6 Years of Trial, Error and Pulling Hair Out!

[Primalsea]

Your best sticking to chopping boards made of beechwoods as they will suit your disposition.

[Beechwoods]

Don't ply with me...



I'll get my coat

[Mike]

Paul,

When you removed the volume pot from the WD88 did you replace it with fixed resistors, or just wire the phono sockets directly onto the I/P board?

Cheers...

[Primalsea]

I just wired the phono sockets (1 pair) direct to the inputs of the amp's circuit.

If you want a little less gain you could put in a fixed attenuator but I never been satified with the resultant sound. Might be a better option to increase the feedback by increase the value of the feedback shunt resistors. If you do this you might want to give the amp a through test to make sure its stable.

I find I have way too much gain and might try increasing the feedback myself.

[Mike]

Yeah, I kind of thought the sensitivity might be OTT if I just wire the sockets directly onto the I/P board.

Just doing a bit of chin rubbing over adding a pre and converting the '88' into a straight power amp. I've no need for two volume controls.


Cheers...

[Primalsea]

I can recommend the Pre3 which is what I have although there are many other good preamps out there. If you plan to go for a passive unit don't bother as this is what you already have inside the WD88, (unless its a transformer based passive).

[Mike]

I'd like a Pre3 but the scratch build DIY bug has bitten hard.

I need an active pre though or I'll never get this 'ere Troughline up and running, thats why I'm going gog eyed through trolling t'internet for schematics n stuff. The '88' will be an organ donor with respect to it's relay board coz I like it! The volume pot, selector switch, and knobs will go into the pre also, hence the question earlier.

Cheers...

[Gromit]

Very nice Paul - I'm a huge fan of the WAD/WD stuff and may end up owning some of their wares some time in the future (I'm currently borrowing a mate's KaT34 which sounds marvellous). I did once have a hot-rodded KEL84 which, into the AN speakers I had at the time, was possibly the most musically explicit amplifier I've ever owned - a truly wonderful little thing.

You mention Robert Sayle's - I'm presuming you're from Cambridge (or thereabouts?).

[Primalsea]

Is it just me or do others not get email notifications about posts sometimes?? I only noticed these replies cos I happened to look at the AOS web site.

Mike, Many others will disagree with me but if you want a no gain active preamp you cant go too wrong with putting an opamp buffer either side of a volume pot. You can also go with Cathode Followers instead of opamps but have the agro of the extra complexity. However theres a fine line between ambition and stupidity with us DIY'ers (if I may say so myself) so of course the more complex option is the one to go for!!

Richard, yep I live near Cambridge but I didn't know Robert Sayle was a Cambridge company I throught they were everywhere. I also have a Kel84 which a friend is trying to see if he likes it. To be honest its a great amp and the WD88 while a super amp wasn't as big an upgrade as I thought it would be. It even drove my Martin Logans with their 1 ohm load at high freqs.

[Mike]

Is it just me or do others not get email notifications about posts sometimes??

I only get notifications if I 'subscribe' to the thread. But I can't remember the last time I did that so I've not noticed a problem TBH.