Category Archives: Gadget Corner

Master category for most electronics.

The phono stage dilemma

While searching for my ideal preamp, one of my criteria was for this new preamp to have a built-in phono stage.  That turned out to be more difficult, as the only way I could find them was in older preamps, or in new preamps that were way beyond my budget.  I finally caved in to the idea of getting a phono stage.

Yet, which one?  I really wanted tubes.  I still do, to an extent.  But my choices in tubed phono stages was limited within my budget.  And when pressed for a choice, tubes might not be my solution after all.

My first candidate was a Jolida JD9 Mk II.  While build quality seemed acceptable, a few Internet forums mentioned that there were additional upgrades that could take the JD9 up to a higher level.  Upgrades include swapping in premium op amps, better output coupling capacitors, and HEXFRED rectifiers in the power supply.  Not to mention swapping in premium tubes.  I also would have installed my own mono switch on the rear panel.

While I like getting into the innards of electronics with soldering iron and voltmeter, the idea of hacking up a brand new phono stage (and voiding the warranty) did not sit well with me.  Once I did the math, I realized the Jolida would not have been a good investment.

The other candidate in valve land was the Pro-Ject Tube Box DS, which has the unique loading adjustment on the front panel.  It is nicely built, sure.  Yet like the JD9, I could not find any mainstream reviews of this model.  I found a killer deal on it, but decided to pass.  I do not put 100% weight in reviews, of course, but they are a helpful second opinion.

My luck came about by way of a lightly used Phonomena II+ by Musical Surroundings.  Mainstream press?  Yep, Absolute Sound had picked it as an Editor’s Choice.  Other reviews thought highly of it, and especially praised the depth and control in the bass.  Perfect.  It arrived within a week of purchasing it, and looked essentially unused.  The sound is, as you’d expect, phonomenal (sorry).

Loading is quite easy on the Phonomena.  A series of DIP switches on the rear can be set in many combinations to get LOMC loading where you need it to be.  For my Dynavector, I am currently at 59 ohms, but feel that I could probably nudge it down to 50 ohms to really smooth it out.

Running a MM cartridge, though, I have the option of two different resistive loads, and capacitive loads.  The only drawback is that MM loads are limited to 47k or 100k ohms; ear bleeders like the Audio Technica MM carts are happier with different loading, maybe in the 22k range.  The next available setting is 2k ohms.

For gain, there are 13 steps available from 40 to 60dB.

I did notice a bit of “rush” (faint white noise) when turning the volume way up.  I am going to inquire whether this is normal or not, and if a better power supply (than the small wall wart) would help that.  This phono stage uses so little power that a battery power supply may be an option too.

Overall, I have not had much chance to listen to it yet, but the sound is very clean and full-bodied.  If the soundstage was improved with the C-J preamp, this really locks it in further when playing vinyl.  I do want to tweak loads a little more, but it is really sounding nice at 59 ohms.

I will have more impressions over the coming week as I evaluate some high-quality vinyl.

Cables, cables…

IMG_20150416_023644Ever since I dumped those crappy Audioquest snake oil cables back to Amazon, I needed to find interconnects.  I checked many brands, and let’s just say that the prices are crazy on some of them.  And each company has its own spin on cables.  Some are pure silver.  Others, silver-plated copper.  Some are pure copper.  Many are bundled together.  Some are braided, like the Kimber Cables.  And the RCA plugs…brass or copper base metal, silver plating, copper plating, cryogenically treated, etc.

Staaahp!

From the marketing hyperbole, you’d think some of them would make you shit magical rainbows.

Having read around somewhat, I came up with the idea of using the Silver Sonic cables from DH Labs.  They base their cables on a copper core with a silver plating.  The premise is that lower frequencies travel deeper into the core of a wire, while higher frequencies reside closer to the skin.  With that in mind, they use the copper core to provide better conduction of the lower frequencies, with the silver assisting the top end.  The wires arrived with an attractive blue jacket and directional arrows.

For RCA ends, I used the Neutrik ProFi plugs.  They come with a unique pressure-fit strain relief system, as well as a unique spring-loaded grounding shield that contacts the RCA jack first when being plugged in, and loses contact first when being removed.

While I don’t believe that the metals in the wire are directional (it is, after all, non-magnetic), the arrows do come in handy.  These cables come with two conductors, plus shield.  I hooked these up in a floating shield configuration.  The red and white conductors are connected respectively to the hot and ground on each end.  The shield, however, is connected only at the source end of the cable.  This prevents a potential ground loop situation caused by the shielding.  The arrows then help you connect the correct end to the source and destination.

Other than some of the lettering flaking off, the cables turned out nicely.

On first listen, they do have a clean overall presentation, perhaps a little bit leaner than I’m used to.  The RCA plugs fit snugly on the jacks.  As for noise, they are dead quiet.

Time will tell as to how they eventually sound once I am used to them.  I made three sets so far.  Next time, I may order up some cable sleeving to neaten things up a bit, perhaps even combining the two cables into one sleeve for ease of routing.

Stay tuned.

 

Can new cables suck? My brief Audioquest experience…

While moving my equipment around, I decided to upgrade a few interconnects in the system.  Rather than reuse some of my older cables of varying ages and quality, I decided to try some of the more affordable Audioquest interconnects, these being the Evergreens.  I also have one of the G-Snake interconnects, an earlier generation.

AudioQuest Evergreen 1m 3.28 feet RCA to RCA 1m 3'4"Ever since installing them, I have noticed two things–a slight lack in bass drive, and increased noise. These interconnects are thin, and the vague explanation on their site does not lead me to believe that there is any substantial shielding inside these.  Even the crappy Monster brand cables are much quieter, poorly built as some of them are.  (I’ve had the RCA plugs come apart on two separate cable sets. Shameful.)  I also have no-name cables that are quieter, if not as transparent.

Thankfully, Amazon has a gracious return policy, and all of the Evergreens are going back.  The G-Snake I will either keep (as it seems a little more robust), or will resell it (as I bought it used).

I am looking at other options that aren’t in “snake oil” territory (or in other words, hundreds of dollars).  Yet it is hard to find any that aren’t silver plated, as those tend to make the sound brighter.  I do not tolerate bright.  Stay tuned.

Media server project

I am currently using a Seagate Central as a temporary network drive.  I had a WD My Book Live die on me, and it took me over a week to pull off not quite 2TB of data using the DiskInternals Linux Reader application.  With that and other media I’d collected since the My Book Live died last July, I’ve filled a 3TB Seagate Central to within 400GB of capacity.

My current path is a Synology DS214play NAS (network attached storage) box.  There are a handful of models in the DS214 series, but the D214play has the most powerful processor and a floating point unit, having the ability to transcode video and audio files on the fly.  Since I will be using this as a media server as its primary function, getting a unit capable of transcoding was a good move for me.

Why do we need transcoding?  Not all devices in the house can play the same video formats, and the DS214play will transcode them to the proper format while sending them across the network.  The excellent Mezzmo package for Windows 7/8 does the same, but I am not going to turn my desktop computer on, burning up 300 watts or more of power, just to send a video to one room in the house.

The DS214play does not come with hard drives–it is an empty 2-bay unit.  I have researched drives a bit.  My recent experience with the My Book Live, whose drive got corrupted after a simple power outage, has made me shy away from their products.  Although, their pricey “Se” and “Re” series drives are high reliability enterprise drives with a five year warranty and extra technology to help with error recovery and vibrational stability.  The WD Red drive is claimed to be an “enterprise” or NAS drive, but its poor 5400 RPM speed instantly ruled it out for me.

One drive catching my attention was a Hitachi, aka HGST.  Many server and cloud providers have used these with among the lowest failure rates in the industry.  Given the price on one of these in a NAS-duty configuration was $70 lower than the same sized 4TB WD “Re” drive, I decided to give it a try.

Having 4TB will take care of my needs for awhile, and the Seagate Central will be a backup drive, fired up occasionally to sync with the DS214play.  The My Book Live is still under warranty, so I will be replacing that as well, and may use it for a backup also, likely with less critical files.

The Synology NAS products are really well thought out.  Rather than having to hack them and install my own set of utilities, Synology has the ability to download applications that install right to the NAS without any hacking or special knowledge needed.  Bittorrent clients, the Serviio DLNA/UPnP server, a video surveillance recorder, and many others are available as add-on modules.  Very nice!

It is all coming together nicely.  Further progress will be posted here as it happens.

HDCD ripping tip

The Oppo BDP-105 does not currently play ripped HDCD files “decoded” so therefore, I have to make do with a workaround.  Thankfully I own few HDCD titles, so this is not very time consuming at all to convert them into a higher resolution FLAC file which any digital player can render properly.

HDCD, in simplest terms, is essentially closest to a 20-bit sample encoded into a 16-bit sample.  The data for this encoding is hidden in the least significant bit of the signal.

Some digital players, primarily computer based, can decode these files as though they are 20-bit and play them back as such.  But for network media players, including those built into BD/SACD/CD players like the Oppo, support is variable.  The BDP-105 is one of those which does not play this file back decoded.

The trick?  HDCD can be decoded into a 24-bit file; the extra four bits of empty padding can be at the top or bottom of the digital file.  If this padding is placed at the bottom (in the least significant bits), the signal played back will be six decibels louder; if placed at the top in the most significant bits, playback will be softer.  Sound quality will remain the same either way, however.

The decoding to a 24-bit file can be done during ripping, or after the fact from existing FLAC files.  I use dBpoweramp as my primary ripping and conversion suite for files.  dBpoweramp has a DSP plugin for HDCD.  You can run it on any CD rip or FLAC file.  It will save a 24-bit file if it finds the HDCD encoding, but if it doesn’t, it will save it as the original 44.1kHz/16-bit file.  (If you are converting FLAC to FLAC, it will leave an unaltered 44.1/16 file, so you need not worry about it having been altered by the program if HDCD encoding was not found.)

Thankfully I know which titles of mine are HDCD encoded, and it took only a matter of minutes to convert them.