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Tubes & tables
I’ve been playing more vinyl now that the weather has gotten colder and I found a tube phono preamp kit that I bought when the kids were little. It’s a Hagerman Cornet v-1, running two 12ax7s, a 12au7 and a 5y3. I never finished it because my wife & I both got laid off in 2002 and I couldn’t afford the power transformer at the time. I had stashed it in the back of some shelves in the kid’s gaming room 20 years ago. I found it on Sunday while looking for some of my old albums. I scavenged a power transformer that’s close enough to get it working. The B+ was a little low but substituting a 5ar4 for the 5y3 brought it up within reason. This thing is dead silent even without a case and running crappy old tubes. I swapped in some Tele smooth plates and a 12bh7 and it sounds great.
I’ve been staying up too late listening and it’s hard to shut it down and go to bed.
and 2 others.
Comments
Wow, expensive little bugger! Tubes FTW!
I think the board was very reasonable and the parts didn't amount to much, minus the transformer. The newer versions use a 9v wallwart and an on-board voltage boost converter. He's selling the previous v-3 version of the bare board for $80.
I realized last night that the National tube you can see in the photo was actually a 12AT7. It was in the wrong storage box and I just grabbed two junk tubes that were supposed to be 12AX7s. I'm a little surprised this thing still sounded really good.
Looks like an all tube preamp from input to output, including power supply. Cool. Have you tried it with your rebuilt Dynaco ST-70 for a complete tube listening experience from cartridge to speaker?
I really like it Tom! The only thing that would make it cooler is if it was 100% point to point wired with a turret board lol
It's just the phono stage, so no additional gain or volume control. I would have to rebuild the 6J1 to get that running, but I have an SRPP 6DJ8 linestage that would work. I think I have a bad tube in that ST-70. I'll have to put them on the tester before firing it up again. I'm hoping it's the 12BH7 and not a power tube or even worse, one of the Amperex 12AU7s.
If someone would get off their butt and put the u-tracer together they could test a few tubes for everyone.
I picked up this old Thorens TD-125 yesterday. The asking price was too good to pass up. I had read these were heavy tables, but I was a bit shocked when I picked it up for the first time. It's closing in on 40lbs with the arm and will need some work to get it looking presentable. But after a quick cleaning and some oil in the bearing, it's running smooth & quiet even after sitting idle for 25 years. The arm is an SME 3009 Mk2 and those go for far more than I paid for the whole kit. It has some minor issues, but nothing that can't be resolved and the parts I need to replace are still available for these. I will probably swap that for the Acos Lustre arm you see over on the right side. That arm is a tank and no tools are needed to make adjustments with that arm.
Outstanding find!!!