All of you with battery powered Bugles, Boozehounds and other phono stages:
What effect does battery type (Alkaline, NiCad, Nimh, others) have on the sound of your phono stage?
I have a boozehound (2sk170 jfet phono stage) which I run off 16 AA batteries.
I could be imagining things but battery type seems to change the sound. Alkalines sound kind of heavy and forward, Nimh sound more detailed w/more depth, maybe less slam. Cheap dollar store non-alkaline batteries sounded not so good.
Also, the alkalines drift in voltage. I've read that Nimh do not.
Obviously the lower voltage (1.2 vs 1.5V) of the rechargeables may play a role. But what exactly is the ideal battery for something like a phono stage?
Also, when running batteries what effect does a capacitor bank have? Is it unnecessary to have say 5,000uf of capacitance after the batteries? Will it just drain the battery on power on? Is the filtering needed?
What effect does battery type (Alkaline, NiCad, Nimh, others) have on the sound of your phono stage?
I have a boozehound (2sk170 jfet phono stage) which I run off 16 AA batteries.
I could be imagining things but battery type seems to change the sound. Alkalines sound kind of heavy and forward, Nimh sound more detailed w/more depth, maybe less slam. Cheap dollar store non-alkaline batteries sounded not so good.
Also, the alkalines drift in voltage. I've read that Nimh do not.
Obviously the lower voltage (1.2 vs 1.5V) of the rechargeables may play a role. But what exactly is the ideal battery for something like a phono stage?
Also, when running batteries what effect does a capacitor bank have? Is it unnecessary to have say 5,000uf of capacitance after the batteries? Will it just drain the battery on power on? Is the filtering needed?
I find these have plenty of PRAT factor 
Off the Grid Power
" FIVE-FOOT HIGH Nuclear Submarine Batteries are very conservatively designed to outlast the lifetime of a submarine boat, (35 years). One of the great improvements is the use of calcium in the very thick oxide-lead positive plate. This allows low gassing during charging, which results in only adding water once every two years, and much lower charge loss, due to charge migration during stand-by. We estimate for home use you will get 35 years or better with good care. Each cell is 2.0 volts per cell X 7000 amps = 14,000 watt hours, a 12 volt system = 6 cells X 14,000 watt hours= 84,000 watt hour
Off the Grid Power
" FIVE-FOOT HIGH Nuclear Submarine Batteries are very conservatively designed to outlast the lifetime of a submarine boat, (35 years). One of the great improvements is the use of calcium in the very thick oxide-lead positive plate. This allows low gassing during charging, which results in only adding water once every two years, and much lower charge loss, due to charge migration during stand-by. We estimate for home use you will get 35 years or better with good care. Each cell is 2.0 volts per cell X 7000 amps = 14,000 watt hours, a 12 volt system = 6 cells X 14,000 watt hours= 84,000 watt hour
AS low power consumption is required, long life Zinc Chloride would be good or Lithium Ion type. Alkaline cells are designed for high power and the shelf life is not that good. I would use a pair of 9v Cells to give the +- required for a dual supply like or just one for single supply. 9v has plenty of headroom.
You want batteries which have a low ESR and can provide, say, 12hrs of supply without too much voltage reduction; SLAs fill the bill.
My understanding is as follows:
1. Yes, you should have some caps after the batteries. The reason is to provide a low ESR supply at HFs (batteries' ESR increases with frequency).
2. However, you don't need much capacitance - hence it's feasible to use film caps instead of electrolytics (film caps sound better). I use Wima MKS4 - 2 x 22uF, 1 x 1uF, 1 x 0.1uF.
Regards,
Andy
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