[mccormw]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking to improve my current phono amps, I have an AudioNote Preamp kit and Exposure 6/7 preamps.  I am currently using the exposure but driving my AudioNote Kit4 power amp from the tape socket on the preamp as my AN Kit4 power amp has a reasonable vol pot.  I just about get enough gain.  I know taking the output from the tape-out probably sounds odd to most of you, but it cuts out the gain stage and pot on the preamp and as long as my front-ends have got the gain then why not - it sounds better.

What I am looking to do is build a box initially containing a phono amp and selector switches.  If I use a 19in rackmount box I will have plenty of room to later add some line boards and switched attenuators - ie to end up with a standard preamp.  I do not need a headphone output as I have built one from discrete components which sounds pretty good.  But I suppose never say never!

My questions are:

How good is the WN phono in its Audophile incarnations?  Is it going to be a big step up from my current preamps' phono circuits?

Am I right in assuming that it will drive a short piece of cable (< 0.5m) to my power amp - I am sure it will but you never know?

Any other comments will be appreciated.

Bill Mac

[ascott6]

Hi
About your question on the audiophile version of the  phono amp if you don't buy one you will be missing out on something special. Me and my best friend have one each. We must have had them over a year now. I bought mine because i thought it sounded better than the tom evans.
I recently borrowed a roksan dx2 which has just had a highly rated review at a £1000 and it didn't even come close to the WN amp. You would probaly better it if you had three or four grand to spare but to be honest i've stopped trying.

[mccormw]

Hi,

Thanks for your comments its always a difficult decision, for obvious reasons, to make about the choice of the purchase of a kit (or not)!
A ready-built component can be auditioned at a Hi-Fi dealer, or even sometimes at home, but that doesn't stop us making daft purchase decisions - even I have purchased a CD player in the past!
It would be helpful to have a few more details about the phono amp, I do know that it uses op-amps rather than discrete components but I do not know how its equalisations works, is it passive, if not does it use shunt or series feedback?

Can you give more details on what you did please?  Did you build a full preamp, what psu did you buy, if you built a full preamp what volume control and switches did you use - you know the kinda stuff.

I also saw the Roksan review, I think it was in HiFi+ (a good magazine) or HiFi News (sadly now a rubbish magazine).  Your right it came out of the review very well and so your comments are interesting, Thanks.

[ascott6]

Hi
I'm not too much up on the technical stuff on feed back etc you'd best ask david about that. I used two of the cascode power supplies to make it totaly dual mono plus i fitted a balanced output driver kit all these are the audiophile versions. and built it all into a larger aluminium case.
Taking the roksan as example the WN is much more focused with a larger sound stage better controlled bass it's better all round really infact if i didn't already own the WN i might of payed a grand to upgrade from the roksan. I don't want to slag roksan off but it was chalk and cheese.
It's the same old story everythings good untill you hear something better.

[mccormw]

Thanks for the info, is David contactable via e-mail - must look at his sight.

Thanks again.