Listening Impressions
Today I spent several hours listening to the strain gauge and phono stage mounted on a Souther linear compared to an Ortofon Windfeld on a Schick 12 inch arm. I am pretty familiar with Kevin system that is similar to mine in several respects, but a little different. I have a Windfeld mounted on a modified ET 2 and a Schick 12 inch arm with SPU 95 and a Meister Silver. This forms my basis of comparison.
The strain gauge setup was quite surprisingly good. The presentation is different than the Ortofon but not in a bad way. The strain gauge was surprisingly clean sounding with excellent bass solid mid and maybe not quite the high end sparkle of the Ortofons. Considering the vast difference in price of this setup, being 10 times less costly, the sound is quite close to what I hear with the Ortofons. It is a truly great setup and I think is definitely in the same league as the mid range SPUs, with expensive phono stages. This turned out to be an extraordinary project with a surprisingly good result. No one will be disappointed with the reasonable cost and rewarding result.
Today I spent several hours listening to the strain gauge and phono stage mounted on a Souther linear compared to an Ortofon Windfeld on a Schick 12 inch arm. I am pretty familiar with Kevin system that is similar to mine in several respects, but a little different. I have a Windfeld mounted on a modified ET 2 and a Schick 12 inch arm with SPU 95 and a Meister Silver. This forms my basis of comparison.
The strain gauge setup was quite surprisingly good. The presentation is different than the Ortofon but not in a bad way. The strain gauge was surprisingly clean sounding with excellent bass solid mid and maybe not quite the high end sparkle of the Ortofons. Considering the vast difference in price of this setup, being 10 times less costly, the sound is quite close to what I hear with the Ortofons. It is a truly great setup and I think is definitely in the same league as the mid range SPUs, with expensive phono stages. This turned out to be an extraordinary project with a surprisingly good result. No one will be disappointed with the reasonable cost and rewarding result.
Here's what we listened to today.. Not the best pictures and my room is now always a mess with a plethora of projects current and upcoming.
The cartridge is my 451CR with Bliss mystery stylus, installed on an arm wand I made a few days ago consisting of an African Rosewood shell and brass wand. Length is about 5 inches and 6.5gms, 10gms with cartridge, 5.5gm counter weight. No idea what the effective mass is.
The arm is a 36 yr old Souther Tri-Quartz with some mods mostly to bearings and wiring.
The pre-amp is the prototype on PCB that I wrote about extensively earlier in the thread.
The rest of the electronics is mine, room EQ is currently disabled for these listening tests, interestingly other changes in the system have reduced the need for it.
The cartridge is my 451CR with Bliss mystery stylus, installed on an arm wand I made a few days ago consisting of an African Rosewood shell and brass wand. Length is about 5 inches and 6.5gms, 10gms with cartridge, 5.5gm counter weight. No idea what the effective mass is.
The arm is a 36 yr old Souther Tri-Quartz with some mods mostly to bearings and wiring.
The pre-amp is the prototype on PCB that I wrote about extensively earlier in the thread.
The rest of the electronics is mine, room EQ is currently disabled for these listening tests, interestingly other changes in the system have reduced the need for it.
Attachments
While waiting on Kevin's board I started this 6sn7 octal version PTP, instead of CCS the 6s3ps are choke loaded, bias with batteries as Kevin's V2.2, the cartridge is biased at 6.5V, it has lots of gain and dead quiet.
After some burnin time it is sounding fantastic! Some of my friends who are very familiar with my system will be over for a listen this weekend.
I will build up Kevin's board next as he designed it.
Thanks Kevin for such fine project!
After some burnin time it is sounding fantastic! Some of my friends who are very familiar with my system will be over for a listen this weekend.
I will build up Kevin's board next as he designed it.
Thanks Kevin for such fine project!
Attachments
The board has a jumper option to reduce the gain by 6dB. I assume you don't have the current subtraction CCS in the P2P version.. I would however not reduce the current though even without the CCS as 7 - 8mA is a good operating point for the input stage.
The target cartridge operating current is 4mA, the rest is bypassed around the cartridge by the CCS which will also reduce the output voltage by about 3dB relative to where you are. (so a total of about 9dB lower)
Good 4:1 transformer will reduce the gain by 12dB which should help. (a lot
)
The target cartridge operating current is 4mA, the rest is bypassed around the cartridge by the CCS which will also reduce the output voltage by about 3dB relative to where you are. (so a total of about 9dB lower)
Good 4:1 transformer will reduce the gain by 12dB which should help. (a lot
)
Here is a well priced EPC-460: Technics EPC-460C Cartridge with Technics Original Stylus EPS-46STSD ( Stereo ) | eBay
HI Kevin
Yes, and thank you for posting and giving us a heads up on these.
I missed out on the one you posted recently but somehow arrived
in time for this one.
Now with that done and the arrival of your boards in the near future,
I will have a front row seat to all this strain guage/DIY project excitement.
Much apprectiated
Curt
Yes, and thank you for posting and giving us a heads up on these.
I missed out on the one you posted recently but somehow arrived
in time for this one.
Now with that done and the arrival of your boards in the near future,
I will have a front row seat to all this strain guage/DIY project excitement.
Much apprectiated
Curt
It is a lot of fun...
Here is what I have been working on tonight...
Arm wand sans cartridge is now about 11gms total mass (not effective mass) with the cartridge mass of 3.5gms and counter weight of 7.5gms. Contrast this with just the arm tube off of one of my old SME 3009 Series II at 11gms (excluding the stub..
With 40% lower mass the arm resonance seemed to be in the audio band, and mis-tracking ensued on some very heavily modulated bass on a Kraftwerk recording I have.
Now cured and bass is tighter and a considerably less abundant. (More like my MC cartridge)
These cartridges (even the 451C) have pretty low specified compliance and given the likely stiffening of the internal dampers over time I suspect they are considerably lower.
I scored a second Bliss stylus, but have not tried it yet. My ultimate solution will be one of Dave Slagle's tricked out styli.
Camera in my phone has definitely seen better days.
At some point I need to write a program to calculate the effective mass based on a few known variables. Wonder if I will ever get to it.
Here is what I have been working on tonight...
Arm wand sans cartridge is now about 11gms total mass (not effective mass) with the cartridge mass of 3.5gms and counter weight of 7.5gms. Contrast this with just the arm tube off of one of my old SME 3009 Series II at 11gms (excluding the stub..
With 40% lower mass the arm resonance seemed to be in the audio band, and mis-tracking ensued on some very heavily modulated bass on a Kraftwerk recording I have.
Now cured and bass is tighter and a considerably less abundant. (More like my MC cartridge)
These cartridges (even the 451C) have pretty low specified compliance and given the likely stiffening of the internal dampers over time I suspect they are considerably lower.
I scored a second Bliss stylus, but have not tried it yet. My ultimate solution will be one of Dave Slagle's tricked out styli.
Camera in my phone has definitely seen better days.
At some point I need to write a program to calculate the effective mass based on a few known variables. Wonder if I will ever get to it.
Attachments
Looks like an excellent job! Very clean and tidy.
I have pretty significant neuropathy in my hands so I tried to design the boards so that the SMD parts would be fairly easy to work with.
My first prototype probably is close but perhaps not quite as nicely put together as yours, but has worked fine over time. It gets a lot of use. Still waiting on the transformers and a full check out of the PSU.
To avoid a PSU meltdown in the event of a short to a heat sink or some other unforeseeable problem (solder bridge, wrong part, etc) please use a 60W ballast lamp and variac on the primary side when first powering up.
On the subject of transformers I expect to hear from Arlen over at Heyboer today or in the next day or so that the transformers are ready to ship. (Today was the day in theory that they would be ready - I have not heard yet that that is in fact the case.)
I have pretty significant neuropathy in my hands so I tried to design the boards so that the SMD parts would be fairly easy to work with.
My first prototype probably is close but perhaps not quite as nicely put together as yours, but has worked fine over time. It gets a lot of use. Still waiting on the transformers and a full check out of the PSU.
To avoid a PSU meltdown in the event of a short to a heat sink or some other unforeseeable problem (solder bridge, wrong part, etc) please use a 60W ballast lamp and variac on the primary side when first powering up.
On the subject of transformers I expect to hear from Arlen over at Heyboer today or in the next day or so that the transformers are ready to ship. (Today was the day in theory that they would be ready - I have not heard yet that that is in fact the case.)
I never built the bell ringer, the board is sitting around here somewhere waiting for attention.
I have never snubbed the secondary of any power transformers in my designs - have not found it to be necessary. I think it would be a nice enhancement however, like so many other things it might or might not ever get done.
Yeah that is a bummer about the cases, almost perfect. Too bad there is no such thing as a shorty 6CG7/6FQ7. LOL
I will be getting my chassis from Landfall when the time comes.
I have never snubbed the secondary of any power transformers in my designs - have not found it to be necessary. I think it would be a nice enhancement however, like so many other things it might or might not ever get done.
Yeah that is a bummer about the cases, almost perfect. Too bad there is no such thing as a shorty 6CG7/6FQ7. LOL
I will be getting my chassis from Landfall when the time comes.
Transformers
As you all know Heyboer thought the likely ready date for the transformers was the 24th, that day has come and gone without news. I emailed them last night to find out if there was a delay in manufacture as they are booked pretty solid, and warned me when I placed the order that could be 5 - 6 weeks. (I think we are about there now)
For all I know they are already on their way and they will show up next week, but I won't know until Monday what the score is.
Will keep you all posted. When they come in I will start shipping ASAP.
As you all know Heyboer thought the likely ready date for the transformers was the 24th, that day has come and gone without news. I emailed them last night to find out if there was a delay in manufacture as they are booked pretty solid, and warned me when I placed the order that could be 5 - 6 weeks. (I think we are about there now)
For all I know they are already on their way and they will show up next week, but I won't know until Monday what the score is.
Will keep you all posted. When they come in I will start shipping ASAP.