A continuing long read about my long journey and long search to find long term audio happiness…
Where we left off in Part 1:
A few days pass and nothing, I email again and still nothing! Before writing this off something tells me to check my spam. Bingo! There are the responses! “Hi, yes I do currently build custom headphone amps. Give me a call.”…
Answering the (figurative and literal) Call
It is a spring afternoon in early April and I am patiently waiting for my midday meetings to wrap up. As they do I grab my phone and pluck in the phone number from the amp builder’s site then hit dial. A few rings later a lightly rusted but jolly voice picks up and says, “Hello, Matt from ToolShed amps!” I introduce myself, inform him I am the one who emailed asking about headphone amps, and off we go.
To say we hit it off is an understatement. Our 2 hour conversation went by in what seemed like half the time it took for a single 30 minute work meeting to pass. We reviewed use cases, connection types, size restrictions, layout needs, listening behaviors, sound preferences, music tastes, and ended with chatting about the live concerts we had lined up for the spring and summer. Every subject was tied to a batch of ramblings from Matt as he worked specs out in real time. “Ok, so your space is only this big, that means we can do it these few ways. Oh but for volume and layout you would need it done a certain way, so that eliminates those tubes and brings us to only these 2 ways.” Similar to my own outline process he used my more general big asks to consider all reasonable avenues. Then he leveraged the nitty gritty details and needs to filter out not only what was viable but what would be best for my situation. For every question I tossed at Matt he not only had an answer but a experience driven explanation to back it.
As we wrapped up Matt left me with the small assignment to send him some specs from my DAC and headphones, all of which I sent a day or so later. He followed up with a call to confirm that not only does he also have a pair of LCD-2 Pre-Fazors but this all would perfectly match what he had in mind.
His idea? A SET amp defined by venerable 2A3 DHT power tubes, impressively linear C3g German postal driver tubes, strong but velvety quiet GZ34 rectification, and legendary Noguchi transformers with Hitachi’s OG FINEMET® nanocrystalline cores. An amp with traditional groundings, but built for my modern appointments and needs.
The Wait Begins
At this tier and money expenditure it always feels like a leap of faith to commit to something so substantial, but for the first time in this process I felt motivated to hop right in. Conversations with Matt felt like speaking to an old friend. Outside of just some matching equipment, our musical tastes had a lot of overlap and more importantly how we like our music portrayed seem to match as well. It felt like he easily understood and took to heart the vision I was trying to describe. An invoice was sent, deposits were placed, and the wait began.
The best thing to do in these situations is to try to forget about your purchase or time will slow to a crawl. To be honest, this was kind of hard to do with a ToolShed build. While there were periods of radio silence, Matt would keep me up to date on nearly all aspects. “Transformer order placed. Transformer order confirmed started. Transformer Order finished. Transformer order shipped. Transformer order arrived.” Not all updates were major as the first 6 months were mostly parts prep as my slot moved up in queue. The most significant update did come during this period though. Matt called me midday out of the blue which was a bit odd and I hoped it wasn’t bad news. For once it was the opposite. Previously we spoke about a specific TKD attenuator that is used in Lamm amps, but like all legendary components it has not been made in years. Well… through a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend Matt found out how to obtain one but there was a catch. The TKD control would not fit the current format and it would need a different chassis. Back to the drawing board one last time. After mocking things up and eking out every inch of usable space, a new two chassis design was born. A design that not only accommodates the TKD but allowed for a few other welcome upgrades.
From here most inquiries were pretty small or seeking my preferences. “Hey would you like this wood slab on the left or right of the chassis? What color power indicator would you like? How nice do these solder joints look.” Progress came in batches but were consistent and I could be convinced Matt had ESP (or just went slightly crazy from marathon aluminum plate polish sessions). If I ever thought to myself that I hadn’t heard anything in a while I would almost always get a text that day with an update and an abundance of progress pics to boot. Almost all of the pictures in this article are straight from Matt’s progress updates. To be honest, there are so many pics that I could only feature a fraction of them within the article’s collages and I needed to make a separate gallery below.
I want to stress how refreshing this all is. In this industry due dates often get pushed back and back and back and back. A Black Friday order “promised” to be shipped within 3-4 weeks arrives in late May only after weeks of hounding. Make no mistake, this build DID take longer than the original estimate. Delayed parts and scope changes did not help but every step of the way Matt kept me updated and informed. Any message I sent him was answered quickly, thoroughly, and often leading to a more friendly conversation. He was always happy to share his processes and encouraged me to share any pics he sent me. Matt builds as much as he can from scratch, all the way down to the turret and printed circuit boards. He is very proud of his work, and it shows. And to be extremely honest, he should be. Matt is one “groovy“ guy!
Are We There Yet?!?
So here I sit. Few if any decisions are left to be made, the bare skeleton chassis are awaiting their electronic guts, and the circuits will require some fine tuning before it is all wrapped up and sent my way. We are in the final mile, the last 5-10% of the build. It’s like being a kid again, sitting in the foldout backseat of the family station wagon on your way to vacation. You pack into the car and embark. Juiced up on anticipation the first few hours fly and despite being slowed by patches of traffic your spirits are high. But the more time passes the more antsy you get and no amount of naps or license plate counting will help. You know you’re close, it is palpable, but you just don’t know how much longer.
Are we there yet?…
This is where I am at the time of writing. That final mile. It feels so close, yet so far. I resist the urge to send daily messages to Matt, bugging him until it is finally done. But just like my childhood self climbing out of that station wagon as we arrive at the vacation house, I hope the destination is so good it makes me forget the long road that came before it.
To Be Continued in Part 3
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All below photos were provided by Matt Formanek as part of the ToolShed Amps commissioned build process.
Inching across the audio landscape in search of the coveted “Endless Groove”.