Wm goes Thermionic

Did you peruse my two posts sloppie?

 

Nick,
I'm going to do a WNA phono in the next couple of weeks see what cooks, I've got another unit under construction at the moment too, I'll do a shoot out with the steel head & modded Diablo too.
Can you mail your posts to coherent please. Ta. Wm

 

Ok let David know I sent you ;-)

What else are you contructing right now?

What is the best email addy again?

You might like to look at https://www.audio-forums.com/as-rediect/showthread.php?p=132327#post132327&conly=

 

I know a chap who has one Nick, use the [email protected] please

 

what are you doing to it sloppie and who is it? do I know them?

which configuration are they using?

 

Hi,

It was a project published in the 90's in Construire HiFi by Ciro Marzio and Christiano Gelasi. The original used a simple single valve stage with a good quality output transformer...

The current design derived from that but heavily modified by members of the LLDHC uses parallel feed output transformers (S&B TX-101 silver) and a transfomer volume control (S&B TX-102 silver) with battery biasing for the grid and Mundorf Silver parallel feed coupling capacitors.

Valve these days is the russian 6S45 but WE417a, 437a and others can be used.

Anode load choke - you have a number of options, PSU Valve rectified, choke input with extra LC filter section and no electrolytic capacitors.

Gain is around 20db, output impedance around 150 Ohm, distortion is pretty low for non nfb circuitry, single valve stage, 2 silver wound transformers & 2 silver foil capacitors is all there is for the signal circuit and all she wrote.

For myself I keep things much abriged and I stick to a Music First Audio passive, Euridice's come into their own in multiamped, multiway systems using passive line level LC Crossovers and Equalisation.

Ciao T

 

Email has been sent to you tony.

 

Well, a couple of us forum guys had had a little shoot out today, with a Manley stingray intergrated/ Belcanto evo2i and the Minorly tweeked minimax Pre/ Class Wm 75wrms power amp, all using the same cdp and cables.The MM/Wm combo Spanked the lot of em' in no small order.
The Belcanto 2i wasn't even in the running shocking but true.
Outgunned in every area, especially in the presence, weight, realism & sheer musicality departments.
The Manley was next, giving a good all round pleasing performance, followed up by the B/c I'm afraid so, its still a good piece of kit, but was outclassed by the manley and positively embarassed by the mm/wm combo.
So time to go work on the pre this week, plus some new valves to try. This little Cheapo pre when paired correctly can sing some what, even JJ the hardened bottle head was some what surprsied Wm

 

So when does it go to market then?

 

Alan,
There's plenty more to come out yet, just looking at the options currently
Though the combo is surpisingly good. Plus a lot more beta testing to be done.
We'll see. Wm

 

Hi,

As all the other items are in production I take it you refer to the euridice. I doubt you will ever be able to buy one from serious production, it is a design from the area usually called Ultra-Fi and by definition DIY. You will have to build one.

For fun, some people build my LCR equalised Valve Phonostage design (it is in the [public domain) with transformer volume control and found it well superior to pretty any commercial Phono they had tried, it replaced items such Aesthetix IO, Lamm LP-2 and CAT's.

The original Euridice we tried walked over all soorts, including a top of the line Croft Valve pre, Audio Synthesis Passion and has been second only to Transformer based passive devices, the changes we made since the original Euridice bridged the gap enough for the Euridice to be a question of choice and no longer playing 2nd fiddle to a passive device.

Looking in the commercial market I would say that even the really extreme cost stuff from the big guns cannot match the best ultra-fi gear around. Part of it is invariably the use of limited availability active and piassive parts and the use of a truely "cost/weight/size no object" approach.

To illustrate, my Phonostage supply uses a 150VA mains transformer, a GZ34 rectifier, 8 pcs 10H chokes and 6pcs 120uF Film Capacitors (the size of beer-cans) and choke filtered (0.1H) heaters with another beercan sized filter Capacitor (68,000uF), it may appear extreme overkill, but you can tell the difference it makes.

The Signal circuit uses Transformers & LCR RIAA Equaliser modules to the tune of $ 1,000 retail (OEM would be around 1/2 that) or even $1,500 (if including the passive transformer based linestage) for the copper wired versions plus NOS E810F & D3a special grade Siemens Valves which are now nearly unobtanium and which have no russian or other near equivalents (be it modern or old production) and hence start pushing the $100 each boundaries.

You just will not find this kind this kind of material applied to commercial products that have to sell in conventional ways, with the exception of some of the more extreme Audio Note Japan Gear, like the M10 Preamp which retailed at $ 125,000 while in production in the late 90's.

Ciao T

 

Hi 3D sonics, sorry I meant W-M's power amp.

W-M - if you need a beta tester I might be interested
I have a B/C Evo2i on loan at the moment and its not quite pushing all the buttons for me.

 

WE had the all the amps hooked up via full Coherent power loom & PM2.
I haven't touched the 2i yet either, tbh after today not sure I'll bother I'm waiting for a qaulity case to arrive first, and a couple of mods to the input stage first, then I'm sure I can see what you think of it.
Interestingly, the sound on the evo 2i just wasn't doing it at all, what ever we tried (and still points do help a lot here ) just wasn't producing the goods (Its still good, however it was made to feel very in adiquate this afternoon.
I strapped it in the mains system tonite, humm religation to the kitchen sounds I feel. Wm

 

Hi Big Tone,

What are the mods/tweaks on the Minimax pre amp as it stands?


SCIDB

 

Not that I'm going to tell you how to suck eggs Tony, but.....You can mod a thing to death sometimes. Make sure you have another one to compare to everytime as reference, because sometimes what appears to be a foreward step can sometimes just be different.
To be honest I'm not even sure how they can justify £600 for the Minimax in the UK. A choke regulated, valve rectified 2x12AU7 pre (amplification/buffer) similar to this is for about £300

 

Lee I paid £450 for it & I totally Agree sir with over doing the pudding, I try all the one at time tweaks & evo from there. mods so far JUst Kev's cheap large 5.6uf caps on the psu, and 2.2uf & 0.1 UF Hovland musicaps as replacements and bypass, so pretty basic really.
I would like to point out the amps are being used with Coherent Systems wiring and mains conditioning. Wm

 

I made the switch a month or so back - though I didn't import so I paid the Shadow price minus a bit of a decent discount (£1400 for the pre+power, saving around ~£200) due to not trading anything in and being a local...

Though I'd have loved to save a bit more, it's SUCH a good amp at that price it just seemed silly to get fussy over the price.

In my system, the MiniMax, with a NOS Audiotechnique 6X4 in the pre and a Mazda-labelled NOS Mullard GZ34 from the early sixties in the power amp, is producing by far and away the best music I've heard from a hifi. The previous 'best' I'd heard was a £40k system involving the very top end Naim kit at a dealer's home (and no ordinary dealer at that). Certainly, it makes the £5k I spent on a nearly new s/h 52/SC/250 seem completely stupid. My sonic memory of that system isn't as fresh as I'd like, but I am certain that the MiniMax performs it by a large margin. At 1/4 of the price. With a 3 year warranty. And it takes up less space and looks pretty good (to my eyes).

Sure, 8 watts doesn't buy you PA like levels of headbanger sound, but used with reasonably compatible speakers it wants for nothing. Not a bean.

I only wish these amps had been around five years ago as I could have saved myself a lot of time and money. Let's put it another way: if you like the immediacy and dynamics of decent solid state, but want the tonality and timbre and musicality of valves, these bad boys fit the bill. Exactly how I imagined the big Border Patrol amps would sound, actually - and they don't necessarily come off the worse for the comparison...

John

 

8 watts in your system v. 1.2 kW in mine - its funny that such extremes exist in audio ;-)

 

I would like to say Top cat, that this is ONLY second system stuff as good as it is.
One boon though it matches the SB2 very well

 

Hi,

Well, when I used Beauhorn Virtuosos my system was 102db/1W/1m (actually measured) and driven by 8W RMS (300B SE again, actual measured power).

That gives the same actual SPL as a 82db/1W/1m Speaker with 800W RMS, more or less actually - the 82db/1W/1m system will probably reach 6db+ thermal compression with 800W, so the 8W system in this case will play appreciably louder than the 800W one.

As usual, it is not how big it is, but how you use it...

Ciao T