Differential Silver 10Y Linestage and EC8020 Phono in Classic Portrait Chassis

Hi!

After introduction of my new chassis style in the Conpactron, Heritage and Intrepid product lines I am often asked what about the classic chassis style? Of course these are still being built on request. As was the case with these recently finished line and phono stages.

An all silver differential 10Y linestage :

Which is accompanied by a match hing all silver differential EC8020 phono:

Both ready to ship to their new owner.

Both finished with graphite grey transformer covers on silver metal plates in smoked eucalyptus frames.

This combo contains a total of 36 silver wound transformers and coils.

All finished and tested and about to ship to their new home.

Best regards

Thomas

The Intrepid Phono Stage

Hi!

With this phono stage the last missing piece of the Intrepid product line got finished.

This is a fully differential, transformer coupled MC phono preamplifier with 8(!) EC8020 tubes.

All signal relevant transformers and inductors are silver wound. In total 20 pieces!

The power supply has it's own housing in the same style chassis, milled form a solid block.

The chassis can be placed side by side, on different shelves or stacked.

All supply voltages are intensely choke filtered, including the DC heater supplies. The high voltage is rectified by a full wave bridge of 4 tubes.

A peek inside the chassis, packed full of silver goodies.

The EC8020 tubes are mounted on vibration damped internal sub plates.

Inputs are available as RCA and XLR. Ihis particular unit only has XLR output but it can be ordered with RCA output (or both) as well.

This phono is finished with a glass pearl blasted surface. other surface treatments like brushed and also other colors are possible.

Like all Intrepid amps and preamps this phono comes with a life time warranty on parts and labour except the tubes which are guaranteed for 5 years.

Alternatively the phono stage can also be ordered with D3a tubes.

This phono is ideally combined with the Intrepid line stage but can work with any other active line preamplifier.

The phono has a built in, silver wound pair of MC step up transformers. Different step up transformers can be chosen to match the phono to a given cartridge. The MC step up configuration can also be easily changed later on after the purchase if it is intended to be used with another cartridge.

This unit will be on demo at the upcoming Munich High End, H2, F06

Best regards

Thomas

Live from Hong Kong : Showroom Opening

Hi!

Here a few impressions from the opening day of the showroom in Hong Kong.

Azzolina Audio Mojo speakers driven by 211/211 single ended mono amplifiers:

The amplifiers are the version with the ELROG ER27A rectifiers in the power supply. While the ELROG ER211 is used as driver, we equipped the output sockets with the molybdenum plate ER242. The 845 mono blocks in the front could be hooked up alternatively.

Two sets of preamplifiers available to be swapped between. A 10Y linestage and D3a phono and a set of my statement preamplifier with differential all silver 10Y line and EC8020 phono stage. A Garrard 401 with a Thomas Schick plinth and arm. Cartridge is a Lyra Etna.

For the opening we received a nice flower bouquet as welcome gift which was placed at the entrance.

Right after opening we had the room full with the first visitors.

A lot of discussions about the gear and of course also listening:

It's been a great first day and we enjoyed it a lot.

The opening of the showroom continues until April 10th. Visit us in room 304 in the Carnival Commercial Building, 18 Java Road, North Point, Hong Kong. After that arrangements for individual listening sessions can be made. Call or email Emmanuel Lebreton of Baoling Alternative Audio for an appointment.

Best regards

Thomas

My statement in preamplification

Hi!

I'd like to share some photos of the latest build of my state of the art preamplifier combination.

A differential EC8020 phono stage and differential 10Y linestage.

I used to call these the ultimate phono and ultimate linestage. But that term seems to be overused lately and sounds a bit cheesy. So lets just say this is my best offering in terms of preampfification.

The two signal chassis above and each has it's separate power supply:

The phono uses 8 carefully selected and matched EC8020 tubes.

I keep spare tubes for each phono sold, to be able to provide replacements for many years to come. So only a limited number of these can be built. I can offer only one more such phono stage unless I find a stash of more EC8020 tubes, which is rather unlikely.

Each tube socket s mounted on a separate vibration damped sub plate. Also for the linestage which uses 4 10Y tubes. 801A or other variants can be used as well.

In total there are 16 silver transformers in this combination, plus 2 silver auto former volume controls, 4 silver LCR RIAA coils and 14 silver pate chokes.

The power supplies follow the usual full wave bridge rectification scheme with 4 TV dampers. All heavily choke filtered.

The filament and heater supplies are choke filtered as well. In addition to the silver parts mentioned above there are a total of 17 copper chokes in the power supplies and local filtering in the signal chassis.

This particular build is with gold anodised metal plates, maroon red transformer covers and capacitors in soaked eucalyptus wood chassis.

Interested in such a preamp? Don't hesitate to contact me

Best regards

Thomas