luvdunhill

yes I did. But in fact, I think modding a ONO would be a better route. First, his boards do not allow for the Japanese transistors pinouts and he has substituted the BCXXX critters in their place... this may or may not be an issue for you. However, even if they did fit, many are impossible to find... even harder than the 2SK389. Assuming you get past that, there is one LED in the CCS that has a 1.5V forward drop that is next to impossible to find.. I finally got one from someone that yanked them out of floppy drives and know exactly which ones had this drop. Now, of course you could play around with the values and what not, but again, this may be an issue for you, depending on how faithful to the original spec you want to be... it was more trivial than just changing a few resistors though, I do remember that. Also, the DDPAK MOSFETs in the balanced portion of the circuit in the original design are installed on the bottom of the boards and coupled to the case. This is very hard to do with these boards and they are hard to keep cool unless you are very creative. Also, these really need to be matched, and heck if I know a good way to do that with this form factor. Finally and most importantly, matching the quad of 2SK170 at the very low end of the Idss range is very hard to do. I'd guess you will get one tightly matched quad out of 50 devices, given the sum of the devices current needs to be below some number. If not, then there are issues with the gain jumpers working properly and the second stage doesn't bias properly. Again, there may be ways around this, but who knows. It was a very fun project and there are benefits to these boards, such as DC coupling the output and being able to really tweak the RIAA filter with yummy parts. It's a well thought out design and layout as well, got to give him credit for that, and sounds fantastic

well, the JB Weld worked .. kinda.. this was a #3 thread and the JB Weld sorta took up too much room and I couldn't really tell when the screw hit the bottom, and is was tough to screw it in straight. Remember, I have all of 3 threads available.. I just kept turning and ended up with a dimple on one of the screws on the front. doh. The nice thing is, it make a volcano shape around the standoff that seems to be stronger now. I just did it on the standoffs that are holding a small PCB transformer and probably will not do it to the rest. In other news, I need to add vent holes to the top of this thing.. I'm thinking a largish 7/16" hole, as that's the second largest size on my stepper bit, and I need lots of open space, and finally I can get alligator clips in there at this side for adjusting bias and offset. I'm looking at a 8.5" x 8.5" area that I need the holes (for reference, the case is 17" wide) soo.. I need to draw up a pattern today, so I can print it tomorrow, so I can carry it with me to where I can do the deed. So, trying to come up with a hole to hole distance and a stagger pattern, any comments (or templates) are much appreciated

I always wonder how the heck he (NP) gets the C/W numbers he does out of that profile.. just defies all common sense.

... and the best and brightest always want to work for multi-million dollar companies.

tacit approval of Spritzer's review I assume? =)

yup, you have the basics. Having spent 1-2 years working on a DIY turntable concept, I can say that this project can be as difficult as you want it to be. Personally, I wouldn't attempt to DIY the platter, bearing, or tonearm. With those nearly impossible engineering feats out of the way, putting things together is not trivial. I'd start by heading over the DIY Audio and looking through threads in the Analogue section and start a thread there outlining your ideas and plans going forward. Good luck!

heh, just got this error: "This forum requires that you wait 30 seconds between sending private messages. Please try again in 2580 seconds." System time seems to be off?

Comply and the materials stolen from your Markl modded Denons will magically reappear. Until then, your forced to live with sub-R10 performance.

he's part of the mafia supply chain now.

I like LspCAD or even (gasp) Speaker Workshop.

Thanks for the kind offer! I in fact, already ordered though and it works fantastic! They actually do carry them, they are made by a German company Block. Very nice transformers and much better priced than say the Amveco PCB mount toroids.

I've outputted a lot of frustration into SoundEasy... I hope it's gotten better, for your sake.

yeah, because multi-million dolllar companies always hire the brightest and best talent they can.

very generous of you sir. In reality, perhaps you ship 10x what he *actually* does?

I'd say it depends on the condition it arrives in

heh you made a funny

Then it is a DIN cable of sorts. Google is your friend.

There really isn't a standard for an I2S cable. But, one connector I've seen in use goes by the name 13W3 and used to be used on sold SGI and Sun workstations. Search Ebay and see what you can find. These also pop-up on Audiogon from time to time. I think Camelot made one. The other connector I've seen is the RJXX variety and should be easy to track down.

dew eet

They both sound great! At the moment, I have an adjustable RIAA filter in the Pearl to select between Decca/Columbia/etc. curves and uses an all polystyrene RIAA filter. I'll be using this with an Ortofon SPU cartridge. Different cartridges, and different applications. I've tweaked both circuits to sound the way I want them to given their intended application. If you're really interested in a comparison, I'm not sure how to really provide that, since from the start I've approached these projects as separate and had a very specific intended use for both. I only hooked the Pearl up once to my LOMC cartridge just to verify the gain for you and give a quick listen, hardly time to form an opinion... I didn't really see the need to do so Congratulations on your purchase though!

well, that depends on how the XONO is configured. I cannot speak to the commercial version. Since it mine has a balanced output, the maximum gain is ~75dB and -6dB from this in SE mode. I have both a -10dB and -4dB gain reduction jumpers on my unit, so can can reduce the balanced gain down to 61dB. I've also customized the gain of the MM stage as well in a similar fashion. At this point, the gain is roughly the same as the Pearl, hence my judgment that the quoted spec of 60dB is pretty close, if not dead on. With my 0.24mV Bloom, I listen with the balanced outputs and the -4dB switch enabled, as this is just the right amount of gain for me (currently).

wow, that's similar to the old Airy3 I had. Get ready to start questioning your tonearm Did you get the SB/GB weight? You might have issues, as these cartridges are so light.. Same with mating the compliance of the cart with the effective mass of the tonearm.

recase it into something like this: There's a guy on ebay that sells them for a good price ... cannot find the link for some reason now though

can you measure output voltage at the speakers when playing at what you'd consider a reasonable volume? You could calculate the gain required to get that voltage from 0.24mV. Remember, with 60dB gain and 0.24mV source you have .240 V at the input to your preamp. My guess is you need more gain.

um, use a balance pot?