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Posted by Antonio J. on
12-30-2004
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I'm a phono moron, but having had several phono preamps, I think I can understand what finds Romy right in the EAR 834P, which I love. I'm not as skilled and crazy as to try to make all the Thorsten mods in it by myself, but I've tried some tube swapping and I find the sound of this thing quite good with some Mullard and Telefunken tubes.
I have been searching info about the ET SU-1 and it seems impossible to find any of those step-ups to get rid of the one into the 834. Are there other alternatives, which not being as rich sounding as the SU-1, can be an interesting step over the 834's built in one? Perhaps the S&B or the Bent's? or perhaps someone can point me to somewhere I can get an ET....
Regards.
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Posted by Wellfed on
12-30-2004
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Bob Graham of Graham Engineering can provide you with a silver wire transformer that sounds great to my ears. More accurately, I don't hear it detracting from my enjoyment. I use mine in conjunction with his silver wired phono cartridge so there is probably system synergy involved. I am unable to tell you how this stacks up against the ET unit.
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Posted by Brian Clark on
12-30-2004
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free abortion pill Philippines abortion pill side effects ph bc3.eu free abortion pill philippines symbicort generic equivalent symbicort generic date  Antonio J. wrote: | | Are there other alternatives, which not being as rich sounding as the SU-1, can be an interesting step over the 834's built in one? Perhaps the S&B or the Bent's? |
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The Bents ARE S&Bs Antonio but custom wound using John Chapman's supplied wire. I have a pair of S&B TX103s which I will press into service sometime in the not too distant future. Everyone I know here in the UK who has tried them has been impressed - no, make that VERY impressed.
Brian.
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Posted by Chirag on
12-30-2004
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benadryl and pregnancy second trimester benadryl and pregnancy Hi guys, these do seem quite interesting, but much of the written hoopla i've seen is coming from some of the less interesting characters on another BBS. from a fairly capable system i heard last week, the S&B's set for maximum gain seemed to work quite well with a big old technics table, old SME and some cart i don't remember. the system did have a massive hole in percieved quantity/quality above 3k so i cannot be completely confident in trying the S&B's in my own setup, but they definitely showed serious promise. has anyone tried the the big Jensen MC's? its a name i don't see come up too often, but they don't impress me as incompetent. a nice 27db gain, 75 ohm Jensen 347 could show promise. best,
hirag
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-30-2004
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naloxone versus naltrexone opioid naloxone and naltrexone Antonio, you might information about Expressive Technologies transformer at here: http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Site_images/SU-1.jpg. I have linked it form ‘My Playback’ section, also in there should be link to a Stereophile article about SU-1 from beginning of 90s. It was in a king of customary-foolish article where a typically idiotic-reviewer (I do not remember who was it) plagued the ET-1 transformer into a low impedance input of the Curl’s Blowtorch and then he complained that when violins went to crescendos his wife cactuses lost their thorns. The ET went out of business and I do not think you will fish those transformers, although the accidents are always possible. I know there is a guy in UK who has one ET-1 sale but he wants somewhere around 7500 pounds… quite aggressive price I think. I sold my ET-1 a few months ago and I do not know where to get more. (BTW, talking about the irony: the dirt that runs Audiogon banned me from there because he believed that I should not sell a transformer for more money than the value of his entire trailer. What a cheap profound idiot!!!) I would like no one subscribe a notion that it is necessary to search for the ET-1 (or any other “better” component). ET magnetics were fine but it was good if you are a specifically interested in that “goodness”. Also, it is very important to understand that this specific interest in the “goodness” has nothing to do with the actual benefits a person can get out audio. Yes. ET-1 does some unique things to sound but after you have it on your shelf then you forget about it and still listening the recording instead of the ET-1’s benefits. What I am trying to say that all those ET-1 advantages (or the advantages of any other “superior” audio components) has meaning only when we do our audio-talk. For music listening all those audio-talks are very much irrelevant. Alternatives? Many people recently use S&B. The 103S are les interesting then ET-1 (the S&B unfortunately does just gain, nothing else) but for the money S&B do OK. In fact, I feel that S&B better then many other transformers. For instance the S&B is way better then the Graham’s transformer, although when I had Grahams it was a preproduction prototype and perhaps they did better later on … Yet, although the S&B is OK transformer but I still feel that the hype around S&B is blown primary due to low requirements and low demands of the transformer users… Rgs,
Romy
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Posted by Antonio J. on
12-31-2004
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Thank you very much for your responses guys. I'll see if I can get a S&B to try with the EAR and listen how the music benefits or not from it. Romy: I understand things in the same way you do, I mean that I mainly listen to the music, you may remember when I had a serious disappointment with my system's sound, but that was fixed by the Bidat. Now I try tweaks and upgrades, but I'm not looking for "more" I just pay attention to the music and when I listen I can forget about "sonics", but this doesn't "fix" the fact that I know that my system should do some things different to really sound like I want it to sound. Perfect sound? I don't think so, but it would be "the sound to forget about sound". The matter here is that one cannot know for advanced if one tweak or upgrade will take you into the desired direction (there's not a single person out there that can really know it because each of us has it's own taste, expectations and needs to be fulfilled to get true musical enjoyment), thus some testing is required, but there are too many brands, models, and devices out there that having some clues about what is worth trying is very very welcome. Regards and Happy New Year to all you, Antonio PS: I have e-mailed S&B and I received an answer from Jonathan Billington, adressing me to this site: http://www.mfaudio.co.uk/ They build the SUT using their transformer as Bent does. Do you know them?
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Posted by Brian Clark on
01-05-2005
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Brian.
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Posted by Antonio J. on
01-05-2005
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Regards.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
01-05-2005
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Posted by Brian Clark on
01-05-2005
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Products made for sale in showrooms are loaded with bells and whistles to impress and dazzle the gullible. More stuff for the salesperson to browbeat customers with.
Also manufacturers like to throw their net wide to maximize their "catch".
Brian.
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Posted by Antonio J. on
01-05-2005
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Regards.
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Posted by Thorsten on
01-24-2005
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Hi Roman,
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | the S&B unfortunately does just gain, nothing else) but for the money S&B do OK. |
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Then it does exactly what is asked of it, I asked JB to design it for me PERSONALLY as a "wire with gain". I have been on previous occasions been unconvinced of many stepup transformers, be they sowter, amplimo, EAR or jensen.
The only ones I got to like where old Mike stepups from Neve Mixing Desks and some ancient and I mean ultra-ancient Ribbon Mike stepups pulled from an old grampian console. Both of these where of course virtually single pieces and even they retained some colorations.
The TX-103 has come very close to a "wire with gain", which is more than I can say about most other passive or active steups. Not everyone wants or needs a wire with gain, well as the BBC commented, other suppliers exist.... ;-)
Ciao T
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Posted by Thorsten on
01-24-2005
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pregabalin 150 pregabaline beker website | Antonio J. wrote: | | MFA e-mailed me aknowledging that I was perhaps going to try the DIY way getting a "raw" transformer from S&B and offered me assistance. The "problem" is that their unit with a gain selector and load selector is way too expensive for my budget (1500 UKP), while the raw transformers are about 250 euros each. |
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The fully build stepup is priced for retail distribution in your local shop. As such it has dealer and distributor profit margins build and is a product build with general compatibility in mind etc. For anyone who can solder well and who does not mind the absence of a "finished product" finish the raw transformers are available too. You might be surprised to know that MF-Audio actually does make proportionally to the work required makes about the same income as S&B does for a TX-103 and JB is not getting rich from it.
One might also consider that the nearest competitor, namely the EAR MC3 Stepup costs more than 1/2 of the MF Audio unit and offers less adjustability, the sound has been commented on elsewhere.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Antonio, I never understood this concept of “gain selector”. |
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It is not a "gain selector" as much as it is a selector to match the cartridge source impedance. Very low impedance cartridges (many modern MC's) should be used on the highest stepup setting (1:20/26db), as that matches the transformers operation correctly. On the other hand, MC's like the Denon DL-103 do not sound under such conditions as their internal impedance is much higher, so they should be connected ideally with the lowest stepup (1:5/14db) as that matches the impedances best.
Failure to match impedances well will invariably colour the sound, I would say worsen it.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | If I remember correctly S&B had 10, 20 25 db options via re-wiring of the primary coil. It is not complicated to place primary in some kind of rotary 3-position switch but it would be completely unnecessary. |
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I disagree. In order to be able to get the best out of an expensive cartridge and stepup one MUST have the ability to both match the input connection of the transformer and to apply varying loads.
The normal approach to handeling primary impedance matching is to use multiple taps on the primary and to simply leave the unused part of the primary unconnected. That usually impacts on the sound and not in a positive way.
Therefore the MF Audio Stepup (which you might call my design if you so wish) has a Selector for the input connections and for loads down to the nominal 10K secondary impedance.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Presumably all those aftermarket S&B resellers try to convince buyers that by they would “have a flexibility to select a gain whatever they wish” but I find that it is quite a bogus benefit. |
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No, the point is actually that unless you wish to actually design a transformer specifically for a given cartridge you must be able to select the correct primary impedance OR you must accept sonic losses, which BTW are by far greater than the ones caused by the switch.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Fist: it is VERY difficult to fine a switch that would commutate 0.3mV signal without any sonic degradations (at list I was not able to find any). |
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Maybe. The switch that is used proved itself sufficiently transparent that there was in several systems, including much more elaborate ones than my own, no material degradation between a hardwired and a switched version.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Second: people need one permanent gain for one given cartridge/phonocorrector and no one doing the switching after a necessary gain was found (people who use multiple needles and multiple arms usually have multiple phonocorrectors). |
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Yes, you need only one primary impedance and one gain and one load for a given combination. However, if you alter this combination you need to change. I felt giving users the ability to do this change direct and for themselves is of value.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Therefore, if you’re willing to use S&B then get them raw and considering that the cable between the transformer and phonostage is the most critical of all then just mount those S&B directly to the binding posts of your phonocorrector. The S&B despite of very simple mu-metal can are quit quiet and it can easily work in this application. |
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I agree. However there are enough people who refuse even to consider something where they may need to take the lid off in order to adjust something.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | I would go for 20-25db and then just tune the loading resistor. |
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I would choose a primary connection that is actually apropriate to the internal impedance of the cartridge, eg. for Cartridges in the 3-10R region 1:20, for those in the 10-30R region 1:10 and for pickups above 30R 1:5.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | To have those “luxury” options that Bent Audio and few other offers I find not only unnecessary but also “bad for sound”. |
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Sorry, but in order to make that call you would have had to have compared an MF-Audio Stepup to a hardwired 103, which you have not done. We have done it and found the sonic impact rather slight, if notable on VERY CRITICAL audition.
Ciao T
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
01-24-2005
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amlodipin sandoz amlodipin sandoz tadalafil generico prezzo pillola cialis per uomo click here | Thorsten wrote: | Then it does exactly what is asked of it, I asked JB to design it for me PERSONALLY as a "wire with gain". I have been on previous occasions been unconvinced of many stepup transformers, be they sowter, amplimo, EAR or jensen.
The only ones I got to like where old Mike stepups from Neve Mixing Desks and some ancient and I mean ultra-ancient Ribbon Mike stepups pulled from an old grampian console. Both of these where of course virtually single pieces and even they retained some colorations.
The TX-103 has come very close to a "wire with gain", which is more than I can say about most other passive or active steups. Not everyone wants or needs a wire with gain, well as the BBC commented, other suppliers exist.... ;-)
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Well, I agree that “just gain” itself is a noble task and that there are not a lot of transformers that it without screwing many other things. However, I have seen the results (and ET transformers is the example) after which the "wire with gain" not considered anymore as an “interesting” accomplishment. From the place of my today’s understanding the benefits and the abilities of MC transformers I would say that a good transformer must besides to be a "wire with gain" be able to increase substantially a subjective dynamic range of the system. I am not talking about a minor difference but about the very-very aggressive increase of dynamic range that would be similar of moving from 88dB sensitive speakers to 112dB sensitive. The TX-103 unfortunately does not do it and therefore I said that it does “just gain”.
The caT
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
01-24-2005
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T, although I am not in disagreement with what you suggest but I have to admit that your expectation of user applications dose not make sense to me. I’m taking the use of a transformer in a system and getting a result out of it instead of building a universal product available for resell.
I person has one cartridge, installed at one arm and a person has it for 3-5 years (some people much longer). Why the person needs a severely sound-worsening gain switch or an ease-changeable loading resistor (foolishly placed at the secondary coil instead being placed at the grid of the input tube)?
After the person have found the correct combination between his cartridge, loading and gain then it will never change and the person do not need all of this “accessories”. Therefore all those “added values” that Bent Audio and others stick into TX-103 are juts a leisure for the Morons who makes those changes each weekend and then compare their full of “wisdom” notes at AA. Is it the tarter customers for the Bent Audio?
If people happen having multiple arms and multiple cartridges then they most likely have multiple transformers and multiple phonocorrectors (or multiple inputs with the defend loads…)
So, I have no idea who was a target market for those TX-103 optimization kits and I find them totally unnecessary, even “bad for sound”. After all necessary configuration found these entire things should be permanently soldered and never touched again until the needle or the corrector change.
The Cat
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Posted by Thorsten on
01-24-2005
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| Romy the Cat wrote: | | So, I have no idea who was a target market for those TX-103 optimization kits |
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There is no "TX-103 optimisation kit". There is a commercial stepup product. It was designed to be sold through current, existing delaerships and to people to whom the recommendation:
Remove the Stepunits cover.
Unsolder the following solder bridges according to the diagram 1 below and resolder them according to diagram 2 or 3 and evaluate which sounds best to you and then solder the whole thing in place.
We could of course have fitted plug in jumpers to a PCB for such people and Socket pins to insert loading resistors. Of course, most jumpers sound a lot worse than a good switch, and they still have this "take off the top" problem.
MF Audio might offer a fixed ratio stepup at some time, but you cannot expect Dealers to reconfigure them for customers (I'd not let most dealers within a mile of a soldering iron) so one would have give the Dealers a switchable version they can lend to the customer (and do so for free or at significant discount) and all that strikes me as a lot of hassle. Therefore the commercial stepup is likely to remain switchable, intending to give the customer the confidence that he can take the stepup home and get the best from it by simply twisting some knobs.
As said before, I AGREE that this is suboptimal, but it seems to fit the market more or less well enough.
And honest, I'd rather have a product out there that the user can easily find the best system match than one that will not match many systems and where the customer cannot be bothered to invest the time to tinker and solder for a few hours and them promptly proclaims on the net his "Dominator X" $ 5 active headamp is miles better and people should not bother with my product....
So, the current MF Audio stepup is what it is.
Anyone wanting to just buy bare transformers, braid the input wires and twist the output wires, apply some screen to the output wires and then solder an RCA in-line socket to the input wires and an RCA Plug to the Output is welcome to obtain the TX-103 from one of the various DIY Distributors (Steinmusic Germany, DIYHIFisupply Hong Kong, Hornet HiFi Croatia and Bent Audio Canada) and to do so.
All the required info to so (for anyone actually capable of doing so anyway) is on the Stevens & Billington website (I know, because I wrote it)...
Of course, perhaps S&B & MF Audio would be best off dropping the supplies to the DIY Market, changing the relatively inexpensive and functional casework for something nice, solid and heavy that screams "High End" and charge three times as much for products and offer only "optimised" versions which require a large deposit to allow audition. Maybe then people would take the products more serious. I personally would not like such an approach much and I doubt too many others would be happy.
Ciao T
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Posted by AnonymousUser on
04-29-2006
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Hello Romy
I read with great interest your site and enjoy your point of view.
But I have a question for you.
There are two Expressive Tech SU-1 for sale on Audiogon, but the face plates look different.
I ws wondering if they are the same with the exception of the face plate and if they are not which should I buy.
Paul
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-29-2006
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Paul,
As far as I know the Expressive Technologies have only tow models: the regular transformers and toroidal transformers. The toroidal version (SU-2) is not available publicly which left that whatever the Expressive magnetic available out there it would be the only SU-1 version that Expressive even produced. The outer box should not be important as the SU-1 has 4-5 outer boxes, one inside another, like the Russian Nesting Dolls. The transformers themselves are remarkable small, in fact insultingly small for this box. I have no idea what they sell at Audiogon and what the history of those units. The Expressive was a small company that made the transformer by the small production runs of 10-50 units. It is possible that they had a run with different face plates or somebody remodeled them. I personally have seen only plane-vanilla black units with the Expressive Technologies “embroiling” at corner. If you are interested to buy one then you should more be concern that the Expressive would work with your phonostages. This transformer might be very finicky ….
Rgs,
Romy the Cat
PS: I moved your post form the open forums to the audio section. I hope you do not mind.
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Posted by Paul Costa on
04-29-2006
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Hi Romy
Thanks for your reply.
I am in the market for either a new pre-amp or phono and line stage.
I know they need around 47k for optimal loading, but what else might I be concerned with.
Did you have a look on Agon at the two there. The one I was thinking of buying he says is from 1987. I amy pick it up myself to make sure everything is ok with it.
Paul
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-29-2006
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| Paul Costa wrote: | Thanks for your reply.
I am in the market for either a new pre-amp or phono and line stage.
I know they need around 47k for optimal loading, but what else might I be concerned with.
Did you have a look on Agon at the two there. The one I was thinking of buying he says is from 1987. I amy pick it up myself to make sure everything is ok with it. |
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Paul,
I would like do not downsample myself down to the purchasing advisement. I feel to board to do it. There are plenty morons out there who would be happy to advise you, regardless their sense of the subject…
Anyhow, staing further away form your Audiogone frustrations: generally, the 47k recommendation is irrelevant as it would depend how much you are wiling to load your cartridge. If I remember correctly the Expressive would like to see low input capacitance, 100 pf would be optimum. In reality everything is more completed and I have seen how Expressive (I had 3 SU-1 and 2 SU-2) behave very differently with different phonostages (tried with few). If you are local with the saler then leave him money bring the Expressive home and try it with your phonostages. If it Expressiveise Sound then you would nee 3 seconds to detect it. If you do not say “Holly shit!” after second note you heard then your phonostage was not good to begin with and even the Expressive will not help you. I can not say, unfortunately, which specific property of phonostage to look for. Yes, BTW, keep your cable after the Expressive as short as possible and as good quality as possible. The cable after the Expressive and before the phonostage is the most sonic inflicting cable in your entire system.
Rgs,
Romy the Cat
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