New Stuff.

Sheltering at home has lead to a few new things in the intact arsenal.  First is a low ratio Speakerformer.  These units offer 1dB-6dB of attenuation in 1dB steps and the shunt resistor is changed with each setting to keep the impedance the crossover sees a constant 8Ω or 16Ω.  These will handle 20W of input and are designed for crossover frequencies of 100hz and above.

Next is something that fits in the middle ground between the Elmaformer and the basic autoformer modules.  Many customers have been asking for an alternative to the plastic shaft found on the entry level units without the cost of the Elma switched version. These are based on a 23 position Blore Edwards switch and offer a good compromise between cost and performance.

It should be noted that all of the autoformers are wound identically to each other and the only difference between the various versions are in switch type.

Shameless Plug.

I updated the Intact SUT page to better represent the current state of affairs of what is going on inside the Intact and EM/IA MC Step-Ups.

Schick Tonearms

.

This hit my inbox yesterday and I was dying laughing... it helps to know Thomas and his humor... super funny dude... and you never expect it.. it just comes out of nowhere... 

I have known Thomas for more than a decade.. back when his tonearm was just a DIY project for himself... a few ideas he wanted to try... (sounds familiar, huh?).. and all of these years later, I am proud to use his tonearms very often...  here is the always musical and yet so simple system that I use at the warehouse:

the tonearm has easy and obvious adjustments... clean lines...  you just add an autoformer and phono stage... front end done!  so simple... and then you just play records... 

and now we are a dealer... previously I have only told existing customers, just because they know that Thomas and I are friends... but I should really tell the world as they are not just insanely good for the money, but actually insanely good... contact me if you want to listen to one or get more information... here is his standard blurb:

___________________________

The tonearm is available in three finishes to choose from:

gold
silver (nickel + palladium, matte finish)
black (black chrome, matte finish)

There is a 12 inch version available as well as a shorter 9 inch (9,6inch).
The shorter version is a drop in replacement for EMT record players as well.

The price is 1499 Euro plus shipping about 25 Euro as insured letter.
A second, heavier weight for SPU and other heavy cartridges costs 45 Euros on top, if ordered together with a tonearm.
If you choose it as a single heavy weight there is no extra cost.
The tonearm includes a lift and arm bench.
All tonearms are equipped with an antiskating mechanism.

The arm has a 5 pin tonearm connector made by me. it consists of Teflon isolation and electronic test pins.

Else, you can choose a fixed tonearm cable, with lowest resistance and  capacitance, symmetrical cable with Neutrik RCA plugs.
The cable is 1,1m long.

All tonearms are equipped with an antiskating mechanism.

The tonearm is suitable for any cartridge from about 6 Gramm and a compliance value of below 20 µm/mN (22 for the 9 inch version).
That includes most cartridges on the market, excluded are only lightweight and very soft MM systems.
A headshell is not included. I recommend to use my graphite headshell for 249 Euros.

and don't forget:  Schick Happens! 

peace,

me

LR Phono - with official seal of approval

so we have been working like mad on this:

and listening to a gazillion subtle changes... 

like 49% versus 80% nickel cores in the 

outputs... guess which one sounded better?  

and then when grabbing the output tubes we 

noticed something on the bottom...

yep... so the new LR Phono is officially ready.... 

seal of approval and all... 

and this is happening in the Hudson Valley... just bonkers!

peace,
me

FFM..... festivus filament modules

It's beginning to look a lot like Festivus with all the airing of grievances and dancing around the Festivus Pole of late.   This must mean is time to give something away.  The newest thing in our bag of tricks is a simple LC filament module that can provide up to 2A or 3.5A of DC current.

Originally designed to power coleman regs, these modules give you a nice easy way to mount and wire a source of low ripple DC from an AC input.

All of the sordid details of what they are and what they can do can be found HERE

Air your Grievance in a comment below (with your name) for a chance at a free pair shipped to you as a Festivus Miracle.  As usual... in a few days Random.Org will pick a winner.

Enjoy!

Family Portrait

 I now have finished versions of 4 different types of "turnkey" autoformers that wire up with three connections per channel (In, Out and Ground).

The Elma Switch versions have Deep gold plated circuit boards for the switch contacts which then directly connect to the pins on the autoformers.  They come in 24 and 47 position versions and can be stacked for stereo or balanced operation.  The single 23 position mono unit  can be wound with any taper that is desired and the version with 3 switches pulls another trick out of the bag.

This version consists of a pair of 23 stepped units that attenuate form 0 to -52.5dB in 2.5dB steps for left and right and while 2.5dB is a bit coarse for a balance control the center knob comes to the rescue with the ability to shift the balance left or right over a 5dB range in 1.25dB steps.  This in conjunction with the independent 23 position controls allow for any shift to be set in 1.25dB steps.

I'll be updating the Intact Autoformer page in the next few days with priced and clickable purchasing options.

Filament Boards.

Hey... where have jeffrey and dave been???  Well the answer to that is busy.  To add at least a little content to this miniscule corner of the web, here is one of the small things I have recently made.

This is a "keeper" board that attaches to a pc mount bobbin and holds a schottky bridge and a pair of caps for a choke input filament supply.  The chokes are dual bobbin and wound with flat wire for choke input duty and have split windings so one leg goes in the + side of the supply and the other in the ground.  The PC mount bobbin allows for a nice way to hold the needed parts and the whole thing is supported by the mounted choke.

The ultimate use of these boards is for providing DC to some coleman regs and here is the resulting waveform when drawing an amp and a half of current.  Yes that is a 60mv p-p 120hz sine wave

Finally a picture of what is really going on.

Shameful Shameful Shameful.

a few thousand words of shameful self promotion of the Kahn LCR.  Although technically I am not promoting myself... so what the heck.