Alright, so updates... I have both up on the wall, unfinished, to check out the sound, and now to work on the sources I'll be using.
I listened to them for a couple of days with one of Radioshack amps that I have, with the stock preamp intact. I only used it for music for those days, from my phone, and it sounded decent. The tone controls have no center, nor are they marked, so it was hard to try and find a good point, and I seemed to be changing them with every song.
Then I plugged the rcas into my tv's output (I just put it up on the wall, still need to fish cable/power/speaker wires through the wall.) and it sounded pretty friggin bad. Everything sound hollow or something, kind of muffled, and just..off. I only tried one DVD (only source I have, since theres no cable on that side of the room right now) so I wasn't sure why it sounded so bad, and didn't really have the time to mess with it.
I had another amp that was sitting around, because I had replaced the preamp with a single pot, pulled from the preamp board itself, and the channels were all screwed up. The right only came in at full volume, and the whole thing was really quiet. I had put it aside for a while. I even had a new pot that i bought a few months ago at Radioshack and never put in. So I swapped out the pots for the hell of it, and sure enough it sound freaking wonderful now. No tone controls to deal with, no crappy preamp to mess stuff up.
I hooked them back up and was very pleased with the sound. I even tried the tv and it sounded flawless. Of course, I am using a different board/transformer/etc, so it may have just been a problem with the board. Now that that one is out of commission, I'll be taking out that one's preamp and whatnot.
I need to find some sort of rta software. I only have a ****ty onboard mic, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some sort of measurement in-room.
This is how it sits right now: Bad pot and new pot all hanging off, still need to mount the new one, the aluminum back wall of the amp is gone. Right now I have the heatsink screwed on, with a hot glue support. It's only temporary, while I tap some new holes, although I might just cut down the aluminum back plate.
I've been thinking about how to enclose the amp, and I remembered seeing
this a while ago, and I figured I would mimick it.
This is the frame jig I cut out. I think I might either do a natural finish wood in between painted mdf to match the speakers, or maybe continue with the stainless steel. Not sure atm.
Also, you may notice the strange cut marks on the inside of the ring. That would be where the upcut bit grabbed the piece and dragged my finger into the bit. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif The weird thing was that the adjacent finger hurt much more than the one that was actually injured.
I'll spare you the gore, but I've dubbed it the Zombie Finger. It just took a little chunk out, but it looks more dramatic because it took some of the nail too. It's actually my first real injury via powertools. I've decided I'm definitely going to change the way I work with small/thin pieces.