Rexton's Valve System - Upgrade Blog

[Wakefield Turntables]

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.

bamboo.jpg

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 :-

terminals.jpg


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.

[Wakefield Turntables]

More time on my hands. The new WBT binding posts have been ordered, purchased some rather nice 9.5% content silver solder, measured up my new 2mm Solid silver core speaker leads for the amp. I also wanted some new WBT banana plugs (the pure silver ones) to replace the pure copper jobbies that current live on my Van Damme speaker cables. The WBT support a maximum cable thickness of 4mm whilst the Van Damme is 6.0mm2 so I made a compromise and bought some pure copper silver plated spades for a grand total of £28 beats the three figure some I was going to pay . I'll also have a look at the IEC in the back of the amp and see if I can replace it with the Furutech that I bought. I decided against buying any replacement components for the PCB's as I have no idea how the amps designed and this is out of my league anyway so that will have to wait until 2019 and a visit to Firebottle. I've also bought a new chunky mains cable for the Eagle PSU that runs my Garrard 301, well for the money it was rude not to! More pix in 2019 when the bits arrive.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Finally managed to get the rest of my goodies fitted to the Sondex. The Signtaure WBT binding posts are a really nice piece of engineering. The Michell binding posts which the Sondex had were ok and perfectly adequate but I did not like the flimsy way in which they attached to the Sondex chassis. As you can see, the WBT offerings are massive!


OLDVNEW.jpg


The Michell binding posts relied upon several nuts and the wiring from the PCB to the binding posts was very flimsy tinner copper with a circular (very thin) gold plated terminatinf ring, very poor! Now the Sondex has 2mm solid core silver from the WBT's binding post straight onto the Sondex PCBS's. I used 9.5% silver content solder. As you can see the binding posts are meaty buggers!


.WBT1.jpg

I terminated my favourite Van Damme speaker cable with pure copper, silver plated spades, different to the old solid copper jobbies I had on, which had a tendency to snap. The spades seem to fit better with the WBT's.


SPADES.jpg

Finally a shot from the back with the WBT RCA sockets and binding posts.

FULLWBT.jpg

Things do seems to have improved. The biggest area is timbral detail, things just seem a little "bigger" and timbral decay lasts a lot longer. String instruments seems to have a slighter better definition. All in all, a couple of hours work and a nice sonic upgrade. I'm now looking into slightly modding my Tannoy MG XO with some WBT signature binding posts and maybe some intrinsic silver wiring.

Until next time.... Stay tuned....

[brian2957]

That's nice work Andy

[Wakefield Turntables]

Thanks!

[Wakefield Turntables]

Nothing better to do so I thought I'd detail a few changes in the valve system. I've been playing around with cables again and I decided to order some "proper" spades for my Van Damme Blue and here's what I purchased (it's a stock photo).


wbt_0681ag_350.jpg

Not cheap but I consider them the last ever purchase for speaker connections. They can house cables up to 10mm. I'm also hopefully going to be trialling Oli's excellent new speaker cable at some point in the future . The Croft and Sondex are also hopefully going to get some more work, it's a work in progress at the moment as I'm still researching the best way forward. The Paradise phonostage will also probably get a little update with a couple of pure silver inductor coils, probably some WBT pure silver RCA's and maybe change the internal wiring to silver. We shall have to see. I did for a short time run the whole valve system through my PS Audio P10, BIG MISTAKE!!!!! The system as a whole sounds flat, less dynamic, and resolution doesn't seem as good, BUGGER! I guess I could look out for a 2nd hand one, meaning I would have one P10 running each system. Well that's about it for now.

[Jimbo]

Nice update Andy, always interested in where your going with your gear.

[Bigman80]

Nothing better to do so I thought I'd detail a few changes in the valve system. I've been playing around with cables again and I decided to order some "proper" spades for my Van Damme Blue and here's what I purchased (it's a stock photo).


wbt_0681ag_350.jpg

Not cheap but I consider them the last ever purchase for speaker connections. They can house cables up to 10mm. I'm also hopefully going to be trialling Oli's excellent new speaker cable at some point in the future . The Croft and Sondex are also hopefully going to get some more work, it's a work in progress at the moment as I'm still researching the best way forward. The Paradise phonostage will also probably get a little update with a couple of pure silver inductor coils, probably some WBT pure silver RCA's and maybe change the internal wiring to silver. We shall have to see. I did for a short time run the whole valve system through my PS Audio P10, BIG MISTAKE!!!!! The system as a whole sounds flat, less dynamic, and resolution doesn't seem as good, BUGGER! I guess I could look out for a 2nd hand one, meaning I would have one P10 running each system. Well that's about it for now.

Hi matey!

Yes, the cables should be back with me tonight so I could possibly post them out to you. PM me if you still want a listen!

Sent from my VKY-L09 using Tapatalk

[Wakefield Turntables]

Nice update Andy, always interested in where your going with your gear.

Thanks! Great speaking to you over the blower.

Hi matey!

Yes, the cables should be back with me tonight so I could possibly post them out to you. PM me if you still want a listen!

Sent from my VKY-L09 using Tapatalk

OK! I'll get in contact when I've put a few hours on these.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Another Sunday, another small dose of single malt (Highland Park 12 year old) and another small update. The WBT's have been an instant improvement, very costly but an immediate step up in clarity and better than the silver plated/ copper spades I had bought 2 months ago from HiFi Collective. Stereo imaging with the WBT spades has come along in leaps and bounds. Probably one of my better purchases. It still surprises me that decent cheap speaker cable can sound so good with decent spades. I've been thinking about experimenting with speaker cable core diameter and I managed to find some 7.5mm2 cable at a very cheap £3 per meter, should make for an interesting experiment. I've also been hunting for some Mullard ECC35's and every so often some appear with the brown micanol base.

mullard ecc35.jpg

These ECC35's are supposed to be the last word in the 6SL7 family but what about these http://psvanetube.com/wordpress/stor...air-or-single/

WE6SNL7Plus-pair.jpg

I'm still on the hunt for the best sounding 6SL7 for my Croft pre-amp, so the hunt continues. I'm still playing around with ideas for mods to the Sondex and the Croft Epoch but I'm having too much fun messing about with cables, valves, cartridges and all the other stuff associated with a "system". The 301 has been my work horse for many years now and I occasionally look out for a Garrard 401 motor to try out and occasionally a really knackered 401 comes on the market or someone strips a 401 down and sells it off as parts. Again, I'm still waiting, but whilst I wait I think I'm going to plump for new plinth and possibly in the Shindo tradition. I'm probably going to get a slightly modded Layers of beauty cherry jobby which looks like this :-

classic-layers-of-beauty-garrard-301-plinth.jpg
I was thinking of having decoupled ebony tonearm boards made as well, possibly sitting under detatched tonearm pod which will be housed in the 301 plinth.
The 301 also has a lovely new Silver Meister mk 2 SPU which not has about 75 hours on it. I'd say the suspension has bedded down now and it's singing like a good 'un. The SPU's typically last a mighty long time and I'm already thinking of getting a FGS diamond mounted when the time comes for re-tipping.

spu2.jpg

Well I think that's about it for tonight, more musings later!