Saurav
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2001
- Messages
- 2,174
This is probably not of interest to everyone, but some people had asked me to report my results. Well, I got it done a few days ago, and am now starting to mod it, so I figured this would be as good a time as any to report on my results.
Product information:
It's a tube linestage/preamp. Go to www.bottlehead.com for more information. www.audioasylum.com has a forum dedicated to Bottlehead products, and there are tons of threads on all aspects of building, troubleshooting and upgrading the Foreplay preamp. Cost: $150 for the full basic kit, more if you want upgraded parts, obviously.
Other equipment:
Rega P3/RB300 turntable with Dynavector 10x4 cartridge
Radio Shack "Little Rat" battery powered phono stage
Denon DCM-270 CD changer
NAD C-340 integrated amp (now used as a power amp)
Paradigm Mini Monitors
Sony SA-WM40
Radio Shack Gold Series interconnects all around
Generic 12AWG speaker cable
Construction:
Fairly simple and straightforward. Some of the mods are going to get a little tricky, but the basic preamp is really easy. It would have helped if I'd been a little more patient, because I goofed things up a few times. I'm really grateful my NAD amp has some kind of protection built in - I sent that into shutdown a few times before I got all my grounding done correctly.
Cons:
I still have a little bit of hum/buzz from my speakers. It's audible from my listening position only late at night, but can be heard about a foot from my speakers. Since grounding/shielding are a bit of an art and no two situations are the same, this will take some chasing down, and that's the next step for me.
Pros:
The sound, obviously. This kicks the NAD's preamp section completely out of the room. The biggest difference is in the bass - there's much more texture to it, if I can call it that - bass guitars don't just sound like bass notes any more, I can hear much more of the tone of the guitar. Treble and midrange are smoother, voices are more realistic. Soundstage/imaging seem about the same, but that's not something I pay much attention to anyway. I played a movie through it last night (analog outputs from my DVD player) and that sounded much clearer, in fact, the improvement seems to be more for the DVD player than for any of my other sources.
It also plays with a greater sense of control, that's the only way I can describe the effect. My wife noticed it too - she said it sounded more powerful even at the same volume. No, I didn't check with an SPL meter so maybe I'm just playing it louder, but now I've been listening to this preamp across its volume range, and the effect is consistent - it just sounds more authoritative than the NAD. I'm not sure what exactly is causing this effect, but it's there.
And that's about it. Feel free to email me with questions, or post them here.
Product information:
It's a tube linestage/preamp. Go to www.bottlehead.com for more information. www.audioasylum.com has a forum dedicated to Bottlehead products, and there are tons of threads on all aspects of building, troubleshooting and upgrading the Foreplay preamp. Cost: $150 for the full basic kit, more if you want upgraded parts, obviously.
Other equipment:
Rega P3/RB300 turntable with Dynavector 10x4 cartridge
Radio Shack "Little Rat" battery powered phono stage
Denon DCM-270 CD changer
NAD C-340 integrated amp (now used as a power amp)
Paradigm Mini Monitors
Sony SA-WM40
Radio Shack Gold Series interconnects all around
Generic 12AWG speaker cable
Construction:
Fairly simple and straightforward. Some of the mods are going to get a little tricky, but the basic preamp is really easy. It would have helped if I'd been a little more patient, because I goofed things up a few times. I'm really grateful my NAD amp has some kind of protection built in - I sent that into shutdown a few times before I got all my grounding done correctly.
Cons:
I still have a little bit of hum/buzz from my speakers. It's audible from my listening position only late at night, but can be heard about a foot from my speakers. Since grounding/shielding are a bit of an art and no two situations are the same, this will take some chasing down, and that's the next step for me.
Pros:
The sound, obviously. This kicks the NAD's preamp section completely out of the room. The biggest difference is in the bass - there's much more texture to it, if I can call it that - bass guitars don't just sound like bass notes any more, I can hear much more of the tone of the guitar. Treble and midrange are smoother, voices are more realistic. Soundstage/imaging seem about the same, but that's not something I pay much attention to anyway. I played a movie through it last night (analog outputs from my DVD player) and that sounded much clearer, in fact, the improvement seems to be more for the DVD player than for any of my other sources.
It also plays with a greater sense of control, that's the only way I can describe the effect. My wife noticed it too - she said it sounded more powerful even at the same volume. No, I didn't check with an SPL meter so maybe I'm just playing it louder, but now I've been listening to this preamp across its volume range, and the effect is consistent - it just sounds more authoritative than the NAD. I'm not sure what exactly is causing this effect, but it's there.
And that's about it. Feel free to email me with questions, or post them here.
LOL
