NE 5532 PreAmplifier from Doug Self, Elektor 2012

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How many people here are building this preamp?

Hi Bernd,

I checked out your website and it is a nice build you have there! I am interested to know how many other Doug Self fans there are in the forum building this preamp.

I have attached a few picture of mine so far!

Any comments form anyone always appreciated.

Bigtone:)
 
Hi All;

Thought I would post a couple of pictures from my build. Waiting on a few parts to finish. I am having a problem designing the rear panel. Hard to get all the sockets to line up and a little expensive for trial and error. Has any one designed one using Front Panel Express or its sister company Schaeffer-AG in Europe? Could use the help.

Jim

PS This is my first post. Don't know if I have up loaded images properly.. We'll find out.
 

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Hi Every One;

Fired up my pre-amp in my main system. In a word or two, I am very happy with this design.

A little back ground on my system.
-CD Player California Audio Labs Icon MK II
-Power Amp Bryston 3B ST
-Speakers Advent Heritages
-Wires by Straight Wire.

Some of the CD's I listened to were Bolero, Magical Mystery Tour, Beethoven's Fifth, Tchaikovsky 1812, Kodo, and Iron Butterfly's Ina Godda Davida.

I mostly listen to classical music and 60's and 70's rock. I don't have golden ears so I won't say that veils were lifted etc. What I found is that this pre-amp is at least an equal to my Rotel RSP 980. I thought lows were very good. Attack and decay was first rate. And voices were also very good. One thing I noticed on Magical Mystery Tour was that I thought the vocals had a bit more detail than in previous listenings. On the Kodo CD, drums were tight and detailed. (This particular album needs to be heard with a sub, but sounded really good with the Advents by them selves. Between tracks, I could hear no hum. By the way, all listening was done in unbalanced mode.

When I first applied power to the pre-amp without any source material., I found that the chips ran fairly warm. However, when source material from the CD was passed through, they did not get quite as warm.. The heat sinks on the regulators were a bit warmer though when source material was used. I did not use my meter to get accurate temp. readings. I have read in other places that this pre-amp runs on the warm side.

To do's. Have to design rear panel and have it fabricated. (any help would be appreciated) Put some shielding around the power supply. And finish the phono board. I am waiting on the last one to see how different caps behave for others who are building this pre.

I will re post when I have a final assembly.

Jim
 
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Thanks for the listening impressions Jim. Sounds like you are enjoying the results :)

The 5532 does run a little warm as it draws around 15 ma worst case (around 0.5 watt) although most specimens draw less than the max figure.
 
Hi everyone,

I have attached some pictures of my build. Any comments welcome!

Muskyhuntr, thanks for your initial impressions, I will be interested to hear of any changes you make along the way from standard.

Currently mine is as per build spec, so far my initial impression is of an extended frequency response, sounds a little laid back at present , but the set up is only temporary, just to test. I am using a VPI TNT HW19 mk3 turntable and Tag McLaren power amps into Kef Reference speakers. The output is very quiet despite the huge amount of gain.

Cheers

Bigtone
 

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Hi All,

Bigtone mentioned in his review that this pre-amp has a tremendous amount of gain. I concur, and should have mentioned it in my brief review. Like a kid, I had to see how fast it would go and gave it a brief rev. I was very surprised at what came out. Not recommended!

Andrew, thanks for the link. Will be ordering some soon.

Jim
 
Hi everyone,

I have attached some pictures of my build. Any comments welcome!

Muskyhuntr, thanks for your initial impressions, I will be interested to hear of any changes you make along the way from standard.

Currently mine is as per build spec, so far my initial impression is of an extended frequency response, sounds a little laid back at present , but the set up is only temporary, just to test. I am using a VPI TNT HW19 mk3 turntable and Tag McLaren power amps into Kef Reference speakers. The output is very quiet despite the huge amount of gain.

Cheers

Bigtone
Great looking build there so far Bigtone. I'm in the process too. See my thread here. I have a little better idea now just how many cables we're talking about for this bad boy! :D
 
Hi All,

Received my rear panel a couple of days ago. It turned out pretty good, but not perfect. A few pictures are posted below.

Still have to add some shielding around power supply and add a few spacers to the in/out boards.

I have posted the files for both the front and rear panel and an Excel file detailing the cost of this build on the Elektor web site. (for some reason, I can't do it here). Note that on the rear panel, spacings will have to be tweeked for each build due to variability on inserting parts into the in/out printed circuit boards.

Jim
 

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Advice on adding Self Tone Controls to Pass B1

Hi,
Sorry not to be a purist but given the range of material that we play I have come to the conclusion that some tone "tweaking" is needed.
I already have a Pass B1 buffer feeding my Aleph power amp. I am planning to simply insert the Self tone control board between these two.
This may sound naive but so far I cannot see any problems.. except perhaps that the P1 is now superfluous.

Can anyone advise / comment on this plan .. but avoid arguing about tone controls please?

Thanks for the help

George
 
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