Conrad Johnson Owners.com

Welcome to CJO! I think you are our first member from Tahiti. I'm guessing you may have a monopoly of CJ gear on the island! Congrats on such a great collection. I used to own the PF2 and the PV12 myself.

I think the high gain version is 54 db and the low gain version is 40 db. For cartridges of less than 1 mv output the high gain version is recommended.

Had to cut the sleeved cable to 3m & 1m found out it isn't anything exotic. Sommer Meridian 260 cost about 12 Euro per metre. interesting that i blind tested them and kimbers were better. So will stay with the Kimbers Let your ears be the judge. Too bad it wasn't something more "interestin...

Welcome to CJO, great to have you with us.

Looks like a fun project. That's a great amp and looks like it's in very good condition so hopefully not too many problems along the way. Keep us updated.

Good investigation work. I'm not surprised that the same transformer is being used in multiple units. If you find something you like, you stick with it. Also makes stocking extra components easier as your total parts list is smaller.

If you think the resistors are not functioning properly, really the only way is to pull them and measure their resistance. My general rule is that if I see any visual abnormality (whether be it resistor, cap, etc...) such as burn marks, deformation, discoloration, I tend to replace them. These kids ...

Glad it seems to be working ok. VPN can sometimes do funny things in my experience (although really good for security, especially when using public wifi). Later this year I plan to move the site to a new hosting provider as I am not very satisfied with the current one we have had for 10+ years. This...

Can you try again, maybe with a different browser? It works for me, and I also tried it with your user permissions as well.

Perhaps someone else could confirm as well?

Thanks for the writeup. I may do an upgrade on my MV-55 in the future and there are definitely some great ideas here.

Welcome to CJO. Great to have you with us. I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you but if you don't hear back I would recommend getting a thread checker. They are under $20 and you can check on the size yourself. Probably a nice thing to have in the tool box anyway. Something like this for example:...

Sounds like these upgrades will keep the MV-55 running flawlessly for many years to come.

May I ask how much all the replacement parts cost? As a fellow MV-55 owner, this is something I may consider doing in the future.

But all the others are at the mercy of unfriendly, fickle sources. And this is my biggest concern. I don't think their can be relatively inexpensive quality tube production in the West. Russian sources are shut down for all intents and purposes. And we have not seen quality tubes coming out of Asia...

I'm in a similar boat. Last time I heard Zellaton speakers was a number of years ago but I was very impressed. It was outside of my price range so it was more of a "fun listen" vs true consideration. I think if CJ is dropping big money (for a small company like them) on their listening roo...

Burmester makes some incredible gear. Not sure how much "better" you can get in the SS world. Maybe, something like Dartzeel, but now the price is going through the roof.

RJ, I think you are a tube guy like the rest of us. Why try to find SS options when it's the tube sound you like?

Glad it worked out well. Tube depot is really great. I've bought from them before.

It's odd that Solen would not view this is a problem to the extent of properly (if at all) marking their caps.

In all honesty, I think your supplier is making claims that are not supported. The data sheet from Solen is going to be the final word. I've only bought Solen from Solen directly so can't speak about 3rd party suppliers.

Do solen caps even have markings for polarity? I'm trying to remember if I saw anything on the caps themselves to indicate direction and I just don't remember seeing anything on them. Maybe I'm just forgetting?

Interesting videos. Question, is the noise only introduced if there is something coming into physical contact with the backwards cap?

I'm familiar with how a capacitor functions. I don't recall this information on the solen caps I have bought before (similar to the black solen cap you have in the picture). Makes me wonder if I installed them correctly (last time was a cap replacement in the crossover for my magnepan n 20.1 speaker...