Tag: JFET

JFET Buffer 

Fall 2016

End of summer is here, and for some the beginning of the building season. Well, not for me am afraid. My parental duties and work are keeping me very busy these days. I don’t have the free time I used to have before (I guess I’m not the only one on this so won’t rant on it). Today, building DIY audio gear is  a matter of  a well planned and negotiated  free-time that worths more than gold to me. Well, that’s the way it goes. Anyhow, I picked up my daughter from nursery yesterday and on the way back I was faced with this beautiful landscape. I guess nature give us some gifts from time to time, you just happen to be on the right place at the right time:


Standing on the middle of the street with the pram was a bit dangerous so had to park my daughter on the side whilst I managed to take this picture. Time ago, I’d have taken probably a long time to take this snapshot, but now it was as quick as a bank robbery. Just take the phone out and shoot – you can’t take your time when you have a crying toddler on the pram!

A tail of buffers

I think I have spent far too much time designing, building and testing preamplifier, perhaps more than amplifiers lately. I don’t know why. I guess I fell in love with the preamps and their contribution to sound overall. Who knows, who cares.

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Listening to the new RIAA phono stage

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It’s been some time since I built my JFET shunt-cascode RIAA MC stage.  I have listened to several well know records for some time with this phono stage in my system and others. I took it to the London Circle Audio meeting recently and it was very well received by most of the circle members. I even had some requests to build units!

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VT-154 SE’s warm sound

Now I can say that it’s completed. Albeit I haven’t built the charger for the lead-acid battery pack, it sounds fantastic and has great autonomy. Long gone days were I was recharging my NiMH pack! Now I can relax and enjoy music without worrying about charging the batteries now and then. I haven’t measured the voltage across the battery cells so far.

More lasting than bronze – John Coltrane

Usually I play my John Coltrane records. Not just because I personally find Coltrane to be one of the best musicians ever existed on earth, I have some specific songs I use for testing. When I was younger, I used to listen for hours the same Coltrane records when learning saxophone. I was keen to listen to every single detail on the phrases, solos and arrangements of the Quartet, Quintet or the Sextet formations. As a sax player, you learn many solo parts, tunes and you know by memory every expression made when blowing the horn. If you don’t have any Trane’s record or even you haven’t heard any of his compositions, I urge you to seek his wide and bast repertoire. From “Love Supreme” to “Giant Steps” and many other gems. Several years ago when I started to rebuild my vinyl collection here in London, I found this excellent compilation of Coltrane: “More lasting than bronze“. It’s a great sample of Coltrane’s music. I use it to test my system. The horn bass notes, the pulsed bass, drums and pianos have a great level of dynamics and detail I constantly listen to. It grabs my mind and takes me to another planet. That is music, more lasting than bronze…