Sold: Bottlehead SEX 3.0 w/C4S and stupid upgrades

I've enjoyed this amp, but I'm paring down to move and only keeping my ESX900 + Ragnarok 2. I did the standard build for this amp and liked it, then added an ALPS pot, which had better channel balance but made the amp sound a little dead compared to stock, so I switched it out for a PEC carbon pot, which is great. Then I did the C4S upgrade and replaced the output coupling caps with Jupiter copper foil and the interstage caps with Jantzen Superior. Yes, that's $350 worth of caps/pot on a $628 amp, yes it sounds better, but probably a bad price/performance ratio. The amp sounds good, I get a bit of hum in the ESX900's but never had any on my ZMFs, my speakers are 90db efficient and have 0 hum with the volume maxed out, which would be deafening. I have the parts to build a 1/4 jack pad for sensitive low impedance headphones but never got around to putting it together, happy to include that stuff for the buyer. I have a handful of extra tubes to include as well. I'm asking $625 net to me here for friends/known contributors and will be posting tomorrow on head-fi for more. I bought some expanding foam packing materials and will box it securely, but it's probably best if you know your way around a soldering iron just in case, or want to pull the stupid expensive caps and sell them.

 

Those are some big caps compared to stock. Seems like a good price for a nice amp, I use mine almost every day. Is this wired for 4 or 8 ohm output?

 

Good question, wired for 4ohm, thanks

 

I have a S3X amp with C4S and it is a fantastic amp. It’s like SW51 but with excellent bass. I use mine with HD6XX and I love it.
This is a steal of a deal and somebody should act fast.

 

Is this better than crack? Is it just for speakers ? Sorry for dumb questions but interested.

 

It's for headphones and speakers, speakers auto mute when headphones are plugged in. I've never heard crack, so can't compare. I would guess it's more different than better, more power, more complicated circuit, different topology, more versatile.

 

@Merrick is first in line

 

Sold @shotgunshane @jexby please close this thread. Thank you!