Bride of Zen

After a failure of my CJ preamp, I was in the mindset to build a good sounding Solid State preamp. Searching the web I came across your site and was immediatley hooked. My first true DIY amp/preamp project was the Bride of Zen. Before I proceed I must thank everyone involved in making this available, especially you Mr. Pass. The chassis of the preamp was built from scrap 0.25" and 0.125" aluminum plate. The face plate and knobs were made out of a small piece of African Cookabera found at a local woodshop. All materials were worked using my table saw and a fine carbide tipped blade. For those that are considering this be careful and wear long sleeves and saftey glasses. The circuitry has been through three revisions. The first being PtoP using all standard parts as specified in the original article. The sound was incredible. I was actually in the design stages of another set of speakers when I undertook this project. Needles to say I haven't touched the idea since. The second revamp was I added higher grade caps and resistors. I finally mastered Printed Circuit Boards and came up with the third version as you see here. In this version I used HexFred Diodes in the PS, and BlackgateN's for the input decoupling. The BOZ led to many more enjoyable adventures. Regards Scott Gregory