Pink Triangle PIP2
Hi, I'm desperately looking for the schematics/ PCB lay-out from the PIP2 preamp - is there anyone who could provide these?
Thanks in advance! Jan
Hi, I'm desperately looking for the schematics/ PCB lay-out from the PIP2 preamp - is there anyone who could provide these?
Thanks in advance! Jan
PIP in need of TLC
I hope this comment results in a reply from AndrewJ, cos Andrew - some help would be really good. I have (I believe) sent you an email from here, but have no faith it went, nor if it did, that you could email me back. My PIP has gone POP! This is Richard - I was hanging around PT when you and your brother were too (with the MYST guys as well). And for my sins I took over as MD for a year while Neal was having cancer treatment. As you will recall - my electronic skills aren't. indeed the only reason I have a PIP is because I was trying to build a lecture preamp, and Owen, who was a patient man, lost patience and gave me a PIP to keep me quiet. My new wife ( a professional singer) dug out an LP of her college mates playing Jazz, and so I dusted off the HIFI, and the PIP was as awesome as ever, but had a crackly ALPs pot that scared the bejasus out of us whenever we touched it. Broke my vow, opened the amp, sprayed said pot with switch cleaner, fixed the crackles but a couple of wires fell off, the ribbons all decayed to metal strips, and now it works on phono but only one channel on line. I think I soldered a wire back in the wrong place. Help! Please!! To try to give a bit back and comment on things I've read - the PIP was an awesome amp. We had some serious kit to play with at Pink, and the only pre-amp I ever wanted in my system was a PIP. The PIP II was better, presumably due to the batteries, but not as much as the PIP itself blew away other pre-amps. (The batteries had reliability issues) The PIP was not dropped because of poor sound, but due to the practical production difficulties Andrew has referred to elsewhere, underpricing, and the murky politics of the journalists of the day. I'm not aware of a production power amp at PT - the POP was a name to match PIP. The only "POP" I knew which actually made it to the Heathrow show with me, was a temperamental (great sounding) beast, which you could fry your breakfast on, and was one of JW's designs.
I hope this comment results in a reply from AndrewJ, cos Andrew - some help would be really good. I have (I believe) sent you an email from here, but have no faith it went, nor if it did, that you could email me back. My PIP has gone POP! This is Richard - I was hanging around PT when you and your brother were too (with the MYST guys as well). And for my sins I took over as MD for a year while Neal was having cancer treatment. As you will recall - my electronic skills aren't. indeed the only reason I have a PIP is because I was trying to build a lecture preamp, and Owen, who was a patient man, lost patience and gave me a PIP to keep me quiet. My new wife ( a professional singer) dug out an LP of her college mates playing Jazz, and so I dusted off the HIFI, and the PIP was as awesome as ever, but had a crackly ALPs pot that scared the bejasus out of us whenever we touched it. Broke my vow, opened the amp, sprayed said pot with switch cleaner, fixed the crackles but a couple of wires fell off, the ribbons all decayed to metal strips, and now it works on phono but only one channel on line. I think I soldered a wire back in the wrong place. Help! Please!! To try to give a bit back and comment on things I've read - the PIP was an awesome amp. We had some serious kit to play with at Pink, and the only pre-amp I ever wanted in my system was a PIP. The PIP II was better, presumably due to the batteries, but not as much as the PIP itself blew away other pre-amps. (The batteries had reliability issues) The PIP was not dropped because of poor sound, but due to the practical production difficulties Andrew has referred to elsewhere, underpricing, and the murky politics of the journalists of the day. I'm not aware of a production power amp at PT - the POP was a name to match PIP. The only "POP" I knew which actually made it to the Heathrow show with me, was a temperamental (great sounding) beast, which you could fry your breakfast on, and was one of JW's designs.
LFD Preamp
The concept of the PIP preamp is similar to the LFD preamp in that you have a transconductance stage feeding a passive RIAA then a buffer. I get the feeling that Hawkesford and his students were creating stuff based on the same concepts but with different excution. If you go to Malcolm Hawkesford page at the University of Essex, then to his publications page and scroll down to article G11 entitled "Sound the Charge", there is an outline of the LFD preamp circuit and a brief description. Surely not beyond some circuit whizz's capacity to sim up something? Hope this helps.
Ejam
The concept of the PIP preamp is similar to the LFD preamp in that you have a transconductance stage feeding a passive RIAA then a buffer. I get the feeling that Hawkesford and his students were creating stuff based on the same concepts but with different excution. If you go to Malcolm Hawkesford page at the University of Essex, then to his publications page and scroll down to article G11 entitled "Sound the Charge", there is an outline of the LFD preamp circuit and a brief description. Surely not beyond some circuit whizz's capacity to sim up something? Hope this helps.
Ejam
Oldpinkman,
if it's any help i can send you a pic of the internals of my pip, from there you may be able to work out what you may have done wrong.
t.
Pink Triangle Pip pre-amp, upgrade project and the LFD story....
Just for clarity/accuracy, I've discussed the conceptualisation of the Pip topology (and the theory of 'Low Fuzzy Distortion' that underpins it) with Owen Jones, the pre-amp's designer.
Owen described the day thet he went to Dr Malcolm Hawksford (at Essex university) with the theory that he had developed, and just how impressed Hawksford was. With Hawksford having since set up his own audio manufacturing company (called 'LFD' - draw your own conclusions!) Owen was incredibly pleased that I was able to supply him with a copy of the magazine article (mentioned earlier in this thread) which detailed the fact that Owen developed the theory. History seesm to have forgotten that fact, leading to erroneous conclusions by the uninformed that Owen and Hawksford's LFD have simply delevoped similar approaches independently. That is not the case. (Pleased I got that off my chest...)
I'm currently overhauling a Pip Mk1, but frankly, there is prescious little to do to this 30-year-old product. Signal caps are a combination of PP film and foils and polystyrenes, leaving little work to do other than:
Just for clarity/accuracy, I've discussed the conceptualisation of the Pip topology (and the theory of 'Low Fuzzy Distortion' that underpins it) with Owen Jones, the pre-amp's designer.
Owen described the day thet he went to Dr Malcolm Hawksford (at Essex university) with the theory that he had developed, and just how impressed Hawksford was. With Hawksford having since set up his own audio manufacturing company (called 'LFD' - draw your own conclusions!) Owen was incredibly pleased that I was able to supply him with a copy of the magazine article (mentioned earlier in this thread) which detailed the fact that Owen developed the theory. History seesm to have forgotten that fact, leading to erroneous conclusions by the uninformed that Owen and Hawksford's LFD have simply delevoped similar approaches independently. That is not the case. (Pleased I got that off my chest...)
I'm currently overhauling a Pip Mk1, but frankly, there is prescious little to do to this 30-year-old product. Signal caps are a combination of PP film and foils and polystyrenes, leaving little work to do other than:
- Improved input wiring
- Beter decoupling electrolytics (Silmic II)
- Better LM317 implementation (as detailed here)
- Filtered IEC inlet
- Full wave bridge rectifier made from schottky diodes (in place of the standard rectifier package)
- New power supply electrolytics (Currently chin-stoking over F&T 22,000/40v and the Kendeil equivalent - feedback from anyone with comparative experience of these would be welcome!
- I'm also thinking about replacing the TL071 buffer with the LT1351. Again, any experience of attempting to use this item in place of the TL071 (or any ideas for a better alternative) gratefully received.
Thanks for all the offers of help. The original disaster was rectified by help from Arthur K of PT (now the funk firm). I only fried the bulb on the switch by connecting it to the mains. So no need for pictures of the innards. (He also let me have a schematic - which I have temporarily mislaid. Whilst Owen takes credit for the concept and design, PT owned the design) But.....
I have problems because the original ribbon cables have disintegrated and I have a loss of one channel. The loss of a channel is akin to a cracked PCB - I can listen to the unit if I wedge a CD case under the lid to press on the output din plug and weigh it down with a spectacles case. Very high tech. With a school friend who is an electronics engineer we have resoldered about every joint in sight, and I am concerned it is a fault in one of the selector switches - and can't source replacements. Arthur is focussed on tonearms!
This was a beautiful design - in terms of performance, but perhaps not such a joy to service, partly due to Owens fascination with small boxes, and partly Neals style choice for a plinth that matched the turntable. Either way having 2 pcb's on top of each other split by ribbon cables is not as much fun as the circuit laid out on one board. Anybody know how to source replacement switches? (and ribbon cable). I would also really appreciate a lay explanation of why it sounds so good. Prof Hawkins managed it for gravity , time and relativity so surely someone can manage it for the PIP. Owen sort of took me through this long ago, but its all gone very hazy now. I can remember the O level physics behind the turntable design, but what little electronics I knew has long since ceded to senility. And someone ought to offer this amp to those less fortunate than we who got our grubbies on one while they were being produced.
I have problems because the original ribbon cables have disintegrated and I have a loss of one channel. The loss of a channel is akin to a cracked PCB - I can listen to the unit if I wedge a CD case under the lid to press on the output din plug and weigh it down with a spectacles case. Very high tech. With a school friend who is an electronics engineer we have resoldered about every joint in sight, and I am concerned it is a fault in one of the selector switches - and can't source replacements. Arthur is focussed on tonearms!
This was a beautiful design - in terms of performance, but perhaps not such a joy to service, partly due to Owens fascination with small boxes, and partly Neals style choice for a plinth that matched the turntable. Either way having 2 pcb's on top of each other split by ribbon cables is not as much fun as the circuit laid out on one board. Anybody know how to source replacement switches? (and ribbon cable). I would also really appreciate a lay explanation of why it sounds so good. Prof Hawkins managed it for gravity , time and relativity so surely someone can manage it for the PIP. Owen sort of took me through this long ago, but its all gone very hazy now. I can remember the O level physics behind the turntable design, but what little electronics I knew has long since ceded to senility. And someone ought to offer this amp to those less fortunate than we who got our grubbies on one while they were being produced.
Owen obviously has schematics. I discussed with him the waste that this design is not available to the wider world and not serviceable. I'll talk to him again when he brings the mended Pip. It is his design. There have been several revisions, although the basic RIAA and line amp stages didnt change much. There was never a schematic for the power supply stages. I don't think I'm breaching any confidences by saying that the primary suspect for my symptoms is the leds which become microphonic. Of course, the fiddly casework arrangement doesnt help.....
It seems that this thread covers many years. I have a PIP 2 which I originally bought in 1988. Had the batteries replaced back in 1994 (which turned it from 2 boxes into 3 boxes), and am trying to replace the batteries again (since they are pretty much dead). Is there any way to get the schematics? Thanks.
I was glad to see this. My PIP2 has been a revelation in our house. The manual is not the clearest description of how to set the preamplifier up.
I would like to use the moving coil cartridge input and the manual is more than a little vague. You can take off a cover plate and see a space where something should sit, but what?
Can anybody suggest an engineer who would be comfortable servicing the preamp and power supply circuits?
I would like to use the moving coil cartridge input and the manual is more than a little vague. You can take off a cover plate and see a space where something should sit, but what?
Can anybody suggest an engineer who would be comfortable servicing the preamp and power supply circuits?
Not sure if you can help but I have a PT PIP 2 phono stage. I was told it was the phono stage from the PIP preamp in a standalone unit.
It is two boxes, one with the power transformer and the other with 2 phono stage boards.
Really looking for some background on whether it is the famous transconductance stage from the preamp or something else?
It is MC and comes as 150 ohm loading, sounds really good with my Koetsu.
Untitled by The Biglebowski, on FlickrJust coming across this thread...
The photos look like they're of a Dr Richard Bews, LFD design.. I wonder if there was a connection.
I, aaages ago, bought a random phono preamp mounted only in a kind of steel half case which looks very much like these boards, including the copper foil capacitors in the centre of them - it was advertised on ebay as an early LFD design for a friend of Richard Bews. The power supply arrangment and cap board look far too similar to an LFD zero power supply in photos in google searches to be coincidence.
It would be very interesting to know if that's where PT got their phono stage design from for this seperate one.
The photos look like they're of a Dr Richard Bews, LFD design.. I wonder if there was a connection.
I, aaages ago, bought a random phono preamp mounted only in a kind of steel half case which looks very much like these boards, including the copper foil capacitors in the centre of them - it was advertised on ebay as an early LFD design for a friend of Richard Bews. The power supply arrangment and cap board look far too similar to an LFD zero power supply in photos in google searches to be coincidence.
It would be very interesting to know if that's where PT got their phono stage design from for this seperate one.
