The dilemma of paradise.

[martinjohn308]

Morning Simon,

Would my Paradise be up to spec, I know that I think mine had the latest power supply transformers?

Regards,

Martin

[Floyddroid]

Yup, exactly that, or as the other guys are saying, try your existing Firebottle phono stage with one of Alan's head amps

But if you can find a Lentek, it'll work superbly well for not much dosh

Marco.

The Lentek arrived today. Hope to have it installed this evening ready for a blast at the weekend.

[Floyddroid]

Bloody hell. Dashed thing ain't working. Having taken advise from Marco i discovered there was no battery inside. F.....g great! Away to Tesco's tomorrow for a Duracell. Bollocks. Watch this space.

The Lentek arrived today. Hope to have it installed this evening ready for a blast at the weekend.

[struth]

strictly speaking your not allowed to send batteries unless in manufacturers packaging. May be the reason why.

[sq225917]

Alan the full list of what I use against standard builds.

This shot gives some of the details for the above board stuff.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/596848...in/dateposted/

2sk170 on the top of the board (idss 8.5ma), I think j107 was the supplied part.
Opa 627, lower dc offset than the standard part, pricey but they cut dc offset by x5 and have faster settling time.
I add 2 x22uf organic polymer caps right on the input of the +/- voltage to the main boards.
The first two caps on the board, 100uf and 10uf I replace with Wurth organic polymer caps.
I use 4n and 2.2n film caps under the board for compensation of the 327 an 337 under the heatsink. This lowers the speed of the shunt a little but stabilises the voltage.
I add a 470n film cap to ground from the 3rd leg (right leg) of the left most and right most devices on the heatsink. I do these under the board (but describe them as you see them from above) as they solder directly to the exposed ground around the bolt holes for the heatsink.
I use 2sk170 at the back end of the shunt, with 360r resistors instead of the 3.3k. you can use cheaper j113 and 1k, they work almost as well and are much cheaper.
For the 10k resistor that bridges the signal input to gnd I use either a MELF or naked vishay/charcroft. My own uses vishays here and in the riaa, the riaa was overkill, not worth the $180... but you have to try these things.
and I always build them with Calvins.

Because the group buy for new paradise psu pre-reg boards fell to bits I've had some pcbs made that take a block transformer and the common mode coils, + snubbers. I'm just about to build a set of these up with Les's minicap boards and the Hammond chokes. this will be exactly the same as the group psu but with an extra smoothing cap in the filter. So psu will be traffo, common mode coils, snubbers, Q-speed schotky diodes (RC snubbed), then the main CRCRLC with whatever 30mm caps one chooses and the Hammond chokes provide a 300mA choke. With the correct traffo this gives out 25.8v under load.

If you've got space this additional pcb and the hammond chokes is very worthwhile. I currently run minicap boards from Les and it's not as ballsy or as refined as the group buy psu units I've built. (I just never had spare boards to upgrade my own when i was building for customers.)

I can pop up sometime with my unit once I've completed the psu rebuild and you can give it a blast, see if you think it's worthwhile.

Hope that helps, I can provide more pics if you need them, most of them are in that flickr account already, apart from caps, under the board.

Simon

[Floyddroid]

Well, here's how it goes. I put a battery in it and connected it to by FB set to MM and all was going well until i heard some cracking noises from the speakers and the protection circuitry of my power amps shut them down. This happened twice so i have taken the Lentek back out. The brief listen i had with it seemed positive but it seems like the unit may be faulty. I dare not risk putting it back into the system.

Bloody hell. Dashed thing ain't working. Having taken advise from Marco i discovered there was no battery inside. F.....g great! Away to Tesco's tomorrow for a Duracell. Bollocks. Watch this space.

[337alant]

Alan the full list of what I use against standard builds.

This shot gives some of the details for the above board stuff.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/596848...in/dateposted/

2sk170 on the top of the board (idss 8.5ma), I think j107 was the supplied part.
Opa 627, lower dc offset than the standard part, pricey but they cut dc offset by x5 and have faster settling time.
I add 2 x22uf organic polymer caps right on the input of the +/- voltage to the main boards.
The first two caps on the board, 100uf and 10uf I replace with Wurth organic polymer caps.
I use 4n and 2.2n film caps under the board for compensation of the 327 an 337 under the heatsink. This lowers the speed of the shunt a little but stabilises the voltage.
I add a 470n film cap to ground from the 3rd leg (right leg) of the left most and right most devices on the heatsink. I do these under the board (but describe them as you see them from above) as they solder directly to the exposed ground around the bolt holes for the heatsink.
I use 2sk170 at the back end of the shunt, with 360r resistors instead of the 3.3k. you can use cheaper j113 and 1k, they work almost as well and are much cheaper.
For the 10k resistor that bridges the signal input to gnd I use either a MELF or naked vishay/charcroft. My own uses vishays here and in the riaa, the riaa was overkill, not worth the $180... but you have to try these things.
and I always build them with Calvins.

Because the group buy for new paradise psu pre-reg boards fell to bits I've had some pcbs made that take a block transformer and the common mode coils, + snubbers. I'm just about to build a set of these up with Les's minicap boards and the Hammond chokes. this will be exactly the same as the group psu but with an extra smoothing cap in the filter. So psu will be traffo, common mode coils, snubbers, Q-speed schotky diodes (RC snubbed), then the main CRCRLC with whatever 30mm caps one chooses and the Hammond chokes provide a 300mA choke. With the correct traffo this gives out 25.8v under load.

If you've got space this additional pcb and the hammond chokes is very worthwhile. I currently run minicap boards from Les and it's not as ballsy or as refined as the group buy psu units I've built. (I just never had spare boards to upgrade my own when i was building for customers.)

I can pop up sometime with my unit once I've completed the psu rebuild and you can give it a blast, see if you think it's worthwhile.

Hope that helps, I can provide more pics if you need them, most of them are in that flickr account already, apart from caps, under the board.

Simon

Simon thanks for that excellent and detailed information , and yes I would love to hear one of your fully loaded Paradise Phonos
I sure Steve would as well

Alan

[sq225917]

Yeh, we can arrange that. I can probably squeeze it in one week night?

[337alant]

Fabulous can't wait

Alan

[337alant]

Steve
I will rewire mine and you can try that, give me a couple of days

Alan