There are two types of liquid containing silver particles as far as I'm aware: one is a glue or paint, which sets hard; and the other is a grease or paste. I'm happy with both, and I treat them, as mentioned above, as one time only applications - if the contact is broken, treat what's left as oxidation if you wish - physical and solvent action to clean the surfaces back to shiny metal, and reapply to make a new good connection.
Metal to metal contact that is not air tight - which is really what the silver preparations are about - is not good enough. I spent months 30 years ago trying to solve the connection problem - nothing worked, the SQ always degraded relatively quickly, was not acceptable. So, hardwiring or "liquid" silver, which I found later to be good enough, are the solutions, for me.
Fine Frank, I have no problem with that, whatever makes your boat rock, but that crap is not coming into my home ever again.
True, I am in the habit of unplugging everthing and cleaning it with cotton swabs and medicinal alcohol twice a year, what many don't ever do, so prehaps I am not in such bad need of it.
True, I am in the habit of unplugging everthing and cleaning it with cotton swabs and medicinal alcohol twice a year, what many don't ever do, so prehaps I am not in such bad need of it.
Small but very important correction:
You can't change the position of the mic, but you can change its polar pattern and you can change from XY to MS to Blumlein. But you can't make an ORTF or AB or Deca tree, it has to be a coincident mic.
Imo the best mic ever.
Unfortunately, the loss of quality I hear occurs much, much faster than that - this spawns the sort of audible artifact that turns "difficult" recordings into ones that one can't tolerate listening to - and since I prefer to enjoy my music, I do what it takes to give me that benefit,
...BC1's
The BC1's have gone to their owner. I am surprised so quickly. The last stab was LP12 EKOS DL110 Gain adjusted Quad 33 + BC1's playing Bert Kaempfert, A Swinging Safari. This was a gift from my friend Martina who says all German Audiophile people secretly have a copy. OMG it was good. So surprising as a warm turntable, amp and speakers should sound like too much chocolate. No they didn't. It was so snappy and to be honest excellent. The transient responce was not exspected. Farnk will say the envellope was ideal or something. That's possibly right. Also these are monitors and mostly do not lie. The wrong bass is mostly not them. The Maggies will do better on that as they extract the little that is there. The recording engineer was unable to do a correct job was the real problem. In the ideal world perhaps the BC1's taken to 100 Hz and a phase correct double subwoofer used down to 15 Hz - 12 dB. That also would help the power limits. I have enough bits to do that so maybe. The subs would be digital without question. I can borrow that bit. Any EQ, order and phase I like. The BC1 EQ just passive. If a 303 that can be 1st or 2 nd order without adding extra parts. Just change input and output caps. Small are better into the bargain. My inclination is just output. The output cap if you try it is almost the least audible thing ever. Most who say otherwise have not tried an AB test. Sorry guys you didn't and you know you didn't. When the OK thing to do it is the best thing you ever could do. Most speakers designers do it even if you don't. Thus if a mid range has a 22 uF cap and it is a >100 V type it will connect to the Quad 303 at 33.5 V no problem. I have a spare output like this. In fact I went bi-wire for the first time to be sure to use this free lunch. Some say the 303 sounds good because it doesn't use a DC servo. Well that's not exactly true. What it doesn't do is worry about 1 V too much. It's regulator is unusal.
I was listening to old BBC Dave Allen shows last night. The BBC allowed very poor film quality to go through. The sound was out of this world good ! Stereo when we had none. 3 D stereo ( BC1 monitored ? ). Slightly film like distortion. Unusually the EQ must have been set on broadcast unlike Cagney and Lacey. G&L was weird, all studio stuff was boxy. Music was very BBC. I suspect they just sent out an order for music and used it un-EQ'ed . BBC music shows were not that great!
The BC1 port is just a hole. T&S must say wrong? Perhaps the idiots at the BBC used their ears? That's a mistake as computers know better ? I have so little test gear I have to use my ears. I do the maths which helps a bit.
SB Acoustics use silver pigtails. They make no mention of sound and the drivers are cheap. They simply say less likely to fracture. Silver used correctly is very cheap and does a good job. Lorlin switches cost £1 and clones less. They are silver plated. Switch cleaner restores them 20 years on. They feel very cheap as my only gripe. You can even get 12 way. That's a lot of inputs for £2. A felt washer gets arround the cheap feel and helps the switch.
Dejan. My use of the Quad 33 303 is to make up for being too lazy in the past. How can something have near zero distortion and yet sound mediocure ? Casting my mind back sometimes the Quad sounded fine. Looking at the circuit it is a step too far even for me in how few parts it can use . Critically it is like an aircraft that might do 4000 miles, take 200 people and 100 tons of freight. What it can not do is all three. Somehow the load has to be adjusted. To do this for each customer would have been fun if they could wait two weeks. So we sell a well tried recipe. That is not knowing the truth.
The truth to me is use DL110 and/or Shure M44/7 with Expert PU tip. Adjust the 47/68 K up if the Shure to get it to snap as it can. Decca London look out. The M1 position taken to 130 R and 560 R. M2 is then unchanged. It is so good to hear the 33 clip the 303 at No 7 when it was the non existant 15 before. No hiss, no hum and stupidly good. I have heard hi fi that costs more than a 3 bedroom house in middle France that was not anything like as good. It can be done. CD can be to tape input H. That avoids any clipping as it is a bit under driven. I would pot down anything into radio if not a FM3. Make the divider 8K2 upper with the lower arm 3K as a guess. That should not cause the underdriven boomy sound when using just a seies resistor.
The Quad 33 as I have now is pulling rabbits from the hat like loaves and fishes. The interesting thing is the absolute crap 33 EQ is not causing a problem!?! The loop gain of the 33 runs out at 10 kHz. This can be seen as a + 3dB rise at 20 kHz. Why does it sound OK ? My theory is the EKOS is very solid and the DL110 not doing bad things at 20 kHz. The fact the responce goes to 45 kHz without a sharp peak might get it through the sound barrier? Funny thing is I saw the Quad as a Bi-plane. Here it is doing 800MPH.
I will tell all something. Less is far more. Never more so than hi fi. Power without crossover distortion is the big deal. Analogy. Food is never better with more than it needs. I can ruin food at the drop of a hat so am an expert when food , I ruin it.
I have one thing in my hi fi many do not have. Good neighbours who never knock on the door. I have no idea why they don't as they get uptight about little things like planning and dustbins. I have music day and night and I do like it very loud. Good neighbours have to be the ultimate hi fi upgrade? BC1's are super good at low volume if that is important? Dejan I have no idea how you living in a bloc get away with it?
The BC1's have gone to their owner. I am surprised so quickly. The last stab was LP12 EKOS DL110 Gain adjusted Quad 33 + BC1's playing Bert Kaempfert, A Swinging Safari. This was a gift from my friend Martina who says all German Audiophile people secretly have a copy. OMG it was good. So surprising as a warm turntable, amp and speakers should sound like too much chocolate. No they didn't. It was so snappy and to be honest excellent. The transient responce was not exspected. Farnk will say the envellope was ideal or something. That's possibly right. Also these are monitors and mostly do not lie. The wrong bass is mostly not them. The Maggies will do better on that as they extract the little that is there. The recording engineer was unable to do a correct job was the real problem. In the ideal world perhaps the BC1's taken to 100 Hz and a phase correct double subwoofer used down to 15 Hz - 12 dB. That also would help the power limits. I have enough bits to do that so maybe. The subs would be digital without question. I can borrow that bit. Any EQ, order and phase I like. The BC1 EQ just passive. If a 303 that can be 1st or 2 nd order without adding extra parts. Just change input and output caps. Small are better into the bargain. My inclination is just output. The output cap if you try it is almost the least audible thing ever. Most who say otherwise have not tried an AB test. Sorry guys you didn't and you know you didn't. When the OK thing to do it is the best thing you ever could do. Most speakers designers do it even if you don't. Thus if a mid range has a 22 uF cap and it is a >100 V type it will connect to the Quad 303 at 33.5 V no problem. I have a spare output like this. In fact I went bi-wire for the first time to be sure to use this free lunch. Some say the 303 sounds good because it doesn't use a DC servo. Well that's not exactly true. What it doesn't do is worry about 1 V too much. It's regulator is unusal.
I was listening to old BBC Dave Allen shows last night. The BBC allowed very poor film quality to go through. The sound was out of this world good ! Stereo when we had none. 3 D stereo ( BC1 monitored ? ). Slightly film like distortion. Unusually the EQ must have been set on broadcast unlike Cagney and Lacey. G&L was weird, all studio stuff was boxy. Music was very BBC. I suspect they just sent out an order for music and used it un-EQ'ed . BBC music shows were not that great!
The BC1 port is just a hole. T&S must say wrong? Perhaps the idiots at the BBC used their ears? That's a mistake as computers know better ? I have so little test gear I have to use my ears. I do the maths which helps a bit.
SB Acoustics use silver pigtails. They make no mention of sound and the drivers are cheap. They simply say less likely to fracture. Silver used correctly is very cheap and does a good job. Lorlin switches cost £1 and clones less. They are silver plated. Switch cleaner restores them 20 years on. They feel very cheap as my only gripe. You can even get 12 way. That's a lot of inputs for £2. A felt washer gets arround the cheap feel and helps the switch.
Dejan. My use of the Quad 33 303 is to make up for being too lazy in the past. How can something have near zero distortion and yet sound mediocure ? Casting my mind back sometimes the Quad sounded fine. Looking at the circuit it is a step too far even for me in how few parts it can use . Critically it is like an aircraft that might do 4000 miles, take 200 people and 100 tons of freight. What it can not do is all three. Somehow the load has to be adjusted. To do this for each customer would have been fun if they could wait two weeks. So we sell a well tried recipe. That is not knowing the truth.
The truth to me is use DL110 and/or Shure M44/7 with Expert PU tip. Adjust the 47/68 K up if the Shure to get it to snap as it can. Decca London look out. The M1 position taken to 130 R and 560 R. M2 is then unchanged. It is so good to hear the 33 clip the 303 at No 7 when it was the non existant 15 before. No hiss, no hum and stupidly good. I have heard hi fi that costs more than a 3 bedroom house in middle France that was not anything like as good. It can be done. CD can be to tape input H. That avoids any clipping as it is a bit under driven. I would pot down anything into radio if not a FM3. Make the divider 8K2 upper with the lower arm 3K as a guess. That should not cause the underdriven boomy sound when using just a seies resistor.
The Quad 33 as I have now is pulling rabbits from the hat like loaves and fishes. The interesting thing is the absolute crap 33 EQ is not causing a problem!?! The loop gain of the 33 runs out at 10 kHz. This can be seen as a + 3dB rise at 20 kHz. Why does it sound OK ? My theory is the EKOS is very solid and the DL110 not doing bad things at 20 kHz. The fact the responce goes to 45 kHz without a sharp peak might get it through the sound barrier? Funny thing is I saw the Quad as a Bi-plane. Here it is doing 800MPH.
I will tell all something. Less is far more. Never more so than hi fi. Power without crossover distortion is the big deal. Analogy. Food is never better with more than it needs. I can ruin food at the drop of a hat so am an expert when food , I ruin it.
I have one thing in my hi fi many do not have. Good neighbours who never knock on the door. I have no idea why they don't as they get uptight about little things like planning and dustbins. I have music day and night and I do like it very loud. Good neighbours have to be the ultimate hi fi upgrade? BC1's are super good at low volume if that is important? Dejan I have no idea how you living in a bloc get away with it?
My friend Martyn was saying he no longer uses a crossed pair and preferes a spaced pair of microphones. If you knew Martyn this is impossible. He says it sounds more like what they wanted to show as a choir. Good for him. John who made up the crossed pair might be upset. Technically Martyn has done a bad thing I suspect. I have never known Martyn admit to taking the non technical path before. 66 years that took! His point that I didn't quite understand was the voices needed to be in groups. I don't care what he means. I just like that he got there on the journey. At best his journey is 20 more years. Make the best use of that time. I suspectwhat I am saying is he has recapured the child's ability to play. He has the adults experiance to say what is correct as a bonus. A letter was written to the King Gorges VI's equary. " Did the King know it is bad taste to have brown shoes with a blue pin strip suit " ? The answer "Yes he did, therefore it isn't ".
This diagram is from Tobey and Dinsdale before 1965. They show a valve circuit and say how most people use transitors to do the same. It was true then and still true now. In this example they assume a PU to be 500 mH. The input reisistor sets the 75 uS. I wouldn't have bothered to post this except my brother made me the ultimate RIAA for headphones test amp this way. He built it arround the AT93 PU ( Linn K9/18 ). From the word go it was special. Now I know why. The then germanium PNP can be any good silicon PNP like BC560C or BC550C if wanting NPN. There will be enough loop gain to attempt 3180/318 uS correctly. The amp will never see the >AF resonance as the 75 uS has removed most of it. Looking at an MC it might still be possible and desirable. There is nothing stopping one from using an op amp. If so I have always speculated that a double inverting active stage if only low output MC used ( DL103/R ). I suspect that the virtual ground input is very little different to what is shown here in terms of results ( gain formula being A/B rather than 1+A/B as the reason). Unlike in 1960 the maths is easier when this way. A Shure M97 is the bad type of MM. 1K55 and 650 mH. I guess 1K8 will be ball park as we alrwady have 1k55? If this were a Thorens TD160 TP16 I would house the unit near the tags strip below the arm so as to have least capacitance. If Rega a chance to get rid of the awful cable.
I was looking at the Quad 33. For such a simple circuit it isn't simple ( anyone got an analysis ). I looked to see if there was a convenient place to put in a 2 uS passive filter to reshape the 75 uS. They beat me to it. 1n5 and 3K3. 5uS. Well done Quad. Allowing for how PU's are wildly out due to loading one should not complain. The Denon DL110 possibly gives the Quad less of a hard time as it is not very fussy on loading due to coils being 160R ( ? ). The inductance might be 10 mH if all other things equal ( which they never are ). The Shure seems to favour 75K with 150 pF. One can better load the Shure if tweaking the 75 uS. Test disc required. I am told 1 M is ideal. The Shure then picks up it's skirts and dances if you will forgive the pun.If you take the trouble with the Shure M44 you will find it will outperform most. Why you never heard this is Shure never went out of their way to get you to use it correctly. First thing is it's dynamic range is far higher than any MC and that can be trouble. Lost MC dynamics is because we don't house the amplifier in the headshell. Coil 5R PU wire 2 R. That's a lot of losses expressed as hiss. The Shure has about 20 dB stereo. When CD came along we never really heard it better as we do not have more than 20 dB ourselves . It's a small defect I can overlook in a PU. If bonkers about this place a screen between your speakers. That is likely to be more important and help CD. The maths for that should be fun. The Spendor BD1 was much more important than the Shure 20 dB. BC1's are hyper stereo. Werid thing is they were never boring although seemed they should be.
I have a further speculation. If the Shure which I have heard sound very accurate on a cutting lathe. Why not feed it in directly to the transitor base and then do passive EQ at the collector output. Many records are not 75 uS. Nice to have a tweak control. OK that will not do the 1590 uS or whatever and OMG it makes a difference. It will change the most obvious. Returning to microphone placement. The gentleman who said the repositioning of the microphones years later impossible, was he being as black and white as it seemed ? He can not possinbly mean we can not move the microphones as any fool realises that? He might with no hands on use of a soundfield microphone think it impossible ? Michael Gerzon might have been slightly wrong to imply that. Michael's point I suspect would have been this. Compared with any speakers you might own you canm as if you really put the microphone somewhere else. LP EQ is similar. If you do correct EQ for the old LP's they no longer sound as strange. Sometimes they sound accurate and as fresh as a daisey when correctly EQ'ed. The uncorrected Hubble telescope an analogy as what most people get. You can not reset them with tone controls. That would be like adding vinegar to Blue Nun wine and carbon dioxide to call it Meathod Champagnoise. I think the gentleman assumes the same of Soundfield. Not so.
Historically, your point is made, Nige. Hark back to the days when Lenco and Dual offered RIAA eq amps as add-ins to their TTs. Simple, made with standard components, yet performing quite well, and in fact sounding better than you'd expect by looking at the schematics. Actually, they sounded better than quite a few much more complex circuits sold in up market Japanese integrated amps and even preamps. The old "less is more" approach.
I've always wondered how they'd sound if instead of standard parts one used better quality parts, like 1% metal film resistors or polypropylene caps. Must try it sometime.
I've always wondered how they'd sound if instead of standard parts one used better quality parts, like 1% metal film resistors or polypropylene caps. Must try it sometime.
Thought you might like this. The 2R losses of the arm nearly zero if like this. The +ve sent through the arm tube and the - ve through blue. As + ve is very low impedance it forms a reasonable alternative to ground. The parts are SMD to save space rather than weight. Weight usually is a friend when typical MC's. Local decoupling to taste ( 10 nF - to + as a minimum ). The 75 uS is now ideal as it is the preferable passive type and is where you prefer it to be.SE class A if you like ( CCS ). You might have problems with hum . Thing is it will cost pennies to know. Try non SMD to see if it has something to offer. MC33078 is a very OK device that has minimal problems used as shown even at gain of 100. It will not produce vast amounts of distortion as so little of the curve is used. DC offset at gain 50 is about 0.2V. If the next stage uses a capacitors in the feedback arm it will not grow ( 3180/318 uS ). 22 uF polyester will do the job. Any arm should work. AS DIN commons the cartridge pins this is no different. There is a small bonus. many arms have bad arm tube grounding. This way you will have no doubt. It will be obvious. Retain the Rega wire inside the tube to arm bass, the ball bearings are not a good connection ( crunch, chunch ).
It is possible OPA2604 would work as the noise is not too high. The DC offset might be lower as the JFET input needs no great current.
The complete theoretical design. 90% of this has been proven ( 100 % if not saying next to the pickup ). What I would like to do is put the op amp between the pins of a DL103( R ) and for my shacky hands 1206 rod type resitors. Although a small compromise no caps. I am using blue as - ve and arm tube as + ve. This adds the 2 R cable resistance to the 75 uS rather than the input. Any specualtion over ideal 75 uS would be interesting. I used 10 nF 7K5. I suspect I could have used far lower values. If a JFET as No2 op amp that possibly is OK. For my ideal version the PCB has pins like a cartridge and sockets for the DL103 pins. It would be a 10 second fit. I haven't taken any measurements so just guessing as to spacings. The dynamic range should be excellent. To simplify I have not shown the right channel. Output resistor and cap your choice.
It is intersting you say that. I had a 1000 uF non polar on the first stage when as a conventional phono stage . A friend removed the 1000 uf and questioned my stupidity as it works " better " with the resistor to ground. To my ears it sounded less good. After hearing the change I thought it sounded OK and gave more bass. The downside is 0.2 V of offset which is far less than one would think. Here it is the only possible solution.
The Quad 33 is a very nasty way to do things. It has as 30 Hz 2 pole filter judging by graphs ( haven't looked to see where exactly ). My recent gain changes the LF point at that input from 6 to 12 Hz. At first I was thinking how dreadful. On second thoughts it will be about 2 dB down at 30 Hz. As bass is not a problem in my set up I choose for now not to worry about it.
This design I show is 4Hz - 3dB or about 10 Hz if the 1000 uF used ( not possible if in the headshell ). If a rumble filter ( 18.8 Hz circa IEC 7950 uS ) required 4u7 assuming 1K8 on second stage.
The Quad 33 is a very nasty way to do things. It has as 30 Hz 2 pole filter judging by graphs ( haven't looked to see where exactly ). My recent gain changes the LF point at that input from 6 to 12 Hz. At first I was thinking how dreadful. On second thoughts it will be about 2 dB down at 30 Hz. As bass is not a problem in my set up I choose for now not to worry about it.
This design I show is 4Hz - 3dB or about 10 Hz if the 1000 uF used ( not possible if in the headshell ). If a rumble filter ( 18.8 Hz circa IEC 7950 uS ) required 4u7 assuming 1K8 on second stage.
Last edited:
It was just a pre-preamp, i.e., flat gain stage to bring up MC levels. It used the long-obsolete (but SOTA at that time) 2N6550/CM860 FETs mounted in a Dynavector headshell and phantom powered. A version was commercialized for a short time by Audio Dimensions (also long gone). I think they called it the "Chocolate" Headamp in a Headshell.
Douglas Self worked out the typical dynamic range of pick ups and placed the Shure M44 or similar in the highest position. Having heard a M44 in SME 5 it is better than many would think. M44 78 is used for transcription , trying a spare stylus was a positive shock. Often these companies have the series 5 because it is a minor exspence for them. The loading is important as the 47 K most use is not really ideal for Shure. 75K and 150 pf total is a possible loading. One guy says 1M and redo the 75 uS. He is convinced that will beat fancy MC's. To me the problem is most easilly defined as that 2 ohms of the arm wire.
You can mount you pre amp above the PU and use thin wire. Hum seldom is a problem. See how you like it before going futher.
Self I seem to remember said 69 db as the maximum and that MC's must give a little less. I have been playing with a DL110 into BC109C ( 160R coil resistance ) and find it to be the lowest noise of any preamp I have used!!! I have the gain set to 0.8 mV. Logically it should be as BC109 could be of lower noise than any op amp and it is one device rather than a long tail pair. I would guess BC109 to be 0.8 nV root/Hz. Tobey and Dinsdale were getting - 70 dB with germanium in 1961 !
My drawing shows the right going to left side PU to op amp. I think the idea is clear enough.
You can mount you pre amp above the PU and use thin wire. Hum seldom is a problem. See how you like it before going futher.
Self I seem to remember said 69 db as the maximum and that MC's must give a little less. I have been playing with a DL110 into BC109C ( 160R coil resistance ) and find it to be the lowest noise of any preamp I have used!!! I have the gain set to 0.8 mV. Logically it should be as BC109 could be of lower noise than any op amp and it is one device rather than a long tail pair. I would guess BC109 to be 0.8 nV root/Hz. Tobey and Dinsdale were getting - 70 dB with germanium in 1961 !
My drawing shows the right going to left side PU to op amp. I think the idea is clear enough.
Nige, your musings about BC 109 corresond with my accidentaly gained experiences. A friened's RIAA stage gave up the ghost, a pair BC biow long dead BC414B. At the time, direct replacements could not be found, but since the ŠSU lines were +/-20V, I aksed him if he was in a hurry, in which case I could use BC 109, which were locally manufactured under licenece. He said fine, do it, and I did it, after sifting some to find two nearest equivalents for the IPS differential pair (the advantage of being friends with a dealer, you always have his stock from which you can pisck and choose). It worked just fine.
A few days later, my friends says to me that he has become aware of significnatly lower noise with his LPs. Take "significantly" with a grain of salt, but I did believe him, when one switched on PHONO and turned the volume up, I also tought there was less noise. At least, less enough to be noticed, no idea how much less in dB.
A few days later, my friends says to me that he has become aware of significnatly lower noise with his LPs. Take "significantly" with a grain of salt, but I did believe him, when one switched on PHONO and turned the volume up, I also tought there was less noise. At least, less enough to be noticed, no idea how much less in dB.
Nige, your musings about BC 109 corresond with my accidentaly gained experiences. A friened's RIAA stage gave up the ghost, a pair BC biow long dead BC414B. At the time, direct replacements could not be found, but since the ŠSU lines were +/-20V, I aksed him if he was in a hurry, in which case I could use BC 109, which were locally manufactured under licenece. He said fine, do it, and I did it, after sifting some to find two nearest equivalents for the IPS differential pair (the advantage of being friends with a dealer, you always have his stock from which you can pisck and choose). It worked just fine.
A few days later, my friends says to me that he has become aware of significnatly lower noise with his LPs. Take "significantly" with a grain of salt, but I did believe him, when one switched on PHONO and turned the volume up, I also tought there was less noise. At least, less enough to be noticed, no idea how much less in dB.
A few days later, my friends says to me that he has become aware of significnatly lower noise with his LPs. Take "significantly" with a grain of salt, but I did believe him, when one switched on PHONO and turned the volume up, I also tought there was less noise. At least, less enough to be noticed, no idea how much less in dB.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.