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Huge Clearout of Lifetime DiyAudio Member

Updated May 24th with sold items and price cuts.

Getting down to the last of it. Pretty aggressive price slashing- fraction of what you might find these items for elsewhere. Doesn't make much sense to go lower with shipping included. Grab what's left before it disappears.
 
Just took me a while to dig it up off of an old hard drive.

If you want my quick two cents:

I like the 12AT7 in V3. I used an EZ81 in the dual PSU. PSU selection makes a difference, but it's also a matter of space and budget. I don't think air gap capacitors are much better than other alternatives. They can cause RF pickup and are a pain in the neck to fit inside a chassis. Paying close attention to grounding and the provisions for the tube cans will yield big dividends, as well as paying mind to coupling capacitors with metal casings.

I try to avoid electrolytics wherever possible, not for sound reasons in most cases as much as when I build something I like to build it for life. I often dispensed with the mono switch.

I've built this 20 different ways, and I was perfectly satisfied with Vishay metal film and wirewound across the board. I liked those old Russian Polystyrene military caps, much more than the film/foil variants or even Teflon, but good results can be found from typical Mouser offerings.

In the RIAA section, I often combined a 750K and a 40K to get 790K, and a 270pf and a 33pf to get 303pf. That gave the most accurate RIAA curve.

The best results for tubes: V1 were obtained by a Mesa Boogie selected low-noise 12AX7, of all things. In V3, 12AT7 followed by 12AU7. Getting matched sides of a tube is the name of the game.

Careful attention to detail, layout, wiring, grounding, etc. will be more rewarding than pursuing rarified audio talismans of various kinds.

I'm a Shure V15 Type III kind of guy at the end of the day, so my experience with SUTs and so forth was minimal while I experimented with a Denon 103R and some others. After all my audio wanderings, I have come back home to an SP-10, 3009, and a V15 III.

Much of the music I love and cherish sounds like it was recorded on a toaster anyway....

Anyhow, the result will be a phono preamp that sounds to me, and many others, like "the right thing." Of course, this is where the bickering ensues and I bow out, but I don't see how you could be let down by this design if you implement it competently. I don't believe it was by mistake that this design has seen a modification cult following develop around it over the last 20-plus years.

The important thing is that you have a good time and enjoy the result- don't obsess over the small stuff. Life is short, time is precious.

Godspeed.

I'll post this to the thread as well.
 
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