[FYFL]

What's the gain on MC?

 

[]eep]

It's 34dB MM and 54dB MC at 100 Ohm. Not very much but it matches in volume with my dacs.

I just plugged in the cable from the Miyajima Zero to the MC input. Sounds simple but it took me a while. Confined space and hidden cables. Then with the case half in my lap, half against the cabinet because the cables aren't longer, trying to fiddle 2 different groundwires on 1 terminal. Not that easy. Although the small speaker terminal for the groundwires is a great idea imo. If only I hadn't just given away those small banana plugs...

Now the signal cable touches the power cord. It is definitely more noisy. But fortunately so is the Zero, quite loud. So the overal level is quite good. Now both carts and dacs are matched, this saves me constant leveling on my power amp and bass amp.

On the sound: it's good. But it's definitely not where I want it to be. But 3 tubes and definitely 3 caps can change an awful lot. And then there's some wires too that could be upgraded.

 

[FYFL]

It's 34dB MM and 54dB MC at 100 Ohm. Not very much but it matches in volume with my dacs.

I just plugged in the cable from the Miyajima Zero to the MC input. Sounds simple but it took me a while. Confined space and hidden cables. Then with the case half in my lap, half against the cabinet because the cables aren't longer, trying to fiddle 2 different groundwires on 1 terminal. Not that easy. Although the small speaker terminal for the groundwires is a great idea imo. If only I hadn't just given away those small banana plugs...

Now the signal cable touches the power cord. It is definitely more noisy. But fortunately so is the Zero, quite loud. So the overal level is quite good. Now both carts and dacs are matched, this saves me constant leveling on my power amp and bass amp.

On the sound: it's good. But it's definitely not where I want it to be. But 3 tubes and definitely 3 caps can change an awful lot. And then there's some wires too that could be upgraded.

Same wiring problem here. Lol
It’s not exclusive to just phono.
It drives me bananas. But it should be addressed soon.

Yeah, that’s not a lot of gain at all. Not sure if that would work for me?
Neat little phono though. Looks like tweaker’s delight with room for improvement.
But seriously…. For that kind of money it would be foolish to expect quality parts galore.
Most import thing is, it seems to fit your needs and your diy/tweaker level.
Glad it works out for you.

 

[]eep]

Since the last tube is a 12at7 /ecc81 leaves space for replacing it with a 12ax7/ecc83 which would get a few extra dB of amplification. Gain factor 60 vs 100 AT vs AX. There are a few other types that are interchangeable with different gain.

It's price isn't very high. I'm glad I got it for black Friday for €250, now it's 100 extra. The original (quite different engineering and level of quality control) is more that 10x that.

But it's quite a substantial case. Full size width and height. 17" x 3".

 

[FYFL]

Looks like part of the original design was treated with separate (tube?) power supply. Generally speaking, well designed power supply is essential part responsible for overall quality. With that being said. Are there clones that offer closer depiction of the original design with dedicated power supply? I think that could be quite interesting offering with possibly even more options for improvement. I'm not familiar with this clone nor the original, so excuse my lock of familiarity with what's available or possible with this design.

 

[]eep]

Actually a good question. Yes, there is a two box version. And it's totally different pricerange: €1300 +250pp. I would have bought the ffyx or jasmine for that price. And it would fill my allotted space in my new rack completely.

To show what I've done with my trusted 'old' Jolida JD9 I took a picture of the insides again. I thought it was a tube phono then but when I opened it up it turned out to be a very (un)clever modular system of triple opamp gainstage with RIAA, tube buffer and (soundstage killing) attenuation stage. I wasn't particularly pleased with the sound.

When I started looking up what others done with it I started to learn what is what and followed what others did as far as I could understand. I started predictably with the tubestage, caps, powersupply elco's. Replaced the Shuguang ecc83 for Philips ecc82. Shielded milspec wire and carbon beads on the power leads. Didn't bring much (because it's just a buffer, duh). Never got the logic behind the attenuation. It turned out to be just some caps and resistors to bring down the stupid high output level. But it ruined the sound. So I jacked it out. That helped.

Then I turned my attention to the shielded mystery box (photo shows lid removed). That's where the magic was! 3 opamps and coupling caps and dodgy wires. The opamps all at maximum amplification with large resistors to attenuate all that. It had about 90dB in total. But like a roller-coaster ride up and down. When the opamps have to work that hard at 12 and 15V you lose a lot of integrity. 1 opamp had 3 different feedback amount according to the MM/MCH/MCL switch. That caught my attention. I started to understand how I can tune the opamps to make their life easier and the sound less strained. JACKPOT. No more pilgrims progress of 3 forward and 2 back.

I took out the selector board for mm/mc and impedance and capacitance. Don't need it. Solid 100kOhm and shielded milspec wire to the input of the opamp board. Took out and bypassed the middle man, er... I mean opamp (plus L plus R) . Took down the resistors. Replaced the caps for Sprague PiO, replaced the mica caps for the RIAA feedback loop for Russian PiO. Experimented with opamp rolling and landed on BB OPA623 and LT1028. Sweet and powerful.

Now I reused the high or low outputs jacks for the real thing: the high became the usual route of opamp gainstage to tube buffer to output. The low output became the opamp gainstage straight to the output. Now I could simply switch outputs to hear the effect of the tubestage.

Now this might interest you all. So this tube buffer all makes it all sweet, musical and wide, right? Well, no. Maybe if you like campfires. It just muddles the sound, adds smoke hiss and tube crackle. It adds to the sound but it doesn't make it sound better.

The opamp stage however. Here's the bees knees. Wow. Fast and clean, powerful and detailed yet warm, spacious and airy. So I never looked back at that stupid marketing gimmick tubestage. And that makes it a hard act to follow.

So I got my work cut out for me with this all tube phono.

 

[FYFL]

Wished I had ability to mod some of my gear….. Interesting story with your Jolida upgrade path. Looks like “less is more” is an accurate metaphor describing what you have done to it.
As to tube “buffers”. That idea never appealed to me. Never understood benefits of it over possibility of modding up the sound with gimmicky application of tubes.
Looking forward to your new phono overhaul progression.

 

[FYFL]

Newsworthy releases:

Edit: also available for pre-order:

I think that this reissue collection might be interesting. Great music and reasonably priced.

 

[]eep]

Those are pretty normal prices. Good to see not everyone is taking advantage and bleeding dry the newfound life of vinyl.

I finally picked up my replacement 12" arm. Too bad there's no collar with it. I can't try both on the same table now. Anyway, something to do this weekend. Using my DAP with dsd fttb.

I'm going to try something else too while I'm at it. I have a spare passive preamp that has 3 inputs and 1 straight output, only relais. The second output has a volume but nothing other. I am going to try if I can plug it into either phono and use the inputs for both transformers. It shouldn't interfere much. That would be an easy solution to use 2 different MC's and even an extra MM.

 

[The Jester]

Should work fine with the only thing in circuit is the connecting cables and switching relays ….

 

[]eep]

That's what I thought. No harm in trying.

I just spent 3 hours changing out the bent tonearm for a new one. Hard work with a turntable that heavy. On the upside, practice makes perfect. I did it a lot faster than the first time and now I know what does what. So all small adjustments are more to my liking now.

I also turned the TT to better fit on the rack and to easier support 2 arms. So instead of 2 legs forward it's more 2 in the rear (front logo is looking left now). I twisted the arm boards clockwise. So compared to a normal turntable the main arm is a bit more to the front to make place for the one in the back.

So now it's testing time. I just pulled a random album out. A black album. THE black album. Metallica Wow. I hadn't played this in a while. This rocks. This sounds good with the tubes. Now with tranny to MM, pretty quiet, good slam (good is an understatement). This really suits this music.

 

[The Jester]

AC/DC’s “Back In Black” is no slouch either ..,

 

[FYFL]

The new release of Black Album (2021 I think)? If so, that is in fact a pretty stellar version.
AC/DC back to black is also very good. But IMHO, it’s slightly inferior as far as mastering goes.
Both are a must have in my opinion.

 

[]eep]

I really had to look for it. It's on Simply Vinyl, svlp 207, special edition 180g virgin vinyl. It says 2000, seems rather old. But it's not just any flimsy lp.
After further reading... Lucky me. It's praised as the best version. Getting pricey too. Mine is nm/nm. Not that I care, you'll only pry it out of my cold dead hands...

 

[The Jester]

LOL ..
Something the “why buy it when you can stream it” crowd will never understand …