Post by Bigman80 on Jan 27, 2020 17:10:51 GMT
Quite some time back now, my good friend, resident cartridge, tonearm and SP10 expert, Angus (Phonomac) debuted his prototype phonostage, The Avalon.
I was immediately taken by it and laid out my wish to build one, if we could make a deal. A deal was done and as of now, I am awaiting the PCBs, which will arrive fully populated. For them to arrive populated, it took some convincing as I like to do these things myself, with my own choices on components. However, Angus knows how committed I am to HQ parts and offered to match everything and make sure there was no variation between the mono channels.
Seeing as he has far better measurement equipment than I, it seemed sensible.
The other reason for my acceptance of his offer, was the fact that this is a reference phonostage.
What I mean by "reference" is that its SO accurate in the RIAA deviation and has an accurate FR response that stretches beyond the normal 20hz-20khz, that we are told is "all we need"
I see this phonostage as a benchmark. A piece of test equipment, but dont be fooled, it sounded phenomenal when I heard it last.
I have long been looking for a phonostage that can offer a Solidstate level of accuracy without the usual sterility that seems to be linked directly in the playback.
The Avalon offers this, and I am incredibly excited to get this made up.
So, I bought a chassis from Modushop.
It's a Galaxy 2U, and apart from the lack of central support for the lid and base, it's a real high quality product.
This project is not going to be done anytime soon as my hand is in plaster and the pcbs aren't ready, so we wait.
But it'll be worth it.
I was immediately taken by it and laid out my wish to build one, if we could make a deal. A deal was done and as of now, I am awaiting the PCBs, which will arrive fully populated. For them to arrive populated, it took some convincing as I like to do these things myself, with my own choices on components. However, Angus knows how committed I am to HQ parts and offered to match everything and make sure there was no variation between the mono channels.
Seeing as he has far better measurement equipment than I, it seemed sensible.
The other reason for my acceptance of his offer, was the fact that this is a reference phonostage.
What I mean by "reference" is that its SO accurate in the RIAA deviation and has an accurate FR response that stretches beyond the normal 20hz-20khz, that we are told is "all we need"
I see this phonostage as a benchmark. A piece of test equipment, but dont be fooled, it sounded phenomenal when I heard it last.
I have long been looking for a phonostage that can offer a Solidstate level of accuracy without the usual sterility that seems to be linked directly in the playback.
The Avalon offers this, and I am incredibly excited to get this made up.
So, I bought a chassis from Modushop.
It's a Galaxy 2U, and apart from the lack of central support for the lid and base, it's a real high quality product.
This project is not going to be done anytime soon as my hand is in plaster and the pcbs aren't ready, so we wait.
But it'll be worth it.
