Buffer recommendations?

[HighFidelityGuy]

I want to try using a buffer in my system as I think the inherant impedance miss-match issues caused by my passive attenuator are holding back the performance of the rest of my system. I'd love to buy a Wyred 4 Sound STP SE Preamp instead but I don't have £1600 laying around, so I think a buffer is the next best thing. I definitely don't want to spend any more than £500 and I'd rather not spend more than £350 if possible.

I've thought about building a diy Pass B1 or the symetrical power supplied version of this but that's quite a lot of work and I don't have much spare time. I think the FirstWatt B1 is quite pricey. There's the Burson Buffer SE which I've been recommended but that has 6dB of gain which I don't really need. There's also the Tubalizer available form autocostruire.com but I've read online that quite a few people have had problems with this. Then there are all the tube buffers on ebay from the far east. They scare me.

So at the moment the Burson seems the best bet but I thought I'd ask here if anyone knows of any other good but reasonably priced buffers available in the UK? I preferably want one with as little gain as possible.

Cheers. :)

[Clive]

I have a Burson Buffer sitting here. It's one of the original ones, I think the new ones have a sexier case. I've found it pretty transparent, far more so than a standard MF X10D (though Dave has modded his with good results).

I wasn't really looking to sell it, it's one of those boxes I wanted to keep in case I want to use it again one day. I now have an active preamp so the Burson is laid up. You're welcome to try the Burson. Are you ever around south Manchester? I expect postage would be a tenner with insurance, possibly more.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

i have the bits on the way to mod my x10d off the back of daves recommendation ... i paid next to nothing for mine and the ncie chap at rock grotto did my the full set of mods inc purple led and cermic valve bases for £50 ... there are some other valves to try as well but all in you could get that lot set up for well less than £200 and if its as good as what dave says it might be a winner?

[HighFidelityGuy]

Hi Clive, thanks for the offer, that's very good of you. :cool:
I do occasionally visit that area, usually when my wife wants new handbags and/or shoes from the Trafford Centre. :doh: So that's a possibility that I'll keep in mind. I've also just discovered that a dealer near me should have Burson gear available, so I'm going to ask if I can borrow a demo unit. I'll get back to you. :)

[Ali Tait]

You could ask Nick to build you something. Would be far better for the money than anything commercial at the same price IMHO.

[HighFidelityGuy]

i have the bits on the way to mod my x10d off the back of daves recommendation ... i paid next to nothing for mine and the ncie chap at rock grotto did my the full set of mods inc purple led and cermic valve bases for £50 ... there are some other valves to try as well but all in you could get that lot set up for well less than £200 and if its as good as what dave says it might be a winner?

Oops, I missed this early, sorry. Thanks for the suggestion Hamish, I'll add that to my list of options.


You could ask Nick to build you something. Would be far better for the money than anything commercial at the same price IMHO.

Thanks Ali, that's an interesting idea. I hadn't thought of commisioning someone to make one. :hmm:I'll send him a PM. :)

EDIT: Doh :doh:, I had Alex Nikitin in my head when you said nick. Which Nick do you mean? Cheers.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Oops, I missed this early, sorry. Thanks for the suggestion Hamish, I'll add that to my list of options.



Thanks Ali, that's an interesting idea. I hadn't thought of commisioning someone to make one. :hmm:I'll send him a PM. :)

EDIT: Doh :doh:, I had Alex Nikitin in my head when you said nick. Which Nick do you mean? Cheers.

no worries ... i have a few experiments to do with it when i have finished ... i want to see how it sounds in between my majik and active speakers ... not that i am going to take the pre out the equations, im just intrigued (it sounds whacky in its original state)
and then i want to see how it effects the output of the caiman into the the hlly90 as my valve pre made that sound good... if you havent got anything sorted by then, your welcome to a loan ...
of coure you have to take into account that you will be risking something that i have modified... with my soldering skills ... .... .... :eyebrows::lol:

[Reid Malenfant]

Hi Dave, if you are interested you can have a couple of buffers that i designed & built quite a while ago ;) I very much doubt that i'll ever get to use them all, i built loads to use in an active crossover that i never got round to :doh:

They are high quality sound wise, single ended class A design that'll drive a 500 ohm load with no difficulty :eyebrows: The thing is you'd need a power supply & some heatsinking, i can probably arrange the heatsinking though, if i lower the quiescent current it won't need to be significant.

So you'd need a PSU & a case, let me know if you are interested. Right now they aren't configured, IE they could be used in an inverting or non inverting configuration & no gain is set. They are quite happy running unity gain.

I'm using 6 of them in my active crossovers feeding my main speakers & they have been operating perfectly for well over 6 years every day :)

Up to you fella, the populated boards are free if you'd like a pair... I'm making this offer to you, so don't everyone jump on the bandwagon :lol:

[HighFidelityGuy]

EDIT: Doh :doh:, I had Alex Nikitin in my head when you said nick. Which Nick do you mean? Cheers.

Scrap that, I did some digging and found out it's Nick Gorham aka Lurcher. :)

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Eh mark, you haven't got an active crossover spare unused build have you? :)

[Reid Malenfant]

Eh mark, you haven't got an active crossover spare unused build have you? :)
I have a few active crossovers here that admittedly aren't being used right now, though 2 of them will be very shortly i hope :eyebrows: They are all commercial units though - Behringer.

Do you want to play with one? :lolsign:

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Oh yeah, I forgot you were gonna give the behringers a go... Yeah, that's my plan too with a behringer 2130

[HighFidelityGuy]

Hi Dave, if you are interested you can have a couple of buffers that i designed & built quite a while ago ;) I very much doubt that i'll ever get to use them all, i built loads to use in an active crossover that i never got round to :doh:

They are high quality sound wise, single ended class A design that'll drive a 500 ohm load with no difficulty :eyebrows: The thing is you'd need a power supply & some heatsinking, i can probably arrange the heatsinking though, if i lower the quiescent current it won't need to be significant.

So you'd need a PSU & a case, let me know if you are interested. Right now they aren't configured, IE they could be used in an inverting or non inverting configuration & no gain is set. They are quite happy running unity gain.

I'm using 6 of them in my active crossovers feeding my main speakers & they have been operating perfectly for well over 6 years every day :)

Up to you fella, the populated boards are free if you'd like a pair... I'm making this offer to you, so don't everyone jump on the bandwagon :lol:

Wow, thanks Mark, that's so generous of you. :eek:
I'll send you a PM in a bit. :cheers:

[Reid Malenfant]

If you want to borrow a DCX2496 let me know, that's the one that won't be used for a while ;)

Actually i guess you'd say it was new, i only plugged it in to check it worked :eyebrows:

The thing is it wouldn't be ideal though as you really need to run a fixed input signal into it to make full use of all 24 bits of the thing itself. Lower volume would mean less bit depth & an increase in distortion & a raised noise floor in relation to full volume.

I was going to make a 6 channel volume control using relays to give 1.5Db steps & this would need to be used downstream of the crossover. That would allow me to stick a fixed sinal into it to get the best quality :)

[Reid Malenfant]

Wow, thanks Mark, that's so generous of you. :eek:
I'll send you a PM in a bit. :cheers:
Ah, a sensible man :eyebrows:

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Cheers for the offer mark!
I guess I would need a pre amp of some sort to go after the crossover ... Is that how it would work in a pa set up?
Although if I was going to do that I might as well go the cheaper route and just get the 2130 ... Hmm... Any other way around it?

[Ali Tait]

Scrap that, I did some digging and found out it's Nick Gorham aka Lurcher. :)

Correct! :)