the front plate, I prefer 8 -10 mm so we can countersink the volume knob, headphone socket etc.
 
possible push to next level ...
--> premium regulator circuitry [mini reg from diYA]
--->good film 0.1ufd for killing noise on supply rails
--> usage of russian PIO caps in input stages [VFM]
----> light speed attenuator upgrade ...
 
Next change will be to change the rectifiers and addition of snubber caps. Followed by a low noise supply to preamps. Also a direct switch to bypass the tone controls and change of capacitors along the signal path by polypropylene caps. Will have to wait for my dremel to arrive.
 
Final mod to the front panel. Matching all aluminum volume knobs.

e1c1cc19_2.jpeg
 
Audiodoc is there a possibility to bypass the volume, pre-amp sections and directly feed External preamp input to the norge power amp section alone ??


Audiodoc said:
The final upgrade has been done to complete this project for the time being. 4 x Nichicon 10000 MFD, 50V capacitors.

Instant low end grunt could be felt. These replace (previously as 'relapse' typo error) the 4 x 6400 Samwha capacitors.

1436bc6c_1.jpeg
Click to expand...
 
vin_eme said:
Audiodoc is there a possibility to bypass the volume, pre-amp sections and directly feed External preamp input to the norge power amp section alone ??
Click to expand...

Hi Vincent,
You can totally remove preamp section of Norge and efreplace it with SSP/B1 or similar preamps.FM Murli N has successfully done this on few Norge amps.This mode greatly improves SQ.
Norge with SSP
Norge with B1

Regards,
Sachin
 
Yes, you can easily do it. The Norge has three input RCAs.

You just have the remove the preamplifier output and connect the same cable to one of the RCAs after removing the default connection. My Norge works with 4 configurations.

1. Default Norge preamplifier with remote controlled pot and upgraded opamps.
2. Inbuilt DIY opa627 preamplifier can be swapped with 1 using a toggle switch.
3. External preamplifier (a) DIY Pass B1 (b) DIY Pass BOZ
4. No preamplifier, direct input from ODAC, DIY burr brown DAC, DIY Quad Wolfson DAC.

So I have lots of combinations.
 
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