[lord_glum]

I cannot for the life of me find a good set of plans for a Tube preamp for phono.  I run an oppo 980 w/a firestone dac as well as a turn table (cambridge 640P phono).  I am tired of unplugging my rca's and i want a tube phono for the turntable.  But i cannot find any plans.  Anybody have any ideas or links or stuff they have built?

Thanks,
Jeremy

[walkern]

I owned a Transcendent Sound Grounded Grid line stage for a while (built from kit) and they same guy also makes a tube phono preamp kit.  Sound is modern, not classic tubey.  I haven't heard the phono unit, but the GG was easy to build, very quiet, had wonderful dynamics, extended and well controlled bass, and clean mids and highs with excellent sound staging.  Not exactly DIY, but close?

Neil

[TomS]

Take a look at John Broskie's Aikido tube phono stage.  He has a regulator now too so you just need to pull a few of the parts together like power supply, transformers etc.

http://glass-ware.stores.yahoo.net/aiphpcb.html

[Wayne1]

Jim Hagerman's Cornet is available as a "half-kit" where you just buy the circuit board.

http://www.hagtech.com/cornet2.html

Many members here have built one and love it.

[JoshK]

What's your level of DIY skills? 

Like others said, there is the Hagerman Cornet, Tubecad's Aikido phono, there is a kit from Bottlehead. 

If you are looking for something more of a scratch build, well I have a laundry list of them of varying complexity, performance and cost to build.   I find it hard to believe you had a hard time finding such schematics, since they are many and easily found.

Josh

[lord_glum]

If it has a tube and a good schematic, i can build it more or less.  Meaning my Solid state skills are a big OK.  i can do power supplies and diodes and such; boards not so much luck.  I have built a couple tube amps in the last 2 years.

I can find pre-amps schematics no problem.  I am having trouble finding a good phono pre-amp in them though.

Thanks,
jvo

[doorman]

http://www.transcendentsound.com
The GG pre is one helluva preamp.
Don

[JoshK]

I can't tell you which is best, but there are a number of interesting ones out there.  Probably your best choices are ones previously mentioned.  If you are looking for a cheap but good phono, try Eli Duttman's revamp of the classic RCA circuit.  I don't have the link at my fingertips but it's cropped up on diyaudio and the tube diy asylum.

Thoersten Loesch has an el cheapo phono circuit (cheap but a decent circuit).  If you want to go more upscale but still more DIY then a kit, look at the various incarnations of the Arthur Loesch circuit.  Thoersten's higher end circuits are based on this, so is Chris Brady's (Teres Audio), Gary Pimm's (the one I am building) isn't so far off.  Gary Pimm's though has fairly complicated constant current sources (both SS and circuit boards) in it.

Pick your poison and your skill level (and your budget) and then proceed.  Happy solder slinging.

[SET Man]

Hey!

  Don't forget the Audio Note Kit.

http://www.audionotekits.com/

  No, I've built their kit but I do have their M1 Phono pre... since 1997 I think  And if I were to build a new pre it is likely to be one of their kit.

  Also, their DAC kit looks good and I'm drooling over their 300B monoblock with double C-core output transformer 

Take care,
Buddy

[lord_glum]

Rock.  Seems like I have some digging on the net to do later....

Thanks for the info,
Jvo