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Pass Bride of Zen preamp

Dave C

Dave C

Super Member
I bought a printed circuit board a few years back for a Bride of Zen preamp. It sat with other future projects until this week. It took an order from both Mouser and Digikey to get the parts. I've read good and bad about this preamp but figured I'd give it a try. I installed a few of the components today. The board came from Jim's Audio. I thought I might start a conversation with others that have built it in the past.
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Finished up the board and put power to it from my variac, results are extremely clear sound. I have a toroid transformer coming to power it later this week. Once I give it a go in my system I can report on the gain. The input power needed is 60 volts.
 
I've been playing with this amp over the past couple of weeks. It runs very quiet and is very clear sounding but it lacks gain. The gain is advertised at 15db and that's pretty slim for a standard MM phono cartridge. The heat sink on the power supply transistor needs to be much larger than the one in the picture to keep things in check. I've got ideas to bring up the gain a bit but will try them later. I may build the power supply section for other projects as it works well.
 
Dave C said:
I've been playing with this amp over the past couple of weeks. It runs very quiet and is very clear sounding but it lacks gain. The gain is advertised at 15db and that's pretty slim for a standard MM phono cartridge. The heat sink on the power supply transistor needs to be much larger than the one in the picture to keep things in check. I've got ideas to bring up the gain a bit but will try them later. I may build the power supply section for other projects as it works well.
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Do you have any updates since your last post you would like to share?
 
Dave C said:
The gain is advertised at 15db and that's pretty slim for a standard MM phono cartridge.
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I don't really understand this comment. This is a line preamp and 15dB is plenty of gain for the purpose. It isn't an MM phonostage, hence my bewilderment.
 
rothwellaudio said:
I don't really understand this comment. This is a line preamp and 15dB is plenty of gain for the purpose. It isn't an MM phonostage, hence my bewilderment.
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I rather think that you are the one with understanding and another being somewhat bewildered, as it were.
 
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