Oh I quite liked brum brigade.
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The Valve System Pt 4 - Finally its back together again...
Firstly apologies, this was written up as I was listening so you'll have to forgive the grammar and typo's.
Things have changed, markedly since I last wrote about the Paradise phonostage. My deck has changed from a Garrard 301 to a Garrard 401, alongside
a newer tonearm a SME v-12 v's a SME3012, a new plinth a Moldovan birchply construction v's a Martin Bastin MaxPlanck plinth which de-couples the Garrard's
motor. The entire valve system used to run through a cheap, slightly modified 6-gang extension straight into the house power supply. I've now managed
to remove this. The power supply into Pre and Power amp are now fed by a PS Audio P10, the Garrard 401 no longer uses a tachometer to control platter speed
due to the fact it's very very stable at 33.3rpm after several minutes usage, so the P10 powers it. The power leads into all the components of the valve
system have been slightly modified in that all the plugs have been replaced with Furutech and I'm now running Belden cabling. Additional attempts have been made
to limit Tx vibration getting into the 401 with the pre and power amp now sitting on Bamboo/Sorbothane isolation platforms and the 401 having it's own Townshend
isolation pods. The Paradise phonostage underwent a repair and had the following upgrades :-
* Calvin boards getting hard mounted.
* Full RCA to PCB silver rewire
* New gold plated MS HD plugs for each unit.
* New WBT silver RCA's.
* Loading resistors changed to 0.1% tolerance.
* New 5% tolerance trim pots
The Pheonix Engineering Tachometer and PSU are now surplus to requirement and power my Garrard 301. The cartridge into the 401 is still the same
Ortofon Royal N SPU. The SME V-12 allows for very quick and easy cartridge alignment which probably means the SPU is better setup than on the old
SME 3012 it used to live on. The biggest (and most trivial) problems I have now are cartridge loading and anti-skate values. So how do things sound?
Well, not that much different. I run a 60 year old pair of speakers so they are never going to be as dynamic as say my active ATC 50's. It would be rude
to say that things haven't moved on because they have. I've had the new Paradise in for a while now so things should be bedded in. I've listened to several
genre's of music. The presentation seems a little more polished, it's subtle. The overall soundstage still sounds very very similar, I'd probably say a little
more defined and even maybe a little wider and deeper. Detail has moved up another notch I've had many "did I just hear that" moments. Things don't sound quite
so edgy so I guess this is the "polished" aspect of the phonostages new presentation. The "attack" of the presentation has changed albeit slightly things appear
a tad more laid back. So to sum up. I've lost some attack and edge whilst gaining polish, resolution, and a slightly more coherent soundstage.
The Valve System Pt 5 - Monotonous!
Today has been spent fine tuning. I've finally got around to properly aligning the Tannoys. I also decided to have a hunt around my spares box and found a completely unused Shure N44-1 stylus which is a MONO stylus for the M55E. I've picked up quite a few MONO LP's over the years and always intended have a specific MONO arm to take advantage of these recordings. So, using the M55E is quite versatile you just slip the stylus out and your away, no messing around taking off headshells. The Shure M55E+N44-1 combo is playing through my EAR 834P clone which has also been modded for MONO output. Here's a link to the N44-1 if you want more info snvinyl.co.uk/Shure-N44-1-Stylus-for-Cartridge-M44-1 I'm not advocating using this website but there is a great description with regards the various styli that can be used. The soundstage is very wide and I'm currently enjoying a MONO repress of The Doors - The Doors album, it sounds excellent and really showcases what MONO can sound like. I already own a Ortofon SPU MONO which I use with my SME 3012 but the Shure N44-1 is a great introduction into the world of MONO. I'll be certainly on the hunt for more MONO recordings and getting my Moth & Ultrasonic cleaner ready to clean them up!
The Valve System Pt 6 - Tinned Copper
It's no secret that I like Duelund products. I've had lot of fun rewiring and evaluating various gauges of the Tinner Copper wire that they produce. My Celestion Ditton 15 received a new piece of porn today. I give you the Duelund tinned Copper bypass capacitor. It has a nominal value of 0.01 uF and sits bypassed against the only cap that the XO's contain. I appreciate that these two caps now actually cost a lot more than the speakers are worth but boy do they cut the sonic muster. Here's a couple of pictures showing before and after installation. I'm currently listening to them now and they sound excellent.
https://i.ibb.co/ykxw2Mj/WP-20201006...201006-006.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/ZhGL4br/WP-20201006-006.jpg
I'll be doing a write up at some point.
The Valve System Pt VII - Stuff, just stuff!
Been a bit busy with a few more bits on the Valve system. I documented the Bypass caps last post. I'm listening to them now and they sound ace.
The Garrard 301 has been a little noisy and generating quite a lot of noise through the Tannoy speakers so I decided to see if we could do something about it. Firstly I salvaged my Anker BAttery PSU and it now powers the Tachometer.
https://i.ibb.co/0BYH2zk/WP-20201028-004.jpg
Secondly I decided I wanted to get rid of the switch power supply supplied with the Phoenix PSU powering the Garrard 301
https://i.ibb.co/VJqBSG6/WP-20201028-007.jpg
These sure as hell did the trick. The soundstage has dropped markedly and everything just sounds so much better.
The Garrard 301 has a 25mm height Panzerholz tonearm mount. This replaced the old tonearm mount and now has better damping and allows for better VTA adjustment, the 3012 is no longer right at the end of it's height, vertically.
https://i.ibb.co/xsM39f7/WP-20201028-005.jpg
I also decided to replace the cartridge. I now have a Shure SC35C which replaced a Ortofon Silver Meister II SPU. It's mounted with pure silver cartridge leads, a Paradox pulse aluminium body and a JICO Neo SAS/S stylus and a Orsonic head shell.
https://i.ibb.co/P4dxySc/WP-20201106-002.jpg
The Croft pre-amp received a nice surprise in the form of a Mullard 8098 power regulation valve, NOS. And whilst we are at it I've saved you all some Croft Porn!
https://i.ibb.co/PtxWYyN/WP-20201107-003.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/KLRhfMz/WP-20201107-001.jpg
So been a bit busy and yes it does sound better than last time!
Interesting, mate.... There's still a few tweaks to be done there. Externalising and beefing up the PSU is a biggie, as is moving from valve to MOSFET regulation:)
How's the M8098 sounding?
Marco.
Each valve is regulated already. I had Firebottle modify it with something different, here's what he did.
"So I want to convert the line stages to a hybrid mu circuit, using the existing 5691 valves. The advantages:
Much improved linearity.
Much improved output drive and much lower output resistance.
Vastly improved power supply rejection, the regulator valves (small ones) will probably have NO effect on the sound afterwards.
Individual regulation of each channel.
The 5691 will be run within its heater - cathode ratings, currently it isn't, so greater reliability.
The gain will be the same. The rest of the components are first class so no need to upgrade."
The PSU is another matter. Did you have yours beefed up and externalised?
Sure, but the point is that I no longer have valve regulation in my Croft - it's been replaced by MOSFET solid-state, which in that particular application is just all-round better.
And yes, my PSU has been externalised and considerably beefed up. There are about four of those transformers, what's in your amp (and bigger) inside it, individually powering different parts of the circuit. Josie (Black Adder) has gone even further with hers. You should ask her to post some pics - it's quite something!:cool:
So did you hear any difference with the M8098?:)
Marco.