I just completed my Masterpiece build a few weeks ago. I've scratch built a lot of SS amps and preamps, but this was my first tube build and the kit was really easy for a first timer, and point-to-point no less! Bruce's manual is pretty much amazing.
I started scuffing the chassis with bright Scotch Brite pads, then thoroughly cleaned it with vinegar.
Primer was Rust-Oleum Self-Etching primer, finish was accomplished with Rust-Oleum hammered finish in Grey. Both of these are located at your local home improvement or hardware store in spray cans. You can achieve absolutely professional results with these two products. What's key is getting enough paint on your finish coat so that the flake floats to the surface. Practice until you see the flake float!
The chassis comes with the regs installed, and instead of removing them for painting I simply masked off the entire inside of the chassis, making sure to not paint ANY interior portions.
The trafo covers are just PVC end-caps from the Home Depot, that were scuffed, primed, and painted with the same spray products.
How does it sound? It's brilliant. In 30 years of building audio hardware it's the best preamp I've ever heard, and I have a pile of them in my shop. The only mod I made was to use a 100k dac-type, smd attenuator for volume.
I'm using Telefunken NOS 12AU7s and Gold Lion Genelex 300Bs. I have alot of NOS 12AU7s, but so far I like these the most. There are of course other 300B tubes, but I really don't think that they will change the sonics that much of this design, plus they aren't cheap!
As far as that goes, in any design, whether its a loudspeaker or a component the hierarchy of importance is this:
1. Design
2. Active components
3. Passive components
It's very hard to design a preamp that actually sounds better then when the source is directly fed to the amplifier. Therefore, Bruce's design is brilliant and I'm thrilled. The soundstage with the T.S.M. is huge, diffuse, and solidified. Instrument tones are beautiful and accurate. I have several preamps with unobtanium Toshiba J-fets, they are not better then the Masterpiece, just different.
My amplifers are simple, low wattage, Class-A or Class A-B. My main loudspeaker is the Martin Logan Montis. I feed the T.S.M. with an Eastern Electric Minimax DAC with fully discrete I/V and a 12AU7 buffer. This is fed by Tidal via Roon, my Ipad Pro is the Roon endpoint(awesome because it's battery powered, no mains noise!!!) I also have several other high-end loudspeakers that I've built. Haven't tried any of them yet, I'm just enjoying music right now.
I cannot image a better preamp design out there that is affordable. The Masterpiece competes with anything at any price.
Cheers,
Greg
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I started scuffing the chassis with bright Scotch Brite pads, then thoroughly cleaned it with vinegar.
Primer was Rust-Oleum Self-Etching primer, finish was accomplished with Rust-Oleum hammered finish in Grey. Both of these are located at your local home improvement or hardware store in spray cans. You can achieve absolutely professional results with these two products. What's key is getting enough paint on your finish coat so that the flake floats to the surface. Practice until you see the flake float!
The chassis comes with the regs installed, and instead of removing them for painting I simply masked off the entire inside of the chassis, making sure to not paint ANY interior portions.
The trafo covers are just PVC end-caps from the Home Depot, that were scuffed, primed, and painted with the same spray products.
How does it sound? It's brilliant. In 30 years of building audio hardware it's the best preamp I've ever heard, and I have a pile of them in my shop. The only mod I made was to use a 100k dac-type, smd attenuator for volume.
I'm using Telefunken NOS 12AU7s and Gold Lion Genelex 300Bs. I have alot of NOS 12AU7s, but so far I like these the most. There are of course other 300B tubes, but I really don't think that they will change the sonics that much of this design, plus they aren't cheap!
As far as that goes, in any design, whether its a loudspeaker or a component the hierarchy of importance is this:
1. Design
2. Active components
3. Passive components
It's very hard to design a preamp that actually sounds better then when the source is directly fed to the amplifier. Therefore, Bruce's design is brilliant and I'm thrilled. The soundstage with the T.S.M. is huge, diffuse, and solidified. Instrument tones are beautiful and accurate. I have several preamps with unobtanium Toshiba J-fets, they are not better then the Masterpiece, just different.
My amplifers are simple, low wattage, Class-A or Class A-B. My main loudspeaker is the Martin Logan Montis. I feed the T.S.M. with an Eastern Electric Minimax DAC with fully discrete I/V and a 12AU7 buffer. This is fed by Tidal via Roon, my Ipad Pro is the Roon endpoint(awesome because it's battery powered, no mains noise!!!) I also have several other high-end loudspeakers that I've built. Haven't tried any of them yet, I'm just enjoying music right now.
I cannot image a better preamp design out there that is affordable. The Masterpiece competes with anything at any price.
Cheers,
Greg
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Nice work! I love that hammered paint, I like the black myself, but the grey goes nicely with that front panel 🙂
Nice trick with the PVC caps, I've done that a few times, cheap and easy!
Nice trick with the PVC caps, I've done that a few times, cheap and easy!
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They're just sitting in place, however, a little clear silicone caulking dab for easy removal but good holding power would work. They don't move when I move the chassis around my audio console, though, so I really don't see the need to fix them in place.
Cheers,
Greg
I epoxied a t-nut (like you use for attaching speaker bolts to wood) to the inside and used the same bolt that attaches the toroid to the top panel.
Thats brilliant, but could not have done that because of the offset centers or trafos-
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