The Phono Stage

[MartinC700]

Peter, sent a couple of emails regarding availability of the PhonoStage, one via the email portal on this sitet, and one via the Audiosector website, but have recieved no reply. My email is a gmail account, perhaps it is being filtered at your end?

Regards

Martin

[dimkasta]

Peter have you noticed any vibration on the 229D24?
I have mounted it without a pcb straight on an aluminum case and it vibrates like crazy...

[Tarasque]

Hi Peter

My phono is not working well. As soon as I inset teh opamps in the phono part the voltage on the supply drops and becomes asymitrical

How could I test the power section for correct operation?

[Peter Daniel]

Your op amp is most likely damaged. Disconnect PS from the phono board and measure voltage on pads marked V+/V-/ GND

Originally Posted by dimkasta

Peter have you noticed any vibration on the 229D24?
I have mounted it without a pcb straight on an aluminum case and it vibrates like crazy...

Yes, those transformers tend to vibrate a bit, especially on European voltage. Sometimes DC offset from the mains make them vibrate even more.

[Szabcsi]

Hi,

About 2 months ago I bought a phono kit from Peter. He put together the phono section for me with Reference V-Caps and nude Vishays. Here is what I got:


I built a nice little casing for the phono of 5 mm thick brass and installed the phonos inside with hot glue:


Then I built the power supplies in dual mono config:


and built a not so beautiful casing from aluminum


The umbilical is made of UTP CAT 7 cable from Audioquest, which is a pretty good cable also for interconnects and dirt cheap for the quality The phono RCAs are WBT silver, while the power supply connections are small and very high quality German pieces used originally for medical instrumentation.

Here is the phono before I installed it directly at the tonearm base:


and after installation:


The tonearm cable (Audio Note silver) is soldered directly to the input wires of the phono.

Tomorrow I will post my impressions on the sound.

Szabolcs

[dimkasta]

Nice and tidy

A small suggestion. I would put some heatshrink on those bear joints on the tonearm.

[Szabcsi]

Hi,

As promised yesterday, here are my thoughts about the sound quality of Peter's phono stage.

In short: it is amazing. The most neutral and transparent phono I have ever heard. Although it is difficult for me to compare it with the original Phono Cube (I heard it last time in a 250 000 USD system ), I dare to say that the phono stage with the parts I obtained is better than the original one.

The sound is very neutral, fast and trasparent. I mostly listen to acoustic/instrumental music, most often jazz, classical, blues, folk etc. The instruments and human voices are there in well defined points in space. It may sound hard if you are used to tube gear but I believe live music is really hard. There is no softness in a real drum or saxophone or violine. Very small differences in different recordings can be heard. Also, the acoustics of live recordings is amazing.

I now have about 50 record sides listening time. The sound was very good at the beginning but it seems to get a bit better as time goes on. But it might be something psychological

There is one thing only to be considered: this phono is so revealing that you will want a better cartridge or tonearm or turntable ...

I have to add something. I had been using 3 different versions of the Phonoclone circuit for many years. Comparing the price I would say that the price/value ratio is very good in that case. I had a self built version of that and I have to say that there is a definite positive difference for Peter's phono in terms of transparency, neutrality and lowest bass and highest trebles. However, you have to pay the price difference.

Thanks very much Peter for the excellent kit,
Szabolcs

[quan]

Can't see the pictures really well. Am i the only one having the problem?
Quan

[dimkasta]

They are ok from here.
They are hosted in a server in hungary, so if you use a proxy it might block them or something

[BigE]

Originally Posted by Szabcsi

I now have about 50 record sides listening time. The sound was very good at the beginning but it seems to get a bit better as time goes on. But it might be something psychological

According to the manufacturer, the V-caps take 400 hours to break in.

You are in for a treat! Mine sounds simply fantastic.

BTW: The phono break in CD cannot be used. The phono stage needs a load at the input. I just played lots of records.... no problem!