Reuben's Ceramic Phonostage

[Record Player]

Its been a few weeks since Reuben sent me the Ceramic Phonostage that he built for me. I was specifically in need of this for me 78s. This has already gone through a substantial burin by Reuben. However, before I tested this I was very keep on first getting a casing made.

The casing is made of fiber to avoid any possible Hum/Feedback. Here is how it looks:

With the weekend here this will go through some serious listening and post that a review next week.

Thanks again Reuben for this

PS: I have specifically started a new thread to pen down a detailed review on my listening impressions.

Cheers...

 

[reubensm]

The casing is made of fiber to avoid any possible Hum/Feedback

The project looks quite slick in its new housing.

Was wondering, ideally a metal casing is more suitable for shielding. I have noticed some phonostages in plastic cases using internal tin-foil lining to provide the necessary shielding. Nevertheless you are not likely to face too many issues as this is a low gain stage.

Also this phonostage is very sensitive toward PSU ripple. Hope you have provided adequate filtering. Also the mount of the transformer has to be grounded with the ground terminal of the phonostage (avoid grounding with the input). The original circuit design used batteries as the power source.

 

[reubensm]

This has already gone through a substantial burin

Yes, I used it with an EEI CS2000 stereo ceramic cart on my Garrard RC210 changer. Lots and lots of listening. Sounded quite good to my ears.

 

[Record Player]

Apologies for the delayed response Reuben. I dint get time last weekend to test this and only got time last night. So I did check this and something has really gone wrong when the casing was made! A lot of humm and channel imbalance.

This will go back to my technician tomorrow. I had initially provided him with the entire diagram you had posted Reuben and not sure why he did not get it right. I will ask him to follow that in detail.

 

[reubensm]

Apologies for the delayed response Reuben. I dint get time last weekend to test this and only got time last night. So I did check this and something has really gone wrong when the casing was made! A lot of humm and channel imbalance.

This will go back to my technician tomorrow. I had initially provided him with the entire diagram you had posted Reuben and not sure why he did not get it right. I will ask him to follow that in detail.

Suggest you start using it with a battery and then graduate to a PSU. Hope the transistors have not blown (not that easy for them to blow, so don't worry)

 

[reubensm]

on another note, if you face challenges with your technician, put it in a small box and ship it to me, I'll wire up the PSU for you and get it to sing

 

[Record Player]

on another note, if you face challenges with your technician, put it in a small box and ship it to me, I'll wire up the PSU for you and get it to sing

Thanks Reuben. Fortunately nothing has blown. I will instruct my technician to use the battery approach first and then upgrade to a PSU at a later stage.

Ill keep you posted.