Souped up phono stage: Hagerman Cornet MM4 parts to step up 

Woohoo! 🥳 A new vid from Janos. I’m actually on my 5th EAR 834p clone build, and I’m keeping this one! (I hope) No friends will get their paws on this one…lol. The original Tim DeParavacini design has a 12AX7 cathode follower, which sounds a bit harsh, but by changing a few resistor values, a 12AU7 can be used instead, and tends to give an overall more organic and smoother sound. I’d love to build a Hagerman Cornet as well using my choice of parts. Jim is a great designer. He also designs and builds guitar effects pedals, which is the reason I even thought about and got involved with the DIY thing. Definitely agree with the Kiwame carbon film resistors. They do have that nice carbon comp kind of sound, but with more stability and a tighter tolerance of 1%, I believe. Their 5 watt resistors are actually smaller than a lot of brands 2 watts. I absolutely second your advice to just spend a little bit extra for some NOS or just OS tubes from a reliable source. Because they’re preamp tubes, they will last for many, many years. There is no reason to necessarily buy rare (which equals $$$) 12AX7 tubes, but something lower in price. A Telefunken will tend to sound a bit brighter, Mullard, more mellow (especially 7025’s), or RCA, which are just overall very well balanced tubes. There’s of course more very good sounding brands of NOS / OS tubes out there.