November 2017.
At this point I'd just finished stuffing a PCB I'd bought online. "VALVE WIZARD" Is what it was called.
Sound wise, It was OK, but it wasnt good enough. I enjoyed it though.
The old adage of "it sounds better when you build it yourself" is certainly true IMO.
Alan tried a few little tweaks which helped, but alas, it was in need of something pretty savage to get it going.
At the time Alan had been developing something he dubbed the "SLC" - Super Linear Circuit. Obviously I was impressed, I mean, listen to the name!
He offered to tack his "mod" to the PCB for the price of parts and away he went.
The mod looked like someone added scaffolding to the circuit board, which amused me highly. However, when we tried it....woah, we were on to something.
Alan took the little Valve Wizard PCB as far as he could. The design would only allow for so much to be done and we'd done it.....but I had to try and improve on it.
I scoured the internet for a few weeks looking for simple to construct PCBs and in all honesty, everything was beyond my ability. It was then that I realised.
What i needed was something so easy, anyone could do it.
I touted the idea to Al and he was onboard. The idea was to incorporate what we'd done to the Franken-wizard and improve on what couldn't be done on that PCB but make it so easy that even beginners could have a go.
The MK1 Bigbottle phonostage was soon designed and ready to get put to file. Now I had a problem. I tried for weeks to just digitize the Schematic using software but even that was out of my skill set. Starting off from a point that I didnt know the symbols for the components meant I had too much to learn. I needed an expert.
I took to DIYaudio and asked for help. My call was answered and soon enough, the very first PCBs were ordered and on the way.
Construction done and off to Alans for testing. On the scope, the RIAA was out by a decent lump. A rising shelf in the low frequencies meant more work. Unfortunately work only Alan could do.
He got the RIAA closer to acceptable, but not so close that my brain would rest with it. I must admit, I pretty much harassed Alan daily to help me get it right. Eventually, my relentless approach broke ground and we were trying for better accuracy.
At the same time, quite stupidly, I sold a few of the spare boards off to fund some parts I needed. Obviously, with it being under constant fettling, the BOM changed weekly.
It didn't help either that a GB started on DIYaudio.
I was about to thrown in at the deep end. Typical me.
Over 30 PCBs sold worldwide and we hadnt even got the RIAA accuracy perfect yet.
When the PCBs arrived with me. I realised I'd made an error. The original red PCBs were 1.6mm thick and had 1oz of copper. The new ones had 2oz of copper and were 2mm thick.
This may not seem like an issue but when I built it to test, the values of the components were off again. More work was needed to now sort this out.
Again, Alan sorted it out but I must say, the stress of the group buy, the PCBs needing work and me not knowing enough about what I was doing, was very heavy on me.
Thankfully, we pulled it off. The RIAA accuracy was better on the MK1 than I thought was possible from the first time we measured it.
Later, I would be approached by a fella called Mark, who wanted us to add MM capability.
I wasnt bothered, as i dont use MM but we did it.
The MK2 was born........Born with faults.
The sample PCBs were ordered by Mark, who never took a penny from me tbf. He sent me 5 PCBs, which I gave away to Beta testers.
Again, I built a tester and again, it was off. Something wasnt right.
Ah, there were spaces for capacitors we didnt need and no spaces for other capacitors we did need.
I couldn't be arsed with it. I'd burned out.
Alan fixed the issues by mounting bits on the surface and I sold the PCB. I just could bring myself to build probably the 4th phonostage in the same amount of months. I just wanted to listen to some bloody vinyl. Also, everytime I sold one, to pay for the next test build, I was losing money.
Trouble is, I'd already sold my awesome MK1 to pay for this build, and now i didnt evem have a phonostage.
I bought a SIMaudio Moon and thought "F#ck it, this'll fo me"
In the meantime, Alan built his own MK2 up and was saying how good it sounded. I'd never heard the MK2, I'd just built it and sold it. I thought I'd give it a listen.
I loaned Alan's MK2 and within the space of a couple of days, I was building my own. The desire was back.
The MK2 sounded really great. Best Valve phonostage I'd heard in my system. No doubt.
I did lots of comparisons and always went back to the BBMK2. I decided the MK2 was too good to be just a prototype so I again called upon the membership at DIYaudio to help me get this PCB done right.
At the same time, Alan refined things a bit more. Removed some capacitors and resistors, which also lowered the build cost too.
Craig of Craigtone USA, offered to re-lay(?) the PCB if i threw him a PCB when it was done. It was a no brainer.
When the MK3 finally landed in my inbox as a 3D render, I was blown away. Craig took the design to a professional level and I couldn't wait to get my hands on a PCB. Simulated results showed a RIAA accuracy of +/- 0.5db.
I was buzzing.
The boards landed and i knocked one up.
FINALLY, it was correct off the bat. No more fiddling or nagging at Alan to get it right. It was ready to go out as a GB.
Like a tit, I sold the PCB thinking I'd build another with a very specific parts list. I ended up without a PCB of my own lol.
A month later, the next batch arrived......
Alan and I, have been working on this phonostage since November 2017...2 years and 4 months and finally, I have a finalized and completed MK3 Bigbottle Phonostage, built to my own exacting standards and using parts I have been experimenting with for the last 2.4yrs.
Hows it sound?
I'll tell you soon when I write it up ;D
Pic attached is L to R
Mk1, MK2, MK3 and my MK3 up and running
).
) is to use a good fine 'carbon fibre' brush to wipe the surface (Exstatic and similar) and let the stylus do the rest. cartridges which emphasise surface noise tend to be bad designs in many ways and the best ones which many of you lot routinely use, have very low surface noise generally I think. Two old fashioned iffy-reviewed ones I have here for this - ADC ZLM and Ortofon M20 FL Super, are fine here on my records - and the downstairs IC-150 phono stage doesn't take prisoners and nor does it flatter the music as the Lk1 phono stage does so nicely.
