MacroVisioned

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Hi there,

Welcome to my part of the internet where I will try to tell a bit about my tube hobby. I'll try to make it as down to earth as possible as nobody is waiting for electrocution stories or snake-oil. I hope I can make (at least) a couple of people to start enjoying the use of tubes in their stereo as they have a very natural sound a of course the estetics that go with nice audio equiptment And while you're at it.... You're very welcome to tell me what you think about this site and the projects I've done in the guestbook. It's always very nice to get some compliments about the time and effort you put into something you don't know shit about (-;

How it all began

From a very early age I'm intrested in audio equiptment. I believe I was seven years old when I bought my very first amplifier and turntable. With the weekly allowance that I got it wasn't that much but hey.... At least I could listen to the records I bought (by the pound in those days) and with every birthday I tried to get a bit more and better equiptment into my room. Without forgetting to play with cars and Lego of course. I'm not realy technically minded, math isn't my strongest point but after being bitten by the tube amp my brother bought about 2 years ago I'm getting the hang of it a bit. Terminology is still an issue but as I crawl along the shores of wisdom, I sometimes find a shell which is usefull to me and put it on this website.

The hifi components that are currently in my posession are the following:

• Amplifier I: Bocama LA-224b (Lafayette). Not the most handsome thing in my collection (the top cover is off because otherwise the new power transformer wouldn't fit and the power caps aren't exactly what you call beauties) but it's my first tube amplifier and although the thing has only 3 inputs I'm very happy with it as it as it sound a lot nicer than the Denon amplifier I used before this one.
• Amplifier II: This is a completely, self built amplifier from with a couple of russian GU32 beam-plate tetrode tubes. It's still under construction but I listened to it a couple of times while it was not completely finished yet. You can find this amplifier in the projects section.
• Speakers: DynAudio Audience 42. One of the true little luck items that I was able to purchase. Only 50 euros for one speaker. The other one could be ordered and cost me the normal price. So in total about 400 euros for these speakers which is very modest in my opinion.
• Tuner: K+H ET20. A true gem, traded it with my brother for something I can't remember. If I'm not mistaken it was an Ortofon cardridge with Van Den Hull stylus which I bought from my brother years ago. A lot of trading between the siblings has been going on in the past. (-:
• DAC: Philips DCC900. I use this thing primarily for it's DAC which is very nice. Also very nice is the fact that i can still play my old casettes on a resonably good player. The casettes are pretty worn down but this player still manages to get a nice vibe to the things.
• CD player: A Philips piece of plastics which has SPDIF out (coax) which is connected to the DCC900. Nothing fancy, it's even borowed from a collegue of mine so eventually something fancy has to be put into place there.
• Turntable: Thorens TD125mkII. An absolute HIT. This piece of engineering has been in my kit for a very long time. Bought for 200 guilders (back then) from a shop that didn't know anything about it but just one look was enough to make me fall in love. Needs a good overhaul but that's something for the future.
• Cardridge: Benz Micro MC Gold. Recently purchased as a replacement for my Denon DL103 vd Hulll. That one realy needed replacement BAD. It's one of the most beloved cardridges I've ever owned, the kick in period is over now so the sound is realy astounding. Detailed and quite, nice placement.
• MC step-up: The MC step-up is a self-build piece of kit. It contains two Lundahl LL9206 transformers with a gain of 10x. Nicely put into an aluminium enclosure and connected to my RIAA pre-amp and now it's playing the stars out of the milkiway (-; (Original found here)
• RIAA Pre-amp: The well known design from TriodeDick called PhonoDude. Took me a while to get it working the way I wanted but hey... That's what makes this hobby realy great. See the projects section to find out how I did it and what still needs to be done (-:
• Turntable 2: A scratchless Harman Kardon ST7 with tangential arm. A nice Stanton MM cardridge is underneath there which enables me to play the most devestating records without the risk of damaging my Benz cardridge. This is truely a gem from the time I didn't even know I existed (-;

Quite a collections isn't it? Well, again, with this page I'm going to try to share some ideas and experiences that I've had the last 24 years, cause that's about as long as I'm doing this hobby now.

Enjoy the looking and reading!!

Andreas