The final part of the trilogy - Phonostages

[northwest]

No probs!

By the way, is that one of those new "analogue DAC's" i keep hearing about?


BR /Mike

Very good!

For those that don't know it's a Nixie clock, because it uses Nixie Tubes
My son bought it for my birthday and I finally had a chance to put it all together last month. The missus loves it so at least one brownie point, it tells the date and has an alarm function too. Bought all the bits from http://www.pvelectronics.co.uk/index.php but the tubes keep going up in price as they are becoming scarce.

[WOStantonCS100]

... I am only going to use valves, I like valves...

I'm not sure I'd call myself a "purist"; but, one of the things that really drew me to the Bottlehead was the layout. It's all point-to-point hand-wiring with no IC's, no PCB's, (unless the upgrade is installed), no op-amps, nothing but a handful of wire, caps, resistors, diodes, a couple of valves, a fuse and a tranny.

In progress:



Finished (top):



Finished (underneath) from their website:



I looked at the Audio Note L3 kit, as well; but, the PCB's put me off a bit (though I like the layout). It probably sounds excellent, also. I can't confirm.

[jostber]

The Hagerman Cornet is also an option for a phonostage kit that sounds great:

http://www.hagtech.com/cornet2.html

[WOStantonCS100]

The Hagerman Cornet is also an option for a phonostage kit that sounds great...

That's the other one I was trying to think of. I've heard plenty of good things about this one, too. If my eyes don't deceive me, I do like the idea of a mono switch.

Side Note: My replacement valves arrived today. I should have done that a long time ago. I knew better; but, was apparently just being lazy. These puppies are dang near silent, even with the input of my digital recorder cranked to 12dB past unity gain (meters don't budge). Mmmmm.... I didn't realize how much the old tubes were holding it back. I do now.