Hello from Argentina

[Toberius]

Hi there, I'm Norberto from Argentina, and I recently purchased an Premier eleven 11 10A with a PV10A preamp and I wish to upgrade this unit, mainly capacitors in the signal path and diodes from PSU.

We'll see what options there are here and suggestions are wellcome, of course.

Regards.

[admin]

Hi Noberto,
Welcome to CJO, great to have you with us. Congrats on the CJ gear. If looking for specific upgrade components you may want to check out our schematic section as it would tell you the values of the components needed. Again, welcome.

[joeinid]

Welcome to the forum!

[roberto]

Hola Noberto,
Bienvenido! Un gran abrazo desde Costa Rica!

You are in the right track. You should address your questions to Conrad Johnson service dept. I do not know if you have in Argentina, a Conrad Johnson representative, because there are upgrade kits for certain models. You might get the kits from them. Just thinking loud.

I only can say that the capacitors (teflon) and the metal foil resistors made a huge change for good into the quality of the sound. Conrad Johnson has a signature sound with magic. Go for them, you can't go wrong.

Happy listening!

[Toberius]

Hi Noberto,
Welcome to CJO, great to have you with us. Congrats on the CJ gear. If looking for specific upgrade components you may want to check out our schematic section as it would tell you the values of the components needed. Again, welcome.

Thank you very much for the welcome, admin.
I came across the forum googling for information about the schematics, what I found here!

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you very much for the welcome, joeinid.

Hola Noberto,
Bienvenido! Un gran abrazo desde Costa Rica!

You are in the right track. You should address your questions to Conrad Johnson service dept. I do not know if you have in Argentina, a Conrad Johnson representative, because there are upgrade kits for certain models. You might get the kits from them. Just thinking loud.

I only can say that the capacitors (teflon) and the metal foil resistors made a huge change for good into the quality of the sound. Conrad Johnson has a signature sound with magic. Go for them, you can't go wrong.

Happy listening!

Muchas gracias por el saludo Roberto. Otro gran abrazo a la distancia, mi hermano.

I'm from Argentina, I'm and I live here, and unfortunately there is no official Conrad Johnon service here.
I send an email to the service box on the official website making inquiries about any upgrade kit for my PV10A nor Premium 11 or whether these updates should be made at the factory. I have not yet received a reply.
I am of the philosophy that if the manufacturer made the product, that the manufacturer updates it or in its defect that it gives me the components and the instructions of how to do it in my house. I am not a technician, but I have solder and tin to make the replacements.

My best.

ps: sorry for my english I'm being helped by deepl translator.

[roberto]

Norberto,

No te recomiendo hacer los cambios de componentes electronicos, porque a veces se necesita tener equipo de medición, ademas de un buen desoldador. Sería bueno que consigas algún técnico que te ayude. Escribe a service@conradjohnson.com otra vez. Insiste!. Solicita los kits con capacitores de Teflon. De una vez te digo, que hay que invertir buen dinero pues estos componentes cuestan buena plata.

Perú está más cerca. Tal vez ellos te pueden ayudar.

En este forum, sólo somos usuarios de Conrad Johnson y no vendemos partes o cómo conseguirlas. Pero hay en Canadá, por ejemplo, lugares donde venden componentes electrónicos donde puedes comprar lo que quieras reemplazar.

Aquí puedes ver los precios de los condensadores de Teflon:

https://www.partsconnexion.com/cgi-bin/ ... eflon+caps

I do not recommend to you to do the changes in electronics componentes, because you need measuring equipment and good desoldering tool. I would be good to find a techy to help you out. Write again to service@conradjohnson.com. Insist. Ask about the teflon capacitors kits. I am telling you that this quality kits are expensive.
At the above link, you can see the Teflon caps price.


Happy listening!

[admin]

This is the 2nd time I've heard about delays with CJ customer service in the last few weeks. I think COVID-19 must be having an effect on their response time as usually they are very prompt. In the past, they've always picked up the phone when I had called with any issues. They are obviously not an "essential service" so they may be shut down for the time being.

[roberto]

Agreed Admin,

I do believe that the coronavirus is shutting down a lot of Companies, like CJ. Anyhow, it looks that at Argentina, there is no Conrad Johnson representative. The closest rep. is Peru.

Inversiones F & J S.A.

Calle Enrique del Horme 128, Lima 15047, Peru

Call 011-51-1-243-3376
www.fjaudio.com

Perhaps you could write to them and find out is they any for your gear, Norberto. Again, sorry, we do not carry parts or similar at the forum.

Happy listening!

[Toberius]

Also agree with you guys, I think is COVID-19 issue.
Thanks Roberto for CJ rep. located in Peru, I'll e-mail to inquery upgrade service nor kit provide. A friend of mine is technician with a litle labs in his home who could help me.
I saw:
1 - in this forum not sale parts anything.
2 - the teflon caps are expensive, indeed.

My best.

[roberto]

Norberto,

Pero estamos aquí para ayudarte también.

Yes, you need a techy that can help to you to unsolder all the parts that you are going to change. Remember this: When changing parts, these parts must have the same working voltages and values. The metal foil resistor should have the same ohms rate and wattage. You can use more wattage and same value, at the caps, same capacitance and more working voltage.

Happy listening!

[AnotherJohnson]

I've talked to folks at CJ three times this week, and emails have been answered too. I know two other guys who have also been on the phone with them more than once this week. So I think they are alive and well. Turnaround times seem quite reasonable, i.e., they are not backed up.

As for replacing caps yourself if you're not a skilled solderer, it is an idea that will cost you money in the end. You can literally hear the difference between a good soldering job with the right solder, and a bad soldering job with any solder.

At the best, you won't bugger it up too much, but it will look like it was done as a student project. At the worst, it will look like a mess, and sound lousy too. At least contact CJ to find out if they can recommend anyone near you who is a qualified technician.

[Toberius]

Thank you very much for your recommendations and for tell me that you got a response from CJ in this week for around 3 times, I will write again to CJ service box, on the other hand, as you can see, soldering nor desoldering two capacitors and 4 diodes, is not a very risky task. I have soldering irons and silver tin to do the job. In the case of the PV10A I would change the 2 signal path capacitors and test the result of using fast diodes at the source only and current capacitors.
But it is also true that I have not seen many modifications to the PV10A, in fact I think I have seen only 1 or 2 only and I am left wondering how it went with that upgrade being very few cases documented on the net. This slows me down a bit in making the modification.
At the moment I have replaced the KT88 with the one that came for a KT120 in period of still break-in. I like how it sounded.

As I said above, I will write back to CJ and wait for the answer, certainly.

Best regards.

[Toberius]

Hi, so as not to open any threads I'm posting here the answer I got from the conrad johnson service who very kindly sent me a certain Jeff Fischel:

We do offer TEFLON capacitor upgrades for both the PREM11 and the Pv10A , unfortunately we do not sell upgrade kits. The PREM11 TEFLON cap upgrade is $1528 and the PV10 TEFLON cap upgrade is $1150.

And as they have commented here, it is a very serious company in the audio market, it is a pity that I stay too far away, because the shipment of almost 50 kgs packaging included, is too expensive what makes me discard the upgrade.

Now, that I would like to do the upgrade for sure !

Regards.

[roberto]

Norberto,

Jeff es un caballero y muy cuidadoso.

Yes, it is a truth that you are that away. But, good thinking. Do an upgrade. You can find the latest preamps and power amps at fair price. The SE
(Special Edition) series version has teflon caps and metal foil resistors. Remember that all Conrad Johnson products are built with working 12OV and 240V AC Mains. If you buy into the US market, you can change inside the working voltage for your needs.

Happy listening!