Aria phono preamp - Mike Elliot blog

Kub, As I understand it, Michael Elliot has had much email correspondence with a few of his customers (including myself) on the issue of tube rolling the WV. I think he felt it was more efficient to setup the newsgroup rather than try to decipher and track all this information from emails. It's a great idea. I think that once a few of us finalize on our tube choices and do some write-ups in the newsgroup, he will collect this all and make it available as additional information for all his WV customers. I don't see this being of much value to non-WV owners but you never know....perhaps for those with Counterpoint gear that use some of these same tubes in the power supplies.
John

So people will pay big money to have this guy make the amplifier or preamplifier the way it should have been doen, before the company folded and the warranty went kaput?

P.T. Barnum was right.

A couple of thoughts...

First, I am sure that P.T. Barnum never met an audiophile he did not like! Absolutely, we are a generally foolish lot, I more foolish than most. Just ask my wife. If we were smart, we would all just get iPod Nanos and listen to devices that maximize convenience and reliability while minimizing cost. Maybe people get all juiced up about discussing those devices on a forum elsewhere but that is not the nature of this thread nor Mr. Elliott's attempt at producing a state of the art full-function preamp. I was interested in following Mr. Elliott's progress as he designed this all out attempt on the full-function preamp and talking to him occasionally as he advanced. It was fun to have a vicarious perch from which to participate in the design process.

Second, I have put the requisite 200 hours on the preamp using Mr. Elliott's suggested break in method of hooking my CD player to the MM inputs while ensuring that the output cables are disconnected from the WV5XL. The alternative is a very big sound.

Now that I have the hours on the unit, I am going to evaluate power cord and tube choices. I have ordered some Amperex 6DJ8s' for phono and line stages. I am eager to see how those will change the picture. Similarly, I have ordered two power supply tubes for V6 (6CM6) and V8 (5651). I may be on Social Security by the time I fully evaluate this and determine my preferences, but it's OK. This is a hobby and is supposed to take time otherwise dedicated to drinking and womanizing. (Actually, being an audiophile has insulated me from any significant risks of womanizing but the drinking risk may persist.)

So people will pay big money to have this guy make the amplifier or preamplifier the way it should have been doen....

The way it should have been done? You mean like the way ARC, CJ, CAT, BAT, etc., all should have done their preamps back in the 80s and 90s .... and yet continue to bring out a new "top-line" model every couple years?

...before the company folded

Terryn, please inform me of another engineer in the audiophile world who had some business misfortunes and yet came back a year or so later to support all of his customers, not only to repair failed products, but to work to improve them far beyond what had been done before.

Never having been able to afford the top-tier Counterpoint SA9/SA11 in their day, today I am fortunate to own their successor and at a much lower price. How many of the top-line preamps from the above companies cost less than their top-line products from a decade ago? Zero.

....and the warranty went kaput

Take note of the warranty of many of the companies above and you find that the warranty for your car is much longer.

As for PT-Barnum being right, as Casaross hints here, I suspect that in Barnum's mind, everyone in this hobby would be a candidate for his famous quote.

Casaross: Once you have found the tubes for the phono stage and line stage that work well for you, I would be willing to send you the pairs that work for me in these stages. You could play for a few days to get an idea and then send them back.

I too ran the WV through the burn-in process to achieve 200 hours, but I enjoyed the music each eventing. And after this time, I went through 20+ tubes in the line stage over a 4-5 night process. Many were eliminated quickly due to severe tonal non-linearities or flat presentation. But a handful worked out very well and a couple were extraordinary ..... neither of these latter two were of the 6922 family.

I soon realized that I could also use these top-performing tubes in the APL Denon CD player and it took that player's performance far beyond the ECC99 tube in there. Several concerns I had about this player were gone or significantly reduced by the replacement of that ECC99 tube. I am eager to hear soon from an APL 3.0 owner how this tube works in his player.

Concerning the PS supply tubes, the rectifier tube V5 makes a profound difference but when I changed this it showed up some edginess with the V7 tube. I had a couple different 6JC6A tubes and one of these locked it very well with the changed V5 tube. Going back to the stock pair for V5/V7 brought on a reduction of clarity. I tried a different V8 and could not hear a difference at all. Keep in mind that V8 is actually not a vacuum tube.

Once I get the tubes back from the APL 3.0 owner, I can bring the WV back to its highest performance that I have so far heard it, and then I will try out a few different V6 tubes....and look to seal the WV's cover for a long time to come. Perhaps we can share notes on the PS tubes in the next couple weeks.

John

JaFox: Since we both live in the western suburbs of Minneapolis, some tube swapping might be easily facilitated. I have ordered two pairs of line stage tubes and will sort through those and the PS tubes a bit. Once I make progress, maybe we should try to get a tube swap together.