Old Man's Eyes

This winter, I have been thinking a lot about audio electronics, learning on the internet, and planning a few projects. Unfortunately, that isn't good subject matter for this blog. Let's face it, my friends may enjoy the music reproduced when the project is finished, but talking about balanced .vs. single ended inputs and signal to noise ratios may bring a glazed look from many.

This weekend, I started "populating" the board of a new preamp project and came up with one idea worth sharing. If you are going to play with building electronics, do it now before you eyes become "old man's eyes". Basically, at the same time as your eyes are getting worse, the electronic components are getting smaller. Thank goodness for magnifying glasses.

Here is what I mean. Below is a photo of an SMD resistor. There are nearly 100 of these to be mounted on the two small circuit boards that make up my current project. These resistors are relatively large. There are some optional resistors on the board that are only abou 1/3 the size.


The resistors are large when compared to the transistors. This little transistor powers the LED that displays volume level and input channel. Happily, there are only 2 of these to solder in place.


I'm not sure how long this project will take, but I'm hoping the results will improve the sound and I can invite you to hear the results without being bored by too many details.