I was looking to put together a home stereo system for my own use. I wanted to play internet radio, popular streaming apps like Spotify, music stored in a hard disk, directly play from my phone and PC.
So the solution started to look like a Raspberry-PI with a DAC (an ADC chip for real buttons and knobs if I felt ambitious), a power amplifier board (Class D, el-cheapo, amazon types), a good linear power supply (that I would put together), and two speakers.
I have a friend who an audiophile. I was discussing the plan with him. He had many inputs which helped me select the pieces in the puzzle until came the speakers. He gave me an in-depth overview of speaker-positioning, housing, distance from the wall, and many other aspects that impact the final output. All was going well and I was dreaming up the aluminium casings I would get machined to put the pieces inside, the displays I would add to the mix to add some sizzle and so on... until everything went the other way.
All of a sudden, out of the blue he shocked me by asking why I didn't consider rolling my own Class A power amp. He went on to say that if I succeded I would realize what these modern Class AB, Class D amps are doing to our ears and so on. I was scared and pumped at the same time.
Back to the present and it is indeed very tense.
Yes, I am working on it and this post and hopefully many more to come will be an honest testament of what I imagine today to be a grand disaster.
