Me and the 1210 are gunna have us some me time....

[Marco]

You couldn't have heard this head amp of Paul's, mate, as it's a design he hasn't built before

Totally agree with you about active MC stages, although the Aurorasound Vida, which Guy Sergeant has loaned me, is unquestionably the finest of such beasts I've heard so far:

http://www.puresound.info/id15.html

I'd better not bring that down with me in case it results in your Amex becoming rather nervous!

Marco.

[MartinT]

My Amex is already nervous this month, what with a car service, new tyres, trip booking for next year and Christmas presents

I wonder what PH phono stage it was that Shuggie brought around a couple of years ago, then?

[Marco]

Lol - tell me about it!

This is not a phono stage, dude. It's a moving coil head amp, which is used into the MM section of a partnering phono stage, so it would effectively replace your Choir Audio SUT.

I'm just listening to it now (as it only arrived today). My goodness, this sounds astonishing!!

If initial results are anyting to go by (when the head amp and PSU are stone cold), I think you're gonna love it...

Right, gotta shoot folks - laters!

Marco.

[MartinT]

Looking forward to it!

[Ammonite Audio]

My Amex is already nervous this month, what with a car service, new tyres, trip booking for next year and Christmas presents

I wonder what PH phono stage it was that Shuggie brought around a couple of years ago, then?

My PH phono stage is the Veron Concert, a valve device for MM input only with a separate PSU. As with his other designs, it is stuffed with carefully applied discrete regulators. The new version that he's developed has the valves mounted vertically, rather than horizontally as in mine.

[chris@panteg]

Very interesting, if I might chime in here , I now have a Puresound T10 , it's a perfect match for the 33EV and works quite well into the pearl lite, unfortunately it doesn't work with the Diablo , the Diablo having far too much gain.

I like the T10 , a good investment for the future.

[Paul Hynes]

Hi Martin,

The phono stage Shuggie took to your listening sesh was a modified entry-level unit that had a valve change to give more gain. This valve change was not a good one sonically and it made the music sound edgy and to my ears annoying. I had thought some burn-in time would remove this trait but it did not and Shuggie following my advice returned the circuit to it’s original status and re-fitted my chosen valve type accepting a lower gain but returning the musical sound.

This phono stage has evolved further and I am preparing a version with the XL level of materials used for construction, Teflon circuit boards with rolled copper foil, Bulk Foil resisters, slit foil coupling capacitors, fine silver wire, etc. The external power supply HT is now upgraded to the high voltage regulator equivalent of the ultra low noise circuit topology used in the SR7 that you use on your SL1210 decks. The phono stage already uses this HT regulator topology internally on each amplification stage but using it externally as well gives another layer of wide-band supply line rejection and lower noise operation. A new external power supply is also being production engineered using the SR7 Multirail format to provide completely separate, fully regulated, galvanically isolated supply lines for each individual stage of amplification in the phono stage. This effectively removes any ground return current inter-modulation that occurs when a single power supply powers more than one amplification stage.

Regards
Paul

[MartinT]

Thanks for the explanation, Paul. I was being circumspect in saying that I hadn't liked the sound very much but I do remember Hugo saying he had been playing around with the valves.

Very interesting about the new phono stage and MC head amp. An SR7 for the 1210 looks like overkill so what does an SR7 for a phono amp look like?!

[Paul Hynes]

Hi Martin,

The SR7 Multirail for the phono stage currently uses the same case style as the SR7 for the SL1210 but has a greater front to back depth of 340mm. It's not overkill as it makes a big difference to the sound quality.

Regards
Paul

[MartinT]

Don't worry, Paul. You made me a believer in power supplies some while ago.

I have enough of yours to qualify for platinum membership