JimBlog

So glad this is working out for you Jim - wish I could be there to hear what you are hearing!
Put me on the list to have a go with Oli's system

What is the full price for the Neurochrome 686 with all the bells and whistles??

What he said

Hi Rob hope you are well. Thought this might be useful to some of you lads seeing as I’ve built one recently.

With regards to a bells and whistles 686 I’ve put together a little rundown of what my one cost to give you guys an indication of what it takes to make a TOP spec 686.

Obviously if you build the boards yourself , lose the speaker protection, and use an SMPS then Tom says one can be built for around $1900 (1400 quid) which incrementally goes up as you add fully built boards, protection or toroidal PSU back in.

I wanted a no compromise build and went the whole hog . Here’s a list of what you would need for that

Full set of amp, Psu , soft start , and guardian boards , with wiring loom came to $1928 (US) which is roughly £1400

Next was the chassis , Modushop deluxe 4U with logos on the front and all holes predrilled as per Tom’s CAD drawing . It’s Effing huge and built like a tank . Total including shipping to Australia which added around 100 euros was just under 500 euros so likely €450 for within Europe . So let’s say around £400 ish .

Next was the Toroidy ‘supreme audio grade’ transformer . This was probably overkill in a power amp as a standard audio grade would do the job nicely for €120. But as with the no compromise approach ,only the best was going in this amp. I had it made with 4x25v 800VA windings to make it a dual mono (or at least as good as true dual mono) this was €190 so around £150 ? The extra 60 odd euro gets you a nice shiny case , potted and shielded in epoxy .

I bought a few metres of the top Neotech 7N UPOCC wiring for all of the signal wires as this is generally considered to be the best of the easily available stuff . I think that was about 40 quid from America ?

Viborgs top of the line BP604G pure copper binding posts with carbon fibre housing were €99 for a set of four

Viborgs RC102G gold plated pure copper RCA posts with Teflon insulation were €55 a pair .

I then asked Tom to supply me with a full hardware package of nuts ,bolts , standoffs, thermal paste , hookup wire etc to save me trawling mouser etc for parts .
He charged me $26 for this which was fantastic .

So all in all the total build was around £2160 using rough exchange rates .

To get an amp this good for this kind of money is crazy . There definitely a small improvement over my Croft 7R monoblocks . Plus it’s a piece of cake to put together too. Lego for Hifi nerds . Tom’s instructions are foolproof. If you can use a screwdriver and alan key your are all set . As you can see from the picture below it’s just a case of screwing the boards to the chassis and connecting point A to B with the wiring as per the instructions .

My 686 doesn't have all the Neurochrome gubbins...only the 686 amplifier PCBs

The PSU, the wiring looms and pretty much everything else inside is hand made P2P stuff by Angus.

I'm not 100% sure what he did in there but I can tell you that the PSU doesn't work in the same way as the Neurochrome designed PSU.

Whether one is better than the other, I couldn't tell you.

jimbo

Ha! I wondered how you were getting on with the change In Presentation.

It can be quite hard on the brain when everything you listen to is altered, especially when you have spent so long listening to it in a certain way.

Your system has been very settled for a long time, minus the speakers obvs, so a change like this will have a big impact.

Really enjoying reading the run down of your experiments though. Keep going!

Fantastic write up Jim. A really enjoyable read and some of you fellas have a great way of articulating what you hear .

I think this has made me glad I didn’t just flog my monos as soon as the 686 was finished , which I wanted to do in order to buy a Pontus.

I’m really intrigued now to hear which combination is going to work best over here . Will it be monos with BT2, will it be 686 with 25R , will it be the solid state combo or Croft combo ?? Only time will tell.

This is great writing James and almost brings the reader into your room. Makes me wish even more that I was there. Your posts are well written and very informative . I'm sure anyone who is remotely in the same position as you will find this most informative. Have a great weekend listening to all this wonderful gear. Thanks for taking the time to post about your adventures with all this this gear James 

All very interesting and as usual great write-ups from Jim. I've thought for a long time the amplification is by the far the most important part of a (digitally fronted) system. usually only amplifier designers agree with me lol.

Now I'm in the market for new power amp all a bit more relevant to me.

I like the system to impart as little of its own character on the music as possible, not everyone wants that, I think this is the dilemma now faced.

Depends on what you mean by limiting and dont forget we are not all looking for the same sound !

Yeah, brilliantly well written as ever Jim.
New retirement career... hifi equipment reviewer!
An awful lot of variables to take on board.
Can’t wait till the current restrictions end ... what a brilliant bake off this lot could have been part of.
It also raises the issue of what an individual actually wants out of a system.
Since plumbing in the Denafrips Ares into my main system I actually get excited to play more music in that system. In the basement the system there delivers more bass, more detail (more vivid? But probably not in same league as this kit).. but I don’t get drawn into the music as I do upstairs.

Many thanks for taking the time to layout the cost of build Bigbird, much appreciated and loving the insightful write ups James.

What always stands out as very apparent, whenever I've read about Neurochrome / the 686 is the low low almost non existent noise floor. A big sign of properly chosen, quality electronics which clearly (no pun intended) allows the music / recording to come through, unhindered, with clarity and transparency, not mush/hash and therefore music in all its glory. That's when / why Jimbo is experiencing, as he's expressed - 'It produces such low distortion in the recording and has such a black background you forget your listening to vinyl!'
and the obvious vividness that is so apparent to both he and Helen. 

This in particular is the massive appeal for me personally, as it represents true Hi-fidelity, the key aspect of an end game piece, a component that gets out of the way, does not impart its character or own take on things.  After all, it's about the recorded music and the accurate extraction / revelation of it, laid bare...

Now, and for the one box, integrated amplification lovers like myself - If these guys were ever to produce an integrated version of something like the 686, dual mono with excellent on-board phono stage for both mm and mc    man ! I'd contemplate selling all my other worldly possessions for one of them    

The Neurochrome Reference 686 Integrated - There you go, let's 'av it !  

Deal - in fact you can keep the Burson amp if you keep lending your Neurochrome out as it is currently just sat under the hifi rack (until I want it back....)!

As to Jim's erudite commentary on how the Neuro amp works with his system is very refreshing and makes me wonder if it is the next route I should take?
Been running the Puresound A30 (as a power amp) for many years now and still love the presentation it gives (I did swap the Burson in for a few weeks and as much as it is a very good power amp I missed the lushness in the sound that the A30 gave me) so wondering how the Neuro would hold out to my ears.

Thing is, everyone is saying that the amp doesn't impart anything in what you hear, but I can't see that as electronics impart something into the mix so to me what you are hearing it is just something different (and how do you know what the original recording sounds like unless you were sat behind the mixing desk ) - just a thought!