Another phonoclone 3 completed
Dear Phonoclone 3 builders,
I just completed my Phonoclone 3 beta boards made by rjm, using exactly the recommended values and components, cutting the trace as indicated and adding 33R resistors after between OPAMP outputs and Q1/2 gates as recommended by RJM. Everything works beautifully from the beginning! Using a 2x12V /8oVA toroid transformer, voltage after rectifiers is 16.5V and 12,7 V after Q1/Q2 (using 100R for R9/10). Haven't put the boards in a box yet but already have been listening for the past 3 days.
My first impression of the sound after 3-4 days, compared to a pass pearl: Lots of details and very fast. No hum at all but some noise if I turn up the volume and put my ear to the tweeter.
So far, I was using 4x OP27G per channel, but I am thinking of trying different OPAMPs. Would LT1115 work in the first stage and what about OPA637 in the second stage, leaving the OP27s in the regulator circuit?
Alex
Dear Phonoclone 3 builders,
I just completed my Phonoclone 3 beta boards made by rjm, using exactly the recommended values and components, cutting the trace as indicated and adding 33R resistors after between OPAMP outputs and Q1/2 gates as recommended by RJM. Everything works beautifully from the beginning! Using a 2x12V /8oVA toroid transformer, voltage after rectifiers is 16.5V and 12,7 V after Q1/Q2 (using 100R for R9/10). Haven't put the boards in a box yet but already have been listening for the past 3 days.
My first impression of the sound after 3-4 days, compared to a pass pearl: Lots of details and very fast. No hum at all but some noise if I turn up the volume and put my ear to the tweeter.
So far, I was using 4x OP27G per channel, but I am thinking of trying different OPAMPs. Would LT1115 work in the first stage and what about OPA637 in the second stage, leaving the OP27s in the regulator circuit?
Alex
Alex,
I'm happy to hear it was a success. Before thinking about changing opamps, please give it a couple of weeks for the sound to stabilize.
rhysh,
Just a couple of tiny rearrangements for 31n, the final Phonoclone 3 layout, it's essentially 31j, the one uploaded to the PCB web page.
It doesn't have "31n final" designation on the filename as I haven't run the olimexallsilk.udp script, which I'd normally do as the last step before sending the files to Olimex, but the 10mils.dru check passes successfully, so it's otherwise all ready to go.
Richard
I'm happy to hear it was a success. Before thinking about changing opamps, please give it a couple of weeks for the sound to stabilize.
rhysh,
Just a couple of tiny rearrangements for 31n, the final Phonoclone 3 layout, it's essentially 31j, the one uploaded to the PCB web page.
It doesn't have "31n final" designation on the filename as I haven't run the olimexallsilk.udp script, which I'd normally do as the last step before sending the files to Olimex, but the 10mils.dru check passes successfully, so it's otherwise all ready to go.
Richard
Handel_ConcertoBflat_1644.wav
Handel Concerto in B flat / Munrow / Marriner / Academy of St. Martin-in-the-fields. 16bit 44.1Hz.
Handel Concerto in B flat / Munrow / Marriner / Academy of St. Martin-in-the-fields. 16bit 44.1Hz.
Re: Another phonoclone 3 completed
Also LT1007, LT1037, OPA627, LT1028 and LT1128. The LT1007. OPA627 and LT1128 are rough substitutions for the OP27/OPA27 while the LT1037, LT1115, OPA637 and LT1028 are closer to the OP37/OPA37.
The OP37 class op-amps are going to increase the circuit bandwidth dramatically. You may need additional bypass caps to keep the circuit stable as the electrolytics are not going to be very efficient above 1Mhz.
No-one has to my knowledge got the phonoclone working with OP37s...
/R
1001meier said:
Also LT1007, LT1037, OPA627, LT1028 and LT1128. The LT1007. OPA627 and LT1128 are rough substitutions for the OP27/OPA27 while the LT1037, LT1115, OPA637 and LT1028 are closer to the OP37/OPA37.
The OP37 class op-amps are going to increase the circuit bandwidth dramatically. You may need additional bypass caps to keep the circuit stable as the electrolytics are not going to be very efficient above 1Mhz.
No-one has to my knowledge got the phonoclone working with OP37s...
/R
Hi all,
well I've downloaded all the samples so far (except the very last one) and burnt them to a CD and played back on my shigaclone-buffalo combo.
I've also listened here at the PC through the twisted pear opus DAC/USB>SPDIF (limited to 16-48).
So...... I'm a little hampered by the fact that I don't have any of those tracks on vinyl here so I can't do a real comparison. However...... (please RJM don't be annoyed!)
Honestly, none of them do the phonoclone justice. In all of them (and it may well be the 16/44 CD replay) they sound thin and a bit lifeless and distant. I can hear differences in the BeeGees CD version and vinyl, and yes the vinyl sounds more listenable. But overall, none of them compares to the sound I hear when I drop the needle on a record in my system. I don't get the 3D soundstage, the vividness/dynamics and there tends to be a harshness that I wouldn't be that happy with. Sure the Glenn Gould sounds probably the best of them - but an average enough record would sound better than it here.
Just my 2C - honestly, in my system the P3 (or older versions) sound far superior. And the shiga into buffalo sounds really good on CD, approaching the vinyl replay quality in my system for the first time.
Now I've said it, hope I haven't pissed any of you off, but thats my opinion!!
Fran
well I've downloaded all the samples so far (except the very last one) and burnt them to a CD and played back on my shigaclone-buffalo combo.
I've also listened here at the PC through the twisted pear opus DAC/USB>SPDIF (limited to 16-48).
So...... I'm a little hampered by the fact that I don't have any of those tracks on vinyl here so I can't do a real comparison. However...... (please RJM don't be annoyed!)
Honestly, none of them do the phonoclone justice. In all of them (and it may well be the 16/44 CD replay) they sound thin and a bit lifeless and distant. I can hear differences in the BeeGees CD version and vinyl, and yes the vinyl sounds more listenable. But overall, none of them compares to the sound I hear when I drop the needle on a record in my system. I don't get the 3D soundstage, the vividness/dynamics and there tends to be a harshness that I wouldn't be that happy with. Sure the Glenn Gould sounds probably the best of them - but an average enough record would sound better than it here.
Just my 2C - honestly, in my system the P3 (or older versions) sound far superior. And the shiga into buffalo sounds really good on CD, approaching the vinyl replay quality in my system for the first time.
Now I've said it, hope I haven't pissed any of you off, but thats my opinion!!
Fran
There is a possibility that Audacity does a poor job of downsampling to 44.1kHz, or that downsampling from 96 to 44 is a bad idea period. it's possible it would be better to record at 44.1kHz directly. I haven't tried.
As it is I am struck by how poor any of the 16-44 tracks I've made sound compared to the 24-96 ones
I was just now listening on my netbook, straight into the HD600's no headphone amp, as an "everyman" test. The 24-96 tracks sound really really good. The 16-44 tracks sound really really bad. Same as with my desktop PC, with the onkyo soundcard.
Whatever the reason, I don't put much stock in the 16-44 files, and neither should you. The 24-96 data is a different story, but still missing a fair bit.
Finally, Fran's analog rig is a considerable step up from mine!!
As it is I am struck by how poor any of the 16-44 tracks I've made sound compared to the 24-96 ones
I was just now listening on my netbook, straight into the HD600's no headphone amp, as an "everyman" test. The 24-96 tracks sound really really good. The 16-44 tracks sound really really bad. Same as with my desktop PC, with the onkyo soundcard.
Whatever the reason, I don't put much stock in the 16-44 files, and neither should you. The 24-96 data is a different story, but still missing a fair bit.
Finally, Fran's analog rig is a considerable step up from mine!!
Yep, and in fairness I have no way of listening to the hi-rez files either, so I'm really not getting them at all. So really all I am hearing is 16/44 at best.
Tonight I plan on doing some direct A/Bing against the kit phonoclone. Should be interesting!
*********************************
On the subject of opamps and drop in replacements. Many times I have looked at the audio-GD discrete opamps and came very close to pulling the trigger on whatever one was the replacement for the single opamps (eg627s). Total costs was about USD100 for 4 of them, enough for 2 phonoclone channels.
See here: click here audio GD
I haven't done that much reading about them, but what I have found can be summed up as "measures worse but sounds better". Given that many believe that tubes are the only phonostage I just wonder if something like those and their bit of distortion would really bring out a bit more in the sound.
To be honest I don't know what that would achieve - its not like I can put my finger on something and say the phonoclone is lacking in a particular area. But then you never know until you have it. As it is, I reckon I'm pretty close to getting the max out of the vinyl set up I have. Maybe a new arm would be money better spent, but the problem there is a new arm significantly better than what I have would be >USD1k, so its hard to gather up that much dough. Easier to spend <USD100 for some opamps you could use again in another app.
What do you think? I might do it this time and take one for the board!
Fran
Tonight I plan on doing some direct A/Bing against the kit phonoclone. Should be interesting!
*********************************
On the subject of opamps and drop in replacements. Many times I have looked at the audio-GD discrete opamps and came very close to pulling the trigger on whatever one was the replacement for the single opamps (eg627s). Total costs was about USD100 for 4 of them, enough for 2 phonoclone channels.
See here: click here audio GD
I haven't done that much reading about them, but what I have found can be summed up as "measures worse but sounds better". Given that many believe that tubes are the only phonostage I just wonder if something like those and their bit of distortion would really bring out a bit more in the sound.
To be honest I don't know what that would achieve - its not like I can put my finger on something and say the phonoclone is lacking in a particular area. But then you never know until you have it. As it is, I reckon I'm pretty close to getting the max out of the vinyl set up I have. Maybe a new arm would be money better spent, but the problem there is a new arm significantly better than what I have would be >USD1k, so its hard to gather up that much dough. Easier to spend <USD100 for some opamps you could use again in another app.
What do you think? I might do it this time and take one for the board!
Fran
OK,
so I spent some more time tonight with the P3. I picked out 2 albums I am pretty familiar with and both of which are well pressed and recorded:
and secondly:
So I cued them up and listened to a couple of tracks from each. Then I hooked back in my kit phonoclone and listened again.
Well I was expecting some differences, but to be honest was pretty shocked by the difference! Much more separation and space with the P3 but an area where it really shone was in attack/decay and dynamics. The Robots from Man Machine is a fairly dynamic piece anyway, electronic music you can imagine lots of stop/start kind of music with lots of pace. I was really surprised at the difference compared to the kit phonoclone. The kit sounded much more laid back, relaxed and while all was present (ie really detail wasn;t as lacking as I thought it might be), the way it was presented made it seem less detailed. Absolutely crisp starts and stops to notes, and soundstaging was a good bit better. I was surprised at this. I think earlier on with the P3 I had thought it might end up being a little harsh but now I'm wondering if this was just that sense of attack on notes before it had mellowed slightly. Is that down to speed and bandwidth of the PS? I dunno, not an engineer!
Much the same things found with the JLH. This is a fairly simple recording, 3 or 4 intruments and vocals spread out in the best tradition of Verve or Impulse (this is an impulse). Gorgeous soundstage and a nice rendering of JLHs vocal.
It seems that one of the biggest things right now is that the soundstage is much more open than with the kit phonoclone. As I said above, I was pretty surprised that there was as much difference as there was between the older kit and the P3. And its not that the detail is lacking in the previous phonoclone. Its all there, but just seems a little veiled.
All this has turned my head a bit. I'm wondering now if I hooked a super regulated supply into the phonoclone BE somehow how would it sound. That would be an interesting experiment.......
So its a major thumbs up right now. I guess I would like to leave it another week or more just to see how it settles in that period seeing as it has changed so much so far, but I kinda expect any more settling in to be pretty minor. Theres also the discrete opamps mentioned in my previous post to think about too.
Opinions anyone?
Fran
so I spent some more time tonight with the P3. I picked out 2 albums I am pretty familiar with and both of which are well pressed and recorded:
and secondly:
So I cued them up and listened to a couple of tracks from each. Then I hooked back in my kit phonoclone and listened again.
Well I was expecting some differences, but to be honest was pretty shocked by the difference! Much more separation and space with the P3 but an area where it really shone was in attack/decay and dynamics. The Robots from Man Machine is a fairly dynamic piece anyway, electronic music you can imagine lots of stop/start kind of music with lots of pace. I was really surprised at the difference compared to the kit phonoclone. The kit sounded much more laid back, relaxed and while all was present (ie really detail wasn;t as lacking as I thought it might be), the way it was presented made it seem less detailed. Absolutely crisp starts and stops to notes, and soundstaging was a good bit better. I was surprised at this. I think earlier on with the P3 I had thought it might end up being a little harsh but now I'm wondering if this was just that sense of attack on notes before it had mellowed slightly. Is that down to speed and bandwidth of the PS? I dunno, not an engineer!
Much the same things found with the JLH. This is a fairly simple recording, 3 or 4 intruments and vocals spread out in the best tradition of Verve or Impulse (this is an impulse). Gorgeous soundstage and a nice rendering of JLHs vocal.
It seems that one of the biggest things right now is that the soundstage is much more open than with the kit phonoclone. As I said above, I was pretty surprised that there was as much difference as there was between the older kit and the P3. And its not that the detail is lacking in the previous phonoclone. Its all there, but just seems a little veiled.
All this has turned my head a bit. I'm wondering now if I hooked a super regulated supply into the phonoclone BE somehow how would it sound. That would be an interesting experiment.......
So its a major thumbs up right now. I guess I would like to leave it another week or more just to see how it settles in that period seeing as it has changed so much so far, but I kinda expect any more settling in to be pretty minor. Theres also the discrete opamps mentioned in my previous post to think about too.
Opinions anyone?
Fran
Comparison of output noise of the BE and P3 versions. We can see the harmonics of the 120 Hz power supply ripple are completely absent from the P3 output, whereas a smattering remains in the BE. I don't want to make too much of this**, but it is a nice result all the same.
The P3 was measured with the DL103 in place, turntable powered up but stopped.
The data is not normalized and not comparable in absolute terms! The P3 trace is higher overall mainly because of the arbitrary gain setting of the soundcard line input, and to a lesser extent because the phonoclone gain was set differently. I have verified previously that the output noise you measure is - apart from the noise spikes - essentially just the noise from IC1 filtered by the RIAA eq of the second stage. The datasheet limit, if you will.
**it's not very difficult to remove these spikes, the Phonoclone RC manages it with just a 10 ohm resistor and a 100uF cap. The Xreg, however, removes the noise and maintains a low output impedance. And anyway, at the end of the day it's about the sound - that's why I value Fran's assessment above more than any of these measurements.
The P3 was measured with the DL103 in place, turntable powered up but stopped.
The data is not normalized and not comparable in absolute terms! The P3 trace is higher overall mainly because of the arbitrary gain setting of the soundcard line input, and to a lesser extent because the phonoclone gain was set differently. I have verified previously that the output noise you measure is - apart from the noise spikes - essentially just the noise from IC1 filtered by the RIAA eq of the second stage. The datasheet limit, if you will.
**it's not very difficult to remove these spikes, the Phonoclone RC manages it with just a 10 ohm resistor and a 100uF cap. The Xreg, however, removes the noise and maintains a low output impedance. And anyway, at the end of the day it's about the sound - that's why I value Fran's assessment above more than any of these measurements.
Attachments
I have deleted the 16bit 44.1kHz sample files from the host site. For some reason these files, made by downsampling the 96kHz data in Audacity, are of poor quality. I tried recording a track at 44.1kHz directly and the results are much better. An unfortunate turn of events as downsampling is very convenient. From now on I'll have to record everything twice if I want a 44.1kHz copy
I'll try to upload a new set of 1644 sample files soon.
rjm
I'll try to upload a new set of 1644 sample files soon.
rjm
rjm,
as with many DAW software, freeware to pro stuff, Audacity's
sample rate convertor is probably crap.
Have a look at this:
http://src.infinitewave.ca/
Use Voxengo r8brain Free for SRC
http://www.voxengo.com/product/r8brain/
as with many DAW software, freeware to pro stuff, Audacity's
sample rate convertor is probably crap.
Have a look at this:
http://src.infinitewave.ca/
Use Voxengo r8brain Free for SRC
http://www.voxengo.com/product/r8brain/
RJM,
if you get a chance would you take a quick peek at that audio-GD page I linked back up above. See down the page a bit there are some brief specs for the "moon" and he quotes curent draw, open loop gain and all that stuff. Would one of these drop right in do you think?
************************
Also.... you mentioned the op37. I think I have a few of them. I might drop one in at some stage and have a listen. I think I used them in the VSPS maybe. Might not have 4 though.
************************
Also at some stage if you get a chance.....
have a think about how to connect in an external super reg into your phonoclone BE. I would be willing to give that one a run! Would be an interesting comparison. I have some "teddyregs" here that would suit. The only snag with them is a high output impedance. Very low noise though. Its about all I have here in that line until I get some of the CEtoole ones from the group buy here.
Whatca think?
Fran
if you get a chance would you take a quick peek at that audio-GD page I linked back up above. See down the page a bit there are some brief specs for the "moon" and he quotes curent draw, open loop gain and all that stuff. Would one of these drop right in do you think?
************************
Also.... you mentioned the op37. I think I have a few of them. I might drop one in at some stage and have a listen. I think I used them in the VSPS maybe. Might not have 4 though.
************************
Also at some stage if you get a chance.....
have a think about how to connect in an external super reg into your phonoclone BE. I would be willing to give that one a run! Would be an interesting comparison. I have some "teddyregs" here that would suit. The only snag with them is a high output impedance. Very low noise though. Its about all I have here in that line until I get some of the CEtoole ones from the group buy here.Whatca think?
Fran
I'll download r8brain and try that. Thanks for the tip.
If the specs are correct and the open loop gain is really 36 dB, you can't use them in the phonoclone circuit, which has closed loop gain of 30 dB or more in both stages.
These modules look well thought out, but this is not the application for them.
It's simple enough but rather destructive: you rip out everything to do with the LM317 and LM337, and hook up the external regulator output to the pad where the LM317/337 output pins once were.
rjm
woodturner-fran said:
If the specs are correct and the open loop gain is really 36 dB, you can't use them in the phonoclone circuit, which has closed loop gain of 30 dB or more in both stages.
These modules look well thought out, but this is not the application for them.
Also at some stage if you get a chance.....
It's simple enough but rather destructive: you rip out everything to do with the LM317 and LM337, and hook up the external regulator output to the pad where the LM317/337 output pins once were.
rjm
OK, I've sent the guy an email so we'll see what he says. Seems that the units have been mainly used in things like DACs where mostly people rate them. Will report anything back I hear from him.
Nah, wouldn't want to do that. If there was a simpler way of just cutting a trace or 2 then it would be worth thinking about. Wouldn't like to harm what is already a fine sounding phonostage.
Fran
Bummer
So reading your last couple of post RJM, This is also out of the question?
http://www.bursonaudio.com/burson_hdam_module.htm
Sorry I don't much about this sort of thing, I'm just an assembler........
So reading your last couple of post RJM, This is also out of the question?
http://www.bursonaudio.com/burson_hdam_module.htm
Sorry I don't much about this sort of thing, I'm just an assembler........
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