B1 Buffer Preamp

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Repurposing a B1 Korg Nutube chassis for a B1 buffer

I recently did this & thought I'd share some pictures for the curious. I reused all the case fixtures, switches, pot and PS from the diyaudiostore kit. With new holes in the base plate and some modest rewiring, the transplantation went well. One can even rub out the B1 Korg NuTube writing on the brushed aluminum face plate with some acetone and a paper towel.

 

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Repurposing a B1 Korg Nutube chassis for a B1 buffer

I recently did this & thought I'd share some pictures for the curious. I reused all the case fixtures, switches, pot and PS from the diyaudiostore kit. With new holes in the base plate and some modest rewiring, the transplantation went well. One can even rub out the B1 Korg NuTube writing on the brushed aluminum face plate with some acetone and a paper towel.
May we assume the B1 sounds better since it displaced the Korg?
 
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May we assume the B1 sounds better since it displaced the Korg?
Contextually, yes. When I was running a class D amp, or the ACA into bright speakers, the Korg had a benefit. I listened to it up front of MoFos for a while but didn't favor it. Into my F3, the Korg never lasted more than 10 minutes. It set the sound back and muffled it like it was coming out of an old school megaphone.

I take turns comparing the B1 to another passive preamp built with Electra-Print line trafos at 1:8 turns ratio with a volume pot on the load side. The B1 is smoother and may have a tiny bit more bass, but the Electra-Prints sound cleaner and a bit more detailed, which to me feels like the major strength and appeal of the F3. The bass observation got me wondering if there was core saturation from DC in one of my sources & so I put some 220uF electrolytics (gasp!) in front of the Electra-Prints. That sounds a touch better to me than the B1 in a way I can't pinpoint.
 
May I add some clarification.

As a humble owner of some 200 patent families, my understanding is as follows:

Anything that is published in the public domain is not patentable, unless a patents application has been filed before publication.
Any granted patent has a lifetime of 25 years, after which it is public property and open to all.
A good example is the Dyson vacuum cleaner.

So maybe "piracy" is, straightly speaker, the wrong word.
"Copy" is more appropriate, which does not imply it is illegal, only that it is not original.


Cheers,
Patrick
 
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Why would they be fake? It seems a quite compact private DIY copy nicely done with regards to layout (except for the 12V AC being between the outputs). So, why would a DIYer use fake parts? That would be one of the more important parts to make a self designed B1 PCB a success. Vice versa an "original" B1 PCB could also be built by a clueless DIYer with fake 2SK170 bought from Ebay. So in effect there is no correlation between "original"/DIY PCBs and original/fake parts (unless bought from an original source as kit).

What does make a difference is to build the DCB1/Mezmerize instead of the B1 so without coupling caps. More money to spend on original 2SK170 :)
 
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Joined 2002
Chances are also good that someone in the USA with a Pass PCB buys the same 2SK170 from Aliexpress. Sources are drying up so the fakers step in. I am very glad I bought hundreds of 2SK170 when they were cheap standard parts. Just the thought of needing to distinguish fake parts from real parts is tiring. Yes you were guessing on the difference in sound quality on which I did not spend a is single word as I don't know really. Accepting fake parts is probably also accepting that the part can be a different part every time one buys it. I see it with LT1083CP that is mostly fake today. The fakes do regulate but what is inside?
 
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Official Court Jester
Joined 2003
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Maybe piracy of Dennis Feucht 1990 / Erno Borbely 1995, to be more precise ?

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Cheers,
Patrick
........

So maybe "piracy" is, straightly speaker, the wrong word.
"Copy" is more appropriate, which does not imply it is illegal, only that it is not original.


Cheers,
Patrick


not allowed physical xerox copy of someone else's product is not a Piracy, considering that "100pcs are available"?

:rofl: