Project phono preamps?

Bones13 said:
Hard to beat the ACA for sound. I left the original ACA kits behind with my abandoned office. I am tempted to do a set of the balanced new ACA amps. I have gone balanced with the MSB Premier setup. Time will tell. Now that I am retired, it might be worth one more project. I was eyeing that upper end ACA. Of course I would upgrade most the parts. Gotta buy a house and get a man cave first though.
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You can run ACAs as "balanced amps" using the with balanced input on the rear panel. What's required for this setup is two ACAs, one for each channel. All you have to do is flip the switch on the rear panel to the correct setting for using the balanced input for each amp. This will bridge the two circuit boards in each amp, which then function as a monoblock to effectively double the output power to 15 Wpc Class A power. That's how I run mine, in fact, as shown in the photo above.
 
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Puma Cat said:
You can run ACAs as "balanced amps" using the with balanced input on the rear panel. What's required for this setup is two ACAs, one for each channel. All you have to do is flip the switch on the rear panel to the correct setting for using the balanced input for each amp. This will bridge the two circuit boards in each amp, which then function as a monoblock to effectively double the output power to 15 Wpc Class A power. That's how I run mine, in fact, as shown in the photo above.
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Yep, the ones I left with my old practice were the earliest mono block kits - only one amp card and heat sink per case. single ended only. I think the only mod on those was the earliest one - mildly increased bias because of the bigger heat sink than the original ACA (just a resistor change).
 
Puma Cat said:
I wrote a review of the Gold Note PH10 for TAS back in the day. It's a very nice phono stage and excellent value for money.
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I read a TAS review of it from 2020. Was that yours? It is the only review that said the highs were not as extended and was darker. Otherwise the review was good.
 
Puma Cat said:
Yes, that was my review.
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Do you remember anything about the sound stage width and depth? I read one pro review where he said that the sound stage was a little flat and closed in but otherwise it sounded great. It really sucks that I can't listen to these phono preamps locally here in the Twin Cities. I can also get a used Parasound JC 3 Jr. which I am sure sounds great but I prefer a fuller midrange with some warmth which the Gold Note seems to have as does the Hegel V10.

By the way, I read your bio at the end of the review. Thank you for helping developing the PCR. We order PCR tests probably 100 times a day or more in our practice. What a valuable diagnostic tool.

Thanks
 
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Mechnutt said:
Do you remember anything about the sound stage width and depth? I read one pro review where he said that the sound stage was a little flat and closed in but otherwise it sounded great. It really sucks that I can't listen to these phono preamps locally here in the Twin Cities. I can also get a used Parasound JC 3 Jr. which I am sure sounds great but I prefer a fuller midrange with some warmth which the Gold Note seems to have as does the Hegel V10.

By the way, I read your bio at the end of the review. Thank you for developing the PCR. We order PCR tests probably 100 times a day or more in our practice. What a valuable diagnostic tool.

Thanks
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www.nobelprize.org

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993 was awarded "for contributions to the developments of methods within DNA-based chemistry" jointly with one half to Kary B. Mullis "for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method" and with one half to Michael Smith "for his fundamental...
www.nobelprize.org www.nobelprize.org
 
mep said:
www.nobelprize.org

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993 was awarded "for contributions to the developments of methods within DNA-based chemistry" jointly with one half to Kary B. Mullis "for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method" and with one half to Michael Smith "for his fundamental...
www.nobelprize.org www.nobelprize.org
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"I’ve worked as a molecular biologist for my entire professional career. As one of the inventors of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), I worked in human molecular genetics and developing molecular-diagnostic and DNA forensic tests""
 
Mechnutt said:
Do you remember anything about the sound stage width and depth? I read one pro review where he said that the sound stage was a little flat and closed in but otherwise it sounded great. It really sucks that I can't listen to these phono preamps locally here in the Twin Cities. I can also get a used Parasound JC 3 Jr. which I am sure sounds great but I prefer a fuller midrange with some warmth which the Gold Note seems to have as does the Hegel V10.

By the way, I read your bio at the end of the review. Thank you for helping developing the PCR. We order PCR tests probably 100 times a day or more in our practice. What a valuable diagnostic tool.

Thanks
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Sorry, I don't. It's been about 3 years now. I remember it being an enjoyable and musically-engaging phono stage and a good value for it's price. Also very nicely made.

With respect to my work in developing PCR, I feel honored to have been part of a team of molecular biologists, chemists, and biochemists at Cetus Corporation that made the conception of PCR actually work in the real world (in patent terminology, "reduced it to practice") . It was very much a true team effort by this team and our engineers. The engineers developed the thermal cyclers for running the PCRs in an automated way once we had Taq polymerase available to use for the PCR reactions. Here's a publication in of mine in the journal, Blood as First Author that I'm particularly proud of: I had the idea that one could use PCR to amplify VNTRs (Variable Number Tandem Repeats) to quantitatively monitor allogeneic bone marrow transplant (BMT) engraftment, so the BMT surgeon could track with a number how well a leukemia patient who had received a BMT was doing post-transplant. This approach became the standard of practice for quantitatively monitoring BMT patients post-transplant. Pretty cool as it directly impacted the success of doing BMTs for leukemia patients.

Ref here: "Quantitative Determination of Bone Marrow Transplant Engraftment using Fluorescent PCR Primers for Human Identity Markers. Stephen J. Scharf, Anajane G. Smith, John A. Hansen, Chris McFarland, and Henry A. Erlich, Blood Vol. 85, No. 7, pp 1954-1963 (1995)."

Cheers.
 
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Very cool Puma. I was a physiology major and would have gone into research most probably if I did not get into medical school. I worked in a research lab during my last 2 years of college. Or I would have joined the Airforce and become a fighter pilot.

You can meet a lot of interesting people on audio forums. On the old Audio Review forum there was a guy with the last name of Bohr who was a relative of Niels Bohr the theoretical physicist. I have also met a bunch of local audiophiles that live in my area and we have become friends and socialize.
 
Mechnutt said:
Very cool Puma. I was a physiology major and would have gone into research most probably if I did not get into medical school. I worked in a research lab during my last 2 years of college. Or I would have joined the Airforce and become a fighter pilot.

You can meet a lot of interesting people on audio forums. On the old Audio Review forum there was a guy with the last name of Bohr who was a relative of Niels Bohr the theoretical physicist. I have also met a bunch of local audiophiles that live in my area and we have become friends and socialize.
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Very cool. Something you'll be able to relate to as a physician and trained science professional is that I can't turn my "scientist-brain"...off. ;)

Now that I'm retired, I spend time watching YT videos on meteorology and theoretical physics, of all things. There's a professional meteorologist up in the Seattle area, Michael Snyder, who does the Pacific Northwest and California Weather Watch weather reports every day, and really gets down into the data, comparing for example, the "12 Z run" of the GFS to the European weather models, and as a scientist, I'm all over it. Here's Michael's channel for today's weather report for California:


I also watch a lot of videos on YT on Theoretical Physics, and really enjoy the content from Bryan Greene, Sean Carroll, Stephen Wolfram (of Wolfram Mathematica fame), Lex Fridman, and astrophysicist, David Kipping.

Cheers.
 
Mechnutt said:
Very cool Puma. I was a physiology major and would have gone into research most probably if I did not get into medical school. I worked in a research lab during my last 2 years of college. Or I would have joined the Airforce and become a fighter pilot.

You can meet a lot of interesting people on audio forums. On the old Audio Review forum there was a guy with the last name of Bohr who was a relative of Niels Bohr the theoretical physicist. I have also met a bunch of local audiophiles that live in my area and we have become friends and socialize.
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Then you meet bums like me. LOL Hopefully you remember getting together at Axpona. It's cool that some of us from AR still associate. I don't know if you saw a couple years back I posted that Florian from Clarisys is the same Florian from AR. I met him as well at an Axpona, nice guy.
 
Of course, I remember we met and had dinner, I am not that old and decrepit yet LOL. But I am getting there. I am finally going to cut my hours back to 0.6 for the next 2 years and then retire. I am having a knee replacement a week from Tuesday and will be off work 11 weeks. That will be 40 years as an emergency medicine doctor.
 
Puma Cat said:
I think you'll really like it. Please post your impressions once you get it in and has settled a bit. Cheers.
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I sure will. Eventually, I will have to buy their upgraded power supply. I actually find it ridiculous at the price though. 1K for a power supply upgrade. Sheesh. If you did not need to upgrade the software in the PH-10 I would have an EE friend build one for much cheaper.
 
Mechnutt said:
I sure will. Eventually, I will have to buy their upgraded power supply. I actually find it ridiculous at the price though. 1K for a power supply upgrade. Sheesh. If you did not need to upgrade the software in the PH-10 I would have an EE friend build one for much cheaper.
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Maybe just get the SBS Booster LPS that Hans Beekhuyzen likes to use. You can also find quality LPS on EBay for about $130: Linear Power Supply.
 
Puma, you need a software upgrade to use a different power supply. I will have to look into the matter more deeply. I have bought a few good LPS from Ali express which really took the 3 DAC's and a JCAT USB card to a new level of refinement. And much better than the 100 dollar iPower X ifi power supply. I bought a LPS for my sons Qutest Chord DAC and it made a really nice improvement in sound. Chord says that you their power supply is good but it can't compete with a 60 dollar Chinese LPS.
 
Well, I pulled the trigger on the Gold Note. I should get it next week some time. TMR had one that was 10 days old for almost half off. I was going to buy it late Sunday night but got up early yesterday to buy it and it was gone. I was then going to buy a new one but found one in Canada for about 900 US dollars and 50 dollar shipping. This one is about 4 to 5 years old though. I will post a review in about 2 to 3 weeks after I recover a little bit from a knee replacement I am having next week.
 
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