Cornet finished

dave brown · « **on:** 10 Nov 2003, 03:26 pm »

I've been listening to my Cornet for about a week but finally got it all fully finished yesterday. I took some pics as I went along and did a short project description. Sorry about the fuzzy fotos -- Santa is going to bring me a new digital camera this year -- or else!

http://www.d-web.com/dbrown/Coronet/Coronet.htm

OT, but here's my main loudspeaker home page too...

http://www.d-web.com/dbrown/speakers/speakers.htm

I should mention that the Cornet sounds great and I'm now in the process of re-listening to my record collection. My version is pretty much stock, but it's better than anything I've owned or possibly anything I've heard in a long time -- hard to run across anybody playing analog these days.

Anyway, thanks Jim for developing this great little preamp.

Dave

JoshK · « **Reply #1 on:** 10 Nov 2003, 03:58 pm »

Very nicely done! I like the idea of the plinth with a metal chassis. I might have to try that out myself.

pretzel_logic · « **Reply #2 on:** 10 Nov 2003, 04:44 pm »

I also like how you used the wood, looks very good. I am going to redo mine at some point, first take pics and post them, but I want to move the RCA's. I was going to put them in the back but wanted to basically do it stock, except for using multicaps throughout it is stock.

What did you do to your MK III's? I'm also using a pair of those, modded with triodes SDS and input boards and all new wiring. Peronally I like them a lot but one of these days am going to try something different, SET perhaps.

Right now am testing out some sandboxes I made for my speakers, too much vibration going directly through my trampoline floor. Seems pretty good so far.

Again, Nice job,

Brian

dave brown · « **Reply #3 on:** 10 Nov 2003, 06:34 pm »

I might, at some future date, also go through and upgrade caps and resistors.

When I rebuilt my Mk IIIs, it was pretty much a complete redo and I think the only thing remaining from the original was the chassis, transformers, and choke. A friend had redone a slightly modified driver circuit, and I used that. I did all the caps with MIT MultiCaps except the power supply caps which were computer grade, bypassed with MultiCaps and used Holco resistors. The power supply caps are housed in a sub chassis -- kinda like the base on my Coronet -- since they were too big to fit inside. I also added a switch to be able to select triode or pentode operation -- a member of the Bay Area Tube Group showed me how to do that. They sound very good but they have always been very sensitive to tube weaknesses and I've gone through around 4 sets of tubes. I think it has something to do with the power supply caps. Right now, I think some of the power supply caps might have gone bad on one of the amps, but I haven't gotten around to trouble-shooting except to the point that there is what sounds like a loud clipped version of 60 Hz coming out my speakers. The Mk IIIs run at a pretty high voltage which makes it tough on components.

Me too on the SETs someday. Maybe Jim will come up with a 1/2 kit...

Dave