More spare time on my hands . I've been looking into how I can improve the valve system for quite some time. So, I decided to incorporate some more bamboo into the system! Seriously, I had been intending to decrease my box count in the listening room by culling off various things and so had a couple of bamboo chopping boards going spare so I plonked one under the Paradise and one under the Sondex 100. I'm hoping the bamboo is going to soak up some of the vibrations going into the Quadrapsire system that I use. The Sondex seems to be humming less and is marginally less noisy in operation.
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The Croft preamp is still sitting on Sorbothane which will be replaced when I get chance to shop for a cheapo chopping block. The Quadraspire rack has always been an issue. I sit my individual components on shelves made from veneered MDF so, I intend replacing them with 18mm thick birchply. I have seen the benefits of birchply numerous time and remain a big fan. I think I may have enough spare in the garage for a FREE conversion. Finally the amp is bugging me again. The amp has seen a few small upgrades over the last fortnight but I can't help feeling annoyed with the speaker terminals. Just look at the dam things :-
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Firstly, very poor tinned copper, very poor connectors and the speaker binding posts are held in place with a couple of nuts which become loose over time. The binding posts themselves appear to be plated brass , overall I'm not very impressed. I have been impressed with the WBT products especially the WBT-0210Ag Topline nextgen RCA sockets I installed in the last update, completely firm in their installation and solving a grounding issue at the same time, well worth the wonga! I'll be ordering 4 WBT-710 Ag Signature Nextgen pole terminals after the new year and can't wait to install them and rewire the dam things with solid core 3mm silver and Teflon sheath. The WBT components are supposed to offer very good insulation against vibration travelling down your speaker/IC cables . My transformers hum like a bugger so that can't be a bad thing!
Overall things are going quite well with the valve system. I'm happy so far and have notice quite a marked improvement in the timbral decay of notes.