Bilbo

Exactly right - I couldn't agree more. 😊 It's unfortunate that poor sods like me do hear a difference (real or imagined) and pay for the perception.

Rectifier tubes make a big difference (in a Supratek preamp). Stick a Mullard gz37 or gz32 (brown bases) in and hear the difference!

This item is sold pending payment. Thank you for your interest.

Item: Custom Steel Speaker Stands Location: Brisbane Price: $70.00 ono Item Condition: Fair (structurally sound but in need of a respray). Reason for selling: NLR Payment Method: Local Pickup - Cash (Too big to post) Extra Info: These stands are custom made to support stand mount speakers. They are 240mm at the top and 360mm at the bottom and 400mm high (including spikes). They are structurally sound but could do with a new coat of spray paint to bring out the bling. Photos:

Item: Turntable Wall Mount Shelf Location: Brisbane Price: $50.00 o.n.o. Item Condition: Good Reason for selling: NLR Payment Method: Local Pickup - Cash (Too big to post) Extra Info: I'm relisting this turntable shelf I no longer use and hoping someone needs one. I have no idea who manufactured it but the steel frame is very solid and the shelf is laminated board. The lower shelf is an add on modification for a phono stage or record covers. It could also be used to mount a home cinema projector on the back wall. The bottom shelf is mounted on long bolts and nuts and can be easily removed if desired. The top shelf dimensions are 350mm x 440mm and the space between the top and lower shelf is 105mm. The total width at the rear from the outer edges of the mounting plate is 600mm. Photos:

@Jon Snow Sorry I've not provided some support earlier but I have been flat out and no time for audio this past week so I'm glad you worked out the problem. Now here's a tip for you to try. @scumbag & @a.dent Instead of connecting an outboard hard drive to your SMS-200 using the two available horizontal USB connectors use the dedicated vertical output USB connection. (The one SOtM recommends for the DAC). In other words - swap your input and output USB connections. This follows the old Linn theory that the best signal should start at the source - in this case the music files on your hard drive. A friend told me about this, so I tried it and to my great surprise it sounded much better. The dimension/sound stage and timbral balance sounded far better. So easy to do and sounds much better (to my ears anyway).

Item: Turntable Wall Mount Shelf Location: Brisbane Price: $100.00 ono (previously $150) Item Condition: Good Reason for selling: NLR Payment Method: Local Pickup - Cash (Too big to post) Extra Info: I'm relisting this turntable shelf I no longer use and hoping someone needs one. I have no idea who manufactured it but the steel frame is very solid and the shelf is laminated board. The lower shelf is an add on modification for a phono stage and can be removed if desired. Pictures:

That's why I'm baffled.

This is a highly flexible and great sounding phono stage at a bargain price. Adjustable gain and loading means it will suit any cartridge.

I thought I'd better update those following - I have solved the problem. I managed to borrow a phono stage (JLTI) plus an EMT cartridge (JSD S75) and substitute them into my system to confirm where the problem really was. When I changed the phono stage the rice bubbles sound was still present. When I swapped in the EMT cartridge (to my great relief) the problem still existed. Yipee!!! - my Koetsu Black was not the problem. So I removed the Linn Ittok from it's mount so I could more easily access the arm cable connectors to check each one separately to see if it was channel or earth specific. Now I was a bit clumsy and accidentally broke the earth cable near the arm din plug. Thinking how much worse could this get I switched on my phono stage to see if I now had snap crackle pop plus hum but hey presto - silence (in a good way)!! The din plug earth runs to the chassis of the Linn and yet when I disconnected it at the phono stage end I got the expected hum. So how can this be? I have it wired as per the normal Linn setup and yet this was the result. I remain baffled however greatly relieved that my cartridge is fine and I can listen to vinyl again. Thanks to all those who provided assistance and advice - it was greatly appreciated.

@robc You're quite right in fact I decided that the simple resistor method was not going to cut it as you point out so I ordered one of these last week. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/150W-adjustable-Constant-Current-Electronic-Load-Battery-Tester-12V24V48V-Lead-acid-lithium-Discharge-Capacity-meter-200V/32866240382.html?spm=a2g0s.12269583.0.0.1f2f264epmTmUf I should do the job and it's cheap enough at least!

@robc "Yep, the ripple is the residual of the rectified sinusoidal AC from the transformer." I'm probably not getting your meaning here but I was talking about the battery supply so what transformer? Sorry for my confusion. "Is your friend using the chassis as a heat sink or is this just the supplied heat sink? We are both using the supplied heat sink at this stage. It allows us to fiddle with the built units without having to reattach them to the chassis for heat sinking each time. I'm looking forward to next week to see what each version of these supplies sounds like! The final version will use the chassis for a heat sink. @Gieseler Audio Interesting that the Studer900 sounds so good - might have to try one! At around $18 a pop for the built board it's a very cheap experiment and sounds extremely good. Pop in some quality caps and it sounds even better! https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Lusya-5-24V-STUDER900-Regulator-Power-supply-board-super-LM317-LT1083-LT1085-DIY-kit-finished-board/32948135430.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.61f94c4dvKx44e If you consider the origin of the circuit - a condenser mic phantom power supply to provide up to +/-48V @ 500mA in a professional Studer recording console then ultra low noise and low heat would be the design requirements. I wonder what the phantom power supplies for a Neve, EMI, API, Trident, etc... would be like?

@robc When I first started using the battery I did have short leads but I did not apply any bypass caps as I was under the impression there should be no ripple from a battery. I should mention that I am not working on the modifications to the Studer 900 alone. A friend is currently using a 30VA r-core with 15V secondaries on one unit and a 30VA with 12V secondaries on another test unit. I’m going over next week to have a listen to the various configurations we have built. We also have a bunch of different brand capacitors to test as well. I have substituted the supplied charging cap (after the rectifier) with a Mundorf and just ordered a couple of different bypass caps to put in parallel to test the effects. Between the the two of us we are tweaking this LPS with good results so far. The issue with heat sinking is currently the biggest concern hence my original query about options to address the issue. My friend reports that the 12V unit runs about 20C less than the 15V unit but mine runs another 10C hotter on top of that because I’m running a 50VA transformer.

The noise occurs when the cartridge is idle resting in the arm holder and occurs in both channels. The test with a different phono stage (a JLTI unit) demonstrated that it is not the phono stage. Disconnecting the head shell leads does "break" the circuit and so you may have a point about the true source of the problem. But all is not lost yet! I have just borrowed a friends MC cartridge in a removable head shell and if I make up some extra long head shell leads I can plug it in and see if it is in fact the cartridge. (I don't want to remove my Koetsu from the Ittok head shell nor remove his cartridge from his head shell as that would involve setting them both up again). I just need to source some head shell sleeves to make up the test leads. Does anyone know where to source these locally?

Who knows what the future holds? (As a self funded retiree I might get to keep my franking credits after the election so I can't say never)! I would like to think that maybe one day I'll have the funds to do just that but I can't justify the expense at the moment.