Simplistic NJFET RIAA

Got it (I think... I’ll have to look closer at your second point). I put a Q3X that measured 4.1mA Idss and could then get above 36Vdc. I reduced it to get 3.5V TP1-TP2. Is the goal to have approximately the same TP1-TP2 voltage?
Other board shunt also fires up fine, but I’ll have to put a higher Idss Q3X in it as well. The only other one I have above 4mA is 5.xmA.
 
Got it (I think... I’ll have to look closer at your second point). I put a Q3X that measured 4.1mA Idss and could then get above 36Vdc. I reduced it to get 3.5V TP1-TP2. Is the goal to have approximately the same TP1-TP2 voltage?
Other board shunt also fires up fine, but I’ll have to put a higher Idss Q3X in it as well. The only other one I have above 4mA is 5.xmA.

Just an update. Board #2 was acting the same as #1 with a 3.5-ish mA Idss Q3X in it. The highest one I had was 5.56mA, so I put that in. Bad move... I was having a hard time getting the shunt voltage into the RIAA stage below 40V. I replaced it with a 3.87mA... much better. Shunt voltage now easily held at 34.5V, which seems to be the sweet spot for easily obtainable 3.6V TP1-TP2.

I haven't built up the raw PSU yet (this week), and once I decide on a final transformer spec for it, I my replace the shunt pots with precision fixed resistors. We'll see.

Might actually have to get my turntable out of storage and listen to it this weekend :)
 
Got the raw PSU done and got the Antek AS-0532 2x32V transformer.

With 1 ohm RDLInks in, I am getting 41.2Vdc out (at the last 10K resistors) loaded. No problems getting the shunt output to ~34.5Vdc and stable 3.6V on TP1-TP2 with adjustment range remaining on both pots.

I still haven't tried listening to it yet.
 
I built the MC step up. Sounds very, very good. But it's very sensitive to placement. It must be a meter away from my big class A amp for best results. But it is not in a metal box yet.

Running off batteries for now. Works as advertised.

Anybody compared this against a transformer SUT?

I compared the Salas Step Up run off of batteries with a 1:16 Shure Mic Transformer I bought for cheap on ebay. MM Stage is Salas folded, Cart is Ortofon Quintet Blue.

I have never used transformers before. And it will take a better transformer than this to beat the jfet step up. The transformer sounded very veiled compared to the jfet step up. I tried different loading on the secondary, always sounded dull in comparison.
 

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