nilebodgers

Lights Out is still just about my favourite song of all time. Sad day, another part of my teenage years gone.

The way those strings leave the nut at an angle offends my engineer's eye, it's such bad design on all levels.

I’ve used a few of the Neutriks. They are a decent alternative if you don’t have the switchcrafts to hand, but the switchcrafts are a bit better. Both are light years more durable and reliable than the cheapy no-brand products.

Wow - my first bass back in the 70s. I don't remember much about it to be honest.

Bought some Jazz bass pickups off Tony. Super communications and great delivery with bulletproof packaging. V Good.

Look for Switchcraft #11 mono jack. Lots of the usual guitar parts suppliers stock them.

Good link, I liked that article. The same author has another good article on audio op-amps.

A further take on that is to have a pair of back-to-back power diodes (1N400x or similar) in parallel with the resistor and cap. They only conduct if there is a higher ground potential difference and then present a low impedance path. I have seen this in some di box designs and it works well. The resistor is usually a higher value though, in the range 47 to 100 ohms usually.

Be interesting to know how you get on with that headphone amp design, the opa134 doesn’t really have the capability to drive low impedance phones (32 ohms and below) to high levels.

The NC500MP OEM and NC502 MP OEM look interesting as integrated modules (having a separate psu like the others is a step backward IMO). A quick google didn't reveal any street prices though.

That's an unmissable warning! The Icepower modules are a fantastic thing that solve all the issues with SMPS and Class D in one hit for an amateur designer. The only snag is the difficulty of getting ones with known provenance at a sensible price given how much fakery goes on.

Yes, I was.a pro elec engineer and there is no way I’d go anywhere near an amateur designed SMPS, there are an large number of failure modes and non-obvious design considerations that can be traps for the unwary. Ditto with amateur class-d power amps.

Attached pic is a simulation of the freq curves for the high mid control of a Little Mark II. Total range is +/-15dB at approx 800Hz and the different colours correspond to control rotation in 11 equal steps (flat centre is 12 o'clock). You can see the effect at other frequencies either side of the centre freq. Q is about 1.2 for the 2 mid controls.

I have seen marks like that on the steel pole pieces from a ceramic magnet pickup. I have a pair of Mim jazz ceramic pickups circa 2008 in my shed, I’ll have a look. None of the Alnico pickups I have seen look like that.