Black Hole Software Vu Meter
I purchased this set to construct a portable battery operated VU meter panel for DSLR video work. Since this is designed to operate from the speaker outputs of an audio power amplifier, a second amplifier board was needed in order to monitor the line output of a field mixer. I added the DROK® TDA7297 Mini Digital Amplifier (also available here on Amazon) to drive the meter board. The combination works very well, and they both use 12 volt power. There is no documentation with either board, but the input, output, and power terminals are clearly marked.
Black Hole Software Vu Meter Download
The output to the meters is via the supplied flat cable with connectors on both ends. You cut the cable in two to have one for each meter. However, this results in one cable being the mirror image of the other, so the colors are reversed with. Straightforward to put together and worked the first time without any issues! The hardest part of the build is getting the LED arrays to slide into the small PCB holes. It is a little easier to do if you trim the legs down to 2/3-1/2 length of orig. The only thing I'd like to know is the menu navigation.
How long to hold down what buttons to do which effect is it a little hard and the narrations on the LEDs isn't the easiest to read off the bat. Other than this it's a great kit. Included a spare LED module and spare screws/anchors for the PCBs to secure to one another if you lose one or two. I'm new to tubes, and did a lot of research into entry-level amps. I wanted a relatively small, good looking amp to sit out in my living room and play records or an iPod. I chose this one because of the Gemtunes, it has one of the higher wattage outputs (13/channel) and I wanted it to get decently loud. It only has one input, so I hooked that up to a phono preamp with an aux input for the iPod, and got KEF Q100 bookshelf speakers.
Free Vu Meters
The amp itself is very well constructed, looks quite high end, with nice design touches. Very heavy, gives the impression of quality. Easy to set up as you can't really get the tubes wrong. The tubes look awesome and do indeed glow when the thing is on, and they get warm so you'll want plenty of room around them.
I'm letting the tubes burn in, but even.