“This might well be characterized as the craziest phono project on earth, although we feel quite certain that IT IS the craziest one! It is an idea that has matured over more than seven years! There exist two active stages only, both anode driven, it is a classic MM phono preamplifier with 36dB of gain. Signal tubes are russian triodes and operate in their most linear region. The tubes draw 20mA of current, so it is not possible to provide resistive loading to the tubes. Only viable alternative is to apply inductive loading (YES! inductive loading on a phono design!) to both tubes. But again, if you are experienced in interstage transformer coupling design and manufacturing, this is very close to the bounaries of impossible. Each coil of every single piece of iron (HV power supply t/f, power supply inductors, filament t/f and interstage t/f) is calculated, designed and hand wound in house, around handcrafted coil formers made of precision CNC-cut carton pieces.”
“All iron pieces are manufactured with the custom-designed exotic tape wound cores, in double c core orientation, made of the most advanced ferromagnetic material for audio transformers that exists today. In total, there are 24 iron pieces per stereo set: 4x HV t/f 4x triode tube filament t/f 4x rectifier tube filament t/f 8x HV supply inductors (of more than 200 Henries of inductance each!) 4x signal transformers (interstage and output). Needless to write that rectification is performed with vacuum tubes. For this trully exotic design, only the best rectifiers ever made are used, the legendary Western Electric mercury vapor 394a. The double pi filter consists of the best electrolytic capacitors ever made, having already acquired thousands of pieces for all future projects. Even the resistors for the reflected loads and the RIAA circuit are unavailable since many years ago and are the best ever made. RIAA circuit is intentionally left RC and not LCR for absolute best performance. There are three (3) chassis per stereo set, two power supply chassis (dirty chassis) and one signal (clean) chassis. All internal wiring is made of monocrystal copper strands and the length is kept to the minimum feasible (absolute zero signal length – the wires of the transformers are soldered directly on input/output plugs and tube sockets). All chassis follow contemporary minimalistic design for maximum enjoyment and aesthetical pleasure. Note the highly polished Ferrari Red finish on the bottom slabs! Due to the uniqueness of design and manufacture, this trully exotic phono preamplifier is proposed only for the demanding music aficionado who wants to squeeze the last drop of performance of his fine vinyl reproduction system.”
