I'm thinking to build a MM RIAA preamp, with the following characteristics
1. Low noise and hum
2. Good sound, accurate EQ
3. Possible to buy a pre-made board, and preferably a kit of components
4. Not overly expensive.
I'm presently using a Little Bear tube preamp, and it does sound very good, but I'd really like to own something which has zero residual noise and hum. My cartridge is presently a Pioneer PC4-MC high output moving coil cartridge, which generates 2.5MV
I am wondering if anyone can suggest any designs for me which they have had good experience with.
1. Low noise and hum
2. Good sound, accurate EQ
3. Possible to buy a pre-made board, and preferably a kit of components
4. Not overly expensive.
I'm presently using a Little Bear tube preamp, and it does sound very good, but I'd really like to own something which has zero residual noise and hum. My cartridge is presently a Pioneer PC4-MC high output moving coil cartridge, which generates 2.5MV
I am wondering if anyone can suggest any designs for me which they have had good experience with.
Yes its the classic approach with synthesized load resistor for lowest noise, seems to tick all the boxes with selectable rumble filtering.
Search for this " CNC MM Phonostage PCBs, kits, modules and power supply" in DIYaudio. I had been doing builds of many different phono preamps w/o satisfaction. I came across this and with the power supply he designed for this it's great. I first was running it on batteries and it was dead quiet. Then I built the PS for it and it was just as quiet as the batteries. I think entire kit is around $65. Very good pre. Sachu888 I believe is the contact.
Interesting. What sort of setup do you use it with, and what kind of satisfaction is this one giving, which the other did not? I definitely don't want something which sounds like one of the cheap units on the market.
I've never seen this before, it's quite an interesting technique! Certainly well below the noise floor of an LP, but quieter is better, right?
JFET Phono/RIAA Preamplifier kit – Boozhound Laboratories
I built this Boozehound Labs original version of the RIAA phono amp as a first phono project. It was only supposed to be temporary until I built a Salas FSP kit or Pearl 2. It’s dead quiet and sounds good so I haven’t rushed to replace it.
I used a NiMH rechargeable battery supply and gave it a switch for two sources so I could use an MC head amp on one line and just MM carts on the other. Added a voltage meter to monitor the supply.
Even brought it with me to BAF 😉
I built this Boozehound Labs original version of the RIAA phono amp as a first phono project. It was only supposed to be temporary until I built a Salas FSP kit or Pearl 2. It’s dead quiet and sounds good so I haven’t rushed to replace it.
I used a NiMH rechargeable battery supply and gave it a switch for two sources so I could use an MC head amp on one line and just MM carts on the other. Added a voltage meter to monitor the supply.
Even brought it with me to BAF 😉
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SO im using with a tube pre and also have used it with solid state. What I mean is that it sounds very good and is very quiet. I have built about four other units with tubes and discreet fets and bipolars in parallel. All of those designs are very critical to layout and cabling as far as noise is concerned. the opamp version does not seem to suffer from that. Newer modern opamps sound very good also.
I would have to admit that the akitika sounds very interesting also. those specs are excellent. Noticed they are taking measurements through there preamp though. Not sure if that would skew anything.