JFET phono preamp-in a chocolate box

The finished jFET boozhoundlabs-Mongrel Dog Audio incarnation is "Gold". I dropped the whole cct. brd. into a very nice gold embossed chocolate box. The box is lined with bitumanised Al foil. It also has a clear plastic cover which covers the inside. The preamp can be run from of batteries or external power source.

This is by far the best phono preamp I have ever built. It is far superior to any of the others. Not that they were bad just that is so good. So very good and not just my opinion. Current draw is 13.5mA. Wirewarp wire is used as hook-up wire. Heavily twisted WWW (earth/hot wire) is used to bring the inputs and power in.

JFET phono preamp-in a chocolate box

I was never completely happy with my phono preamps weather tube or OPAMP base. I made the Boozhoundlabs two stage jFET "Le Pacific" style preamp. Once more I went for the vero-brd. Also, though I wanted to build it with the Russian PIO military caps I did not have some of the values I wanted. I opt for a build using high voltage (630V) brown polypropylene caps.

The cct. brd. above uses pure silver 1mm earth links, 2SK170 BL jFETs and silver based solder. Low ESR 220uf caps (snubbed) sit across a decoupled V+ rail and a single 10,000uf caps (snubbed) feed the V+ through a 1ohm resistor (a La Pass). Currently running under 27V of lithium batteries.

Ferrite beads sit across both the ground and hot wire to the cct. brd. from the input Also the PS input has ferrite beads also. No shielded wire is used (I don't like it) but the input wiring is heavily twisted, hot wire and ground. See previous post for chocolate box enclosure.

K295 Production Version

In an earlier blog I constructed a prototype K295 for a bass player. It proved to be a great success and produced richer harmonics making the bass sound fuller and a lot warmer. This build is the production version of the K295 and the kit can be purchased from Oatley Electronics in Australia In this version only a single tube is used. The PS, including a tiny mains power transformer, is mounted as part of the whole cct. brd. but can be snapped away.

As in the earlier preamp I used a plastic case lined with bitumanised Al foil. Single pots were used to allow separate channel control and large numbered knobs used so setting can be noted for future used. The central blue "on" led marks "0" for both pots. Guitar 6.5mm jacks are on the back to allow music instruments to be plugged in. All hook-up wire is twist single strand copper.

On a short listen through my system the preamp appeared to work very well providing gain and and good control over volume levels. The left channel has a slight buzz due to it being closer to the tiny transformer than the left. A larger case would solve this problem by allowing the input and output jacks to be mounted further from the power tranni and mains (110 or 240V). Or break the PS away from the amp cct. brd. and mount it separately. All in a good build and good result.

K295 - JAN6418 buffer/preamp

In this small plastic enclosure is the new Oatley K295 kit. But in this build an early dual tube prototype brd. has been used. The intended use for the build above is for preamping of a double bass for a player in a Rock-a-billy band. Red LEDs are mounted on the brd. to light the JAN6418 tubes.

From early reports Ray, the bassist, is very impressed with the sonic results so far from his electric bass.

BoZ on a Cap (BoZoaC)

BoZoaC (BoZ on a Cap) uses a recursive component-2-component construction method to build the whole of the preamp cct. on the output caps. See the posted images below of the BoZoaC engine.

In my system input caps are not required and an earlier BoZSE build (input capless) proved that removing these caps improved overall performance of the preamp. Anytime signal path can be reduced in length and component-2-component construction methods used, sound quality has to improve. If look at the BoZoaC engine below it is obvious the signal path on the cct. is reduced to component length.

Some very high-end preamp manufactures will not use metal cases to enclose the boutique components claiming magnetic and eddy current issues. I chose this plastic case for similar reasons and wanted a non-resonant slim case to enclose this unusual build.

Though only a few hours of play have pasted through this tiny little preamp cct. I am convinced the sound equals or betters that of BoZSE which is supported by 30,000uf of storage caps. There appears to be a greater immediacy of the music with equivalent bottom end. Only comparative listening will prove this but this whole build is very satisfying so far.

BoZoaC exposed

A ridged plaster instrument case was chosen to house the recursively constructed BoZoaC. Three 9V lithium batteries sit at the rear where two sets of gold plated RCAs are mounted. The output for the preamp can be found on the left of the case with the input selection switch.

On the right rear of the case the banana style low profile sockets are mount to allow battery checking. If the batteries are removed an external PS could power BozoaC. Silver solder and wirewrap wire are used throughout.

BoZ on a Cap - BoZoaC

Due to the low component count of the BoZ cct. it is quite possible to build the whole preamp on a the output caps. In my other BoZ constructs I employ 20,000uf of storage caps. To keep the whole build very compact I used 2 x 1000uf low ESR caps for storage caps.

There is no input caps or attenuator with this build. It is not required in my system but other systems may require those components. A big plus of a genuine component-2-component build is a very short signal path and a minimum number of solder joints. These two factors help to improve the over performance of the preamp. There is no additional wire used in the build, all components are directly silver soldered to each other components.