Summary
SOURCES
Thorens TD150, since 1971.
Clay/lead shot damping on plinth and clay on sub chassis, tar damping on outer platter only. 1974.
GB Clamp, IMO the best aftermarket clamp ever. 1980
SME 3009 –1973.
STAX 2-pin head-shell and SME FD200 fluid damper (STP). 1975
AT 650 Tx, VDH102 – IV.
Denon DL103D 1979. No 2 VdH’d - 1997.
CD Rotel 965bX LTD Edition, Discrete
Ferrite clamps on power cable. VDH 102
RADIO
Tuner? is a rebuilt Kenwood tube receiver (a W8) - with power amps usually off. Brown VdH interconnect!
TAPE?
Restored Nakamich BX300
Long play tape is a tweaked Panasonic (Technics?) VHS f55 Timer recording.
ANTENNAS - are a source?
One 25 ft DIY mast,
FM antenna
UHF TV antenna
VHF TV antenna
AM long ‘random’ wire
PRE-AMP
A ‘four valve’ pre-amp, in a gutted Quad 22 box. DC heaters, sep PSU.
Tandy – 3 x tape switching box., real value.
POWER (?) AMPS
Two Leak ST 20’s swapped, for zero cost the St 60 was free in the 1st place..
I went the ‘big cap SS’ route. Ripple is > 20 db down on Leaks spec!
Each amp has one cap where the GZ 34 rectifier tube usually sits, just for a laugh!
For a story about the modification of these Leak amps, click here.
The AC leads are hard wired.
Low mu high gm input and driver (CCS) twin triodes, input has DC heaters and new
ceramic sockets. The front end and driver stages need so little feedback that we were
able to increase it a bit around the output stage and also have less total feedback than original.
Spare AMP is a STAX DA80
SPEAKERS.
20 inch diametre spheres, baffle diam. is 15 inch approx.
Drivers are by Foster (now Fostex): paper cone 8 inch (FW202) with a curvilinear bowl shaped cone, faintly stippled (from the original mesh I’d bet), the back of the cone is damped with 1-3mm thick spackled (like fish scales) black stuff - papier mache?. Tweeter is their 35mm soft dome, 3rd order @ 3.5khz.
The main driver originally had just a wire damping resistor, but no Low Pass at all. Baffle dip is –3db point of 240 hz anechoic, as it is a 20 inch sphere, shelving to –6db maximum. Room gain helps.
Overall response is –3db 38-12,5000hz anechoic. System is bi-amped with the two baby Leak stereo amps.
NEW! A high pass @ 175 hz on the tweeter amp, which was more noticeable than an LP >5khz on the mid/bass amp.
CABLES?!
Spkr Cable is 5ft lengths of Supra 1.6. Was Lucas Cable - remember that stuff guys?
Pre-power is 4 long pcs of 'BRAND-REX LTD DIGITAL 1701248 20AWG SHIELDED TYPE 60degC (UL)’. Ha ha ha.
AC MAINS
Separate AC supply lines - 2 of @ 15 amps.
Two AC Tx type filters before pre-amp and TT AC leads.
Timothy Bailey: tim_bailey@bigpond.comFor a story about the modification of the Leak amps, click here.
21-12-2002 @ http://www.hilberink.nl