Building a Pearl 2

I've been gone from the community since October 2013 it seems. . . wow how time flies!

I have original Pearl boards that I purchased to build, but as I recall the 2sk170's and 389's were obsolete and fakes were causing problems.

I would like to build either the original Pearl with the boards I have or a Pearl 2. I thought it might be good to check with the community to see if I'm wasting time trying to get the BOM for the original Pearl completed and I should just buy the Pearl 2 board and jfets. I wasn't sure if there are reliable components available as substitutions for the original.

I tried a search, but looking for Pearl v1 vs 2 gave a ton of hits. Please let me know if this is the wrong place to ask the question.

Thanks,

Sandy.
 
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Hello,
I finished all the boards of the Pearl 2 and have a couple of questions I am hoping to get some feedback on.

1) The boards are not mounted in a chassis at this point, so maybe this is due to open air. I used a dual mono cap mx type of power supply feeding the standard regulators on the Pearl 2 boards. When attempting to null out the DC offset, I get some plus minus drift which never settles exactly down. Is this drift common? If so, how close to 0 is good enough?

2) When installing a different resistor in R20 for something other than the standard 47k impedance, do people generally parallel or remove the 47k R19?

Thanks!
 
Hello,
I finished all the boards of the Pearl 2 and have a couple of questions I am hoping to get some feedback on.

1) The boards are not mounted in a chassis at this point, so maybe this is due to open air. I used a dual mono cap mx type of power supply feeding the standard regulators on the Pearl 2 boards. When attempting to null out the DC offset, I get some plus minus drift which never settles exactly down. Is this drift common? If so, how close to 0 is good enough?

2) When installing a different resistor in R20 for something other than the standard 47k impedance, do people generally parallel or remove the 47k R19?

Thanks!

The drift is normal, but if you put a 47uF 25v electrolytic between R14 and ground it will zero out the DC offset.

No need to remove the 47K, 47K in parallel with 100 ohms is 99.79 ohms.
 
The Pearl One is a great phonostage and absolutely worth building. The K170s are no issue to get, and the good news is you can very easily replace the K389 with a pair of K170s. :D

I kick myself for selling my Pearl one. It’s fantastic.


Wayne specified a 30VA toroidal transformer for the Pearl 1. I'm considering a model in that Triad series I mentioned -- the F56-350-C2. Is a 20VA (350mA each channel) too small for this project or should I try to source the 36VA version?
 
to aljordan #2002

Hello aljordan,


in my phono-pres I made little resistor- / capacitance- switchers at the inputs.
Easy to do on protoboard with DIP-switches (some don't like DIP-switches -
but it is also in the XONO!).
Makes adjustinging the load / capacitance to the cartridge easy....
Never switch during operation or listening to music!!!!


Greets
Dirk
 

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Hi all,

I hope everyone is doing ok with quarantine. I finally had time to work on my Pearl 2. After several failed attempts at making a case, I got one that works for me. I hooked everything up for a rough first run. With the dc voltage, I set it to zero with the trim pots as instructed on the boards. I hooked everything up to my Sony TA-5650, but upon turn-on of the Sony I get a pop. When I select the line that has the pearl connected it seems quiet with no cart installed, only a faint hiss when I turn it way up, but when I select another input I get a crazy oscillating type of noise? Not sure if I am describing it correctly. When I did turn the Pearl for a test when I brought it into the house, it did blow a fuse the first time so that was a sign of something not right. Any ideas?

Thanks goes out to 6L6 for going way beyond the norm to help me with the power supply!!! Thanks so much.

I've attached some pictures
 

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