Tuesday, July 7, 2015

"La Gitana" - MM valve premium component phono preamp
























This MM phono preamp is based around the Radi0Kit - RK318, premium parts, valve phono preamp kit. There are two grades to the kit, this one uses superior parts, WIMA, M-Cap, Dales and ceramic sockets. The PS is my own 240-24-240V design and uses a low profile 160W toroid. Over kill here but to fit this whole build into a 19" 1U rack mount enclosure required a special transformer. The oversize toroid provides excellent mains filtering. The mains is feed via an IEC socket on a short tail.

The PS is a C-L-C-R-C type. The choke is a 5H Hammond and combined with 247uf of filtering produces a dead black 280V HT. The 12V filament current is regulated and heavily filtered. JJ short plate low microphonic tubes come with the kit. WBT silver solder used throughout. With high quality components, a robust and clean PS and all housed in low profile, professional enclosure, "La Gitana" (Gypsy) looks as good as it sounds.