Nice work. I have made the same piece but from the competition. I found Mundorf PIO caps after seeing Skunky use them and they are very nice sounding. She also does not trust the supplied resistors on another project and I agree. I purchased some along the lines of mid-range Vishay's None of this is super expensive and you can get a good reward
Great video thanks for sharing,I've been through much the same experiences,trying to minimise hum and noise,actually found it to sound very nice,have used better low noise valve's but haven't changed any Capacitors yet,I have put power supply board in different enclosure and my next step is to add Chokes and Capacitors on the Heater and B+ supplies to hopefully reduce noise and hum further,one of best things I've found and would advise trying if you can put your hands on one is feed it via an Mains Isolation Transformer.
This is a nice walk through of the kit build. Thank you for sharing your build journey. Those higher value caps in the Power Supply stage won't make any difference, but it would be nice if the had the board printed correctly to match the components. I believe the "unlabelled" 0.1uF caps may be the "anti rumble"/subsonic filter if I recall correctly. You are right, you cannot have two cartridges connected in parallel. It will completely mess up the impedance and capacitance at the input. Definitely will need them switched if you really need two turntables connected. I also use the EAR834 clone, and mostly I trust the parts in the kit. There are a couple of caps dierectly in the signal path that make a small difference in qualtiy, but most of the parts are good, as long as the resistors match the rating. Rolling the tubes will have more influence on the sound than the caps etc. That said, if someone wants to use higher quality parts in the RIAA stage, then go ahead.
There was a particular cap that seems to have messed up the sound, the 1uf red ones labelled "Audiophiler", and unfortunately I put some blame on the Solens for this at the end of the vid. I will soon do a review of the signal cap issue in this unit and post my remarks if it does sound good with the Solens only in it.
Hello Brandon. This is a small following, but informative. As you see my comment, I’m looking to purchase a finished kit from a Chinese website. I don’t know if mentioning the website and particular companies would get my comment deleted. If you don’t mind sending a private message, then I can ask you specific questions on your opinion. Thanks!
Brendan I think I am going to look further into the anti rumble filtering, if there is any. If I touch some parts of the turntable or especially the plastic dustcover, the woofer cones want to jump to the other side of the room! Very scary and some speaker will get damaged if that is left unchecked.
O dear, now I was starting to entertain the idea of socketed capacitors as well. But unfortunately the sockets probably would mess up the actual capacities seen electrically. This looks like a fun project kit. Hopefully something similar can still be had these days here in Europe, and if it is with pre-drilled stand-off holes (I don’t have a drill press). Cheers
That is a great idea! One problem is that all these capacitors have different thickness lead wires, but a raised turret or pin could work as a much easier solder point for faster swapping
@@jothanankrogh yes, it is a great idea until you realise how much capacitance a socket spring and some unavoidable oxide layers might add (uncleanly) to the system. But then again, maybe it won’t be that bad. Only one way to find out… 😉
Note: it was some "Audiophiler" 1uf capacitors that seemed to ruin the sound, further use with the stock, orange drops or solen capacitors in that position all sounded good.
Great job with the build! Yeah, you don’t want both turntables plugged into the same phono pre. I built a similar EAR 834p phono pre, and an A/B/Y external box was how I switched between decks. It’s an easy box to build, and I’ve no doubt you could figure it out easily. 👍🔊🎶🥳 Btw, Apologies if you mentioned it, but where’d you get that chassis? It looks really nice. A couple of my friends want me to build them phono pres, and customizing them is a pain in the ass. lol Thanks for the fantastic vid!
Thank you! still enjoying this preamp every day. The chassis came with the kit, I really like it and would like to use blank ones in future projects. They can be found in many sizes on ebay, with a search like" Aluminum Project Box Enclosure"
Hello Nick. Since you also experience building these kits, if you don’t mind sending a private message, then I can ask you specific questions on your opinion. I’m looking to buy a finished kit. Thanks!
All caps need some burn-in time, and it varies widely. I would have left the amp turned on for 10 to 20 hours before making a judgement and replacing them.
Your through explanation encouraged me to challenge my first diy project of tube amplifier. The first result was very discouraging, but I was lucky to figure out a few mistakes (in a week time) and the sound was fantastic; more than I expected!! I am already dreaming my second project. BTW, do you have measured data (VDC) at each stages of the music line? Although I cannot hear any sound differences between right and left channels, I measured the B+ voltages differ significantly; 244/281VDC. Without the load (disconnect the main board), the B+ voltages for both channels are similar; 294/301 VDC. This difference continues, so the plate voltages at V1, V2, V3 are 73/79, 94/110, 242/279 VDC. I have no idea whether the measured voltages are within expected range or the differences are acceptable or not?? Anyone can share the valuable experience?
Hello! I really liked your detailed video building and reviewing the kit. It did give me some important information that I was looking for. I am looking to buy a already built kit from online. Sorry if I haven’t looked at your previous videos. So I don’t know the voltage that your outlet uses. I’ve read the tube warmers might have problems if the input is too low at 110V. Thanks in advance!
Hello Pete, this one has an adjustment potentiometer on the power supply board that sets the regulated voltage of the tube heaters, so there is no problem with input voltage differences, mine is 120vac.
Why did you choose this kit over the others? There’s a kit by Douk that seems to have good review by some audiophiles like Audio Karma and Vinyl Engine. Btw, there’s another site which costs a lot less for the kits and parts, such as enclosures.
Excellent question, as far as I've seen the Ear834 has no capacitors at its input circuit and relies upon the turntable cables capacitance, mine measured 220-240pf.
@@jothanankrogh The original EAR 834P specifies the fuse as 0.1/ 0.2A; assuming 0.1A fuse for 240V and 0.2A for 120V?? I'm using 0.2A/250V fuse (my house gets 230V electricity) without any problem.
Please suggest an alternative! I'm willing to try others, and I was horrified by how much I noticed signal cap differences in hifi compared to their use in guitar amps.
@@jothanankrogh in my experience metal poly caps have flavors and ive never found any that i particularly dislike, except Solen. WIMA, Panasonic, Cornell Dubilier should be a safe bet. Many small (esoteric) brands out there, RelCap has been good.
