Pete LaRoca "Bara" Blue Note Japan UCCU-8110

I understood your position, thanks for elucidating it. I've resolved brightness in my system as well, but more "detail" has always moved my balance away from a satisfying sound for me, so experiencing more detail has always been a step backward for me, I know that it is different for others. I no longer even know if that is a possible risk--I get an almost disturbing amount of detail right now, with this particular implementaion of the two LNBH, SSZ, SFDB and also Mad Scientist and Telos Audio things.

I didn't mean to come off combative. I really am happy that you have found this plateau and are just listening to music--that is a great thing and when I am happiest is when I am just listening to the music in awe--I've landed there now.

Geno, if the audio gods do steer Steve in this direction it would yield interesting results. And yes by choice I am using a very different type of speaker.

Thanks for posting your findings. I haven’t had much to share but have been monitoring your progress.

If you build a second one, give a point-to-point circuit a try. I think what you discovered when running direct grounds from the resistors will carry through the whole circuit for you, and it’s such a simple clean circuit why not just point to point wire it and ditch the pc board?

Either way, enjoy. My 300b has been back at the mothership for service for a couple weeks already and aside from the annoyance of not having the amp I waited so long for I am thoroughly enthralled with the music coming out of these 84 circuits. There’s something especially special about the diode rectified zkit.

It is a very cool coincidence that those of us that have given the go of late, to use the EcoFlow, are all users of Lii drivers. And three of the four of us, use them in open baffles. Is this a coincidence, or have Steve’s, ‘audio gods’ had a hand in it???

Speaking of Steve and the audio gods, after his newly released, battery powered phono cartridge amplifier, his next major project should be the development of a Decware battery power station, that takes this type of device to the next level, as only Steve can.

Steve???

Hello to all who posted here, especially Andy: I have decided to keep the system for the time being, and see if I can talk the management of my future building into allowing me to have it in my space there.

Thank you for your consideration, and best regards, Mark.

So for Valentine’s Day me and the bride decided to stay home and do take out and make it relaxing.  This is an old favorite that I haven’t listened to in a while, so I  decided to give it a listen.


normalize case remove duplicates

Lon,

When I was using the word more, I was describing what I was hearing after pulling the Veri-Fi conditioners versus with them in, in my system. It was not meant as a comparison to your hearing or your system. I only meant I was hearing what you were describing before I made the change, as well as after the change. In my system, it was a little more detail than before. I have no issue with you described before, only I heard different in my system and thought it might be helpful information.

Once I resolved the brightness issues in my system, more detail has always added to the realism, not taken away. That is why I equate more detail as something positive in my system. I have also experienced the opposite before and understand a different perspective.

Haha!  Yes, I’ll get Geno’s ZCA GoFundMe page up right away!

I’m assuming the switch is an on/off switch based on the fact this is battery operated.  It would appear that the unit will run through some batteries which is a concern, given that I’m almost exclusively spinning vinyl.

I had the same question about the ground screw.  I’m thinking because the ZCA goes between the TT and phono stage then the TT’s ground wire would connect to the ZCA as well.

I have a bit of hum when I’m running my ZP3 into the UFO25, especially at volume, so I’m excited about the ability to reduce the gain on the amp and increasing the gain at the ZCA, thereby lowering that hum.  

I do have one on order and am looking forward to its addition.

In my opinion the two undeniably great Bach pianists (not to be confused with pianists who have made great Bach recordings) of the late 20th/early 21st century are Andres Schiff and Angela Hewitt. And Hewitt's complete Bach recordings have recently been issued in a convenient box or download. I have a few of her recordings already, but at like 2 bucks a CD I bought the download and it is outstanding. If I were to compare I would say Hewitt is more lyrical and singing, Schiff is a little more rhythmic and danceable. But both are outstanding and essential.



16/44 FLAC download

My last post on this thread as I've now remedied all the issues and have a solid result.

As I left off from the last post, I had eliminated the signal side hum by running two solid core, heavy gauge copper runs from each RCA ground directly in parallel to their respective channel grounds at the volume pot.  I was left with a -52-55dB hum in the power side.

I bit the bullet and purchased an oscilloscope.  Made all the difference!  Found I had ground plane impedance variances.  I have nearly no notable AC ripple anywhere I could find.  Ended up lifting the negative leg of the 150 Ohm cathode bias resistor from the PCB and running solid core ground directly from that leg to the 2nd 20uF cap negative leg.  This brought the hum down to about -74db.  Much quieter but still noticeable at 8' (my listening position) in between tracks.

Lastly, the scope helped me find another impedance issue.  Ended up running another heavy gauge solid copper wire from the same 2nd 20uF cap negative leg over to the 1st 47uF negative leg.  Knocked the hum down to -97dB.  Barely can hear it unless my ear is right at my speakers.  

Since I had the scope, I ended up playing around with various settings to see how much power I was actually getting.  I never could get the scope to show clipping and was up to nearly 2 full watts.  This is way louder than I'd ever actually listen to it so I didn't push it.  I was measuring just under 4 vrms across the terminals on the scope.  I don't have a signal generator so was using a tone track at 1 kHz.  With my source pushing 800 mvrms signal at 100% volume and the amp at 100%, this is where I ended up and still no clipping with a smooth sin wave. No complaints here.  My typical setup is source at about 70% and amp volume at about 55% or so, with the source input at 800 vrms or 1v.  I may play with this some more, but for now I am very satisfied with what I am hearing.

Now to finish burning in these tubes to get that bass to open up.

I realize this thread has been a lot of me fumbling through things on this build, but I wanted others to see in case it may be able to help someone else down the road.  I'll continue to enjoy this for a while and am considering doing one more thread about my experience along with a lessons learned and actual BOM with pricing for what items were actually used and current costs in 2026.  Eventually, I will build a wooded chassis and a second ZKit to make two monoblocks... trying to sit back and enjoy this one for now.  Cheers!