kitch29's System

by kitch29 on

Description

It's a joy to come into the Front Room and play records on a system that, with two exceptions, I built myself. 

The Mullards and the 76 Pre-amp are the mainstays. The 55 push-pull watts of the circuit have nearly the same tone and texture of single-ended with the added benefits of a higher damping factor and the headroom to portray a full orchestra. The 76 adds to the soundstaging goodness and while it has just a hint of old-timey caramel coloration, it also unravels dense orchestral textures beautifully.
 
Speaking of old age, anyone else still around from the pre-moderator old days?
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Components Toggle details

    • VPI Traveler
    With ZYX R50 Bloom Cartridge
    • Cinemag 3440AH SUT
    Switchable Impedance
    • SM Brown Amplifier Co. Caravaggio Phono Stage
    Adjustable input impedance, Tube regulated power supply, RCA Passive circuit adapted and built by my friend and mentor Steve Brown
    • JE Labs 76 Line Stage
    My first solo, built from schematic, point to point project and does it sing!
    • John Tucker/Dan Schmalle/Steve Brown UX-45 Main Amplifier
    Single-ended, pseudo dual-mono, direct-coupled, parafeed circuit with  Magnequest Plate Chokes and Output transformers. 
    This was my first DIY project with Steve Brown. We each built one often working side-by-side at his bench while he talked me through the tricky bits.
    • Tubelab Simple SE partial kit
    The only circuit board kit I still have and often use which I like so much I built another recently from scratch, all point to point. A tube rollers dream! 440 vDC B+ and a 560 Ohm Cathode resistor allow switching EL-34s, 6550s, Kt-66, 77 and 88, 6L6
    • Diyaudio.com Mullard 5-20 KT-88 Mono Blocks
    With the KT-88s and modern parts including solid state rectification it's really a 4-55. This 5-20 circuit was created in the mid-Fifties by Mullard to introduce their EL-34.

    The guys at Diyaudio.com, Eli Duttman, Boy Wonder, Taj, Johann Pottgeier and others collaborated, as they do on many designs. Steve Brown and I decided to collaborate on this as we did on the 45 amp. After 2 years of correspondence and finally my trip to Portland they were done this past October. 

    With Steve's guidance the EF-86 input tubes are wired in Triode, the Negative Feedback is removed and compensated for by input resistor padding. Gold Lion KT-88s make these powerful amps yield single-ended tone and texture while providing massive damping and drive to the JBL woofers.
    • Pi Speakers 4 Pi
    Although I haven't frequented Audiogon in quite awhile I was here at the beginning as I turned my woodworking hobby to speaker building in 2001. High Efficiency was always my interest and I played around with all the JBL, Altec-Lansing, Emilar, etc. products until in 2008 I finally built the 4 Pis and got off the Merry Go Round. They do everything right.

Comments 7

Showing all comments by islandmandan.

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As a member who espouses and enjoys DIY ventures, I find much to admire with your pre and amp builds. Yours is a system I'd truly like to hear.

As in your case, age is also affecting my participation level in projects that I take on, but I'm easily able to swap out amps whenever I like, due to having separate interconnects and speaker cables for each amp (SET 300B and DIY Class D amps).

I wish you many years of continued listening enjoyment, and congratulations on your achievements.

Regards,
Dan 

islandmandan

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