Glasshouse 300BSE Integrated home build
When we opened the doors of Hi-Fi Collective Ltd (HFC) over 16 years ago, our original intention was to design and sell valve and speaker kits. However, we quickly came to realise that there was a shortfall of component retailers so we focused on that aspect of the business. However, this didn't stop us from finishing our Glasshouse 300B single-ended kit as initially planned. Having cut my teeth working for Hi-Fi World magazine's kit company, World Audio Design (WAD). Andy Grove, Audio Note's esteemed designer, scribbled down the circuit design and transformer design and I set to work on the product design.
Although I love devising kits, it is a lot of work. Finding competent metal bashers and finishers was a task in itself, having used a fair few in the WAD days. However, the design came out really well and reasonably quickly it went to market. We sold around 40 kits before stopping production when it became apparent there was a shift in the market. Lots of people were buying in the cheap Chinese imports and upgrading the parts and why not. This is where HFC stepped in, selling all the bits and bobs people needed to upgrade.
The Glasshouse 300BSE was a stereo single-ended amplifier available in a power amp or integrated amp format. It was valve rectified and used a pentode as the first stage so it was a little different from the norm. Although we no longer sell the kit all the data is still on the site, click https://www.hificollective.co.uk/kits/glasshouse-kits/glasshouse-300b.html to read more.
The great thing about providing all this information for free is that people use it to make their own creations as has our valued customer, Selçuk Cüneyt Altınkaya from Turkey. He has very kindly provided some pictures of his fabulous work. Effectively he has used the circuit design but made his own layout of the amplifier and what a brilliant job he has done too.
You can see from the picture that Selçuk Cüneyt Altınkaya has used Lundahl transformers for his choke, front left and the 2 output transformers on the right.
A bird's eye view of the layout.
Beautifully crafted chassis work.
Here you can see Selçuk Cüneyt Altınkaya has used WBT speaker and RCA sockets. Also, I see some Mundorf silver/gold wire being used for the transformer connections.
He has cleverly used a bespoke Teflon board and tag strips to mount a collection of Kiwame, Mills, and Takman resistors together with diodes and an array of Mundorf silver/gold wire and Neotech UP-OCC wire.
Totally hardwire signal circuitry, I see CMC valve bases in use with Audio Note non-magnetic 2W resistors and their marvellous copper foil capacitors and the new Kaisei Electrolytics from Audio Note too. Clearly a fan of the UK powerhouse.
Here we see the mains transformer and the filtered IEC socket, loving the use of the flat copper braid for the chassis earth connection.
It is brilliant to see Selçuk Cüneyt Altınkaya's amazing work. I am incredibly impressed and proud to see that the circuit of our 300BSE amplifier is still living strong and being picked up and used some 16 years after it's creation.
If you have any projects you wish to share then please do contact us at info@hificollective.co.uk
Happy DIYing, Nick Lucas