Phono Shoot Out Winner

[Tony Moore]

I was also stunned at Peter's SS phono. It was very, very good.

Tony

[petercom]

Originally Posted by Shane

Now you've really aroused my curiosity. Peter, what was it?

It was a (nearly-production-ready) prototype solid state phono stage which we feel competes quite well with some of the best stages around and bests quite a lot of the well-reviewed commercial ones.

Just needs a bit of work on the power supply and then we'll put it in the catalogue.

[Shane]

Originally Posted by petercom

It was a (nearly-production-ready) prototype solid state phono stage which we feel competes quite well with some of the best stages around and bests quite a lot of the well-reviewed commercial ones.

Just needs a bit of work on the power supply and then we'll put it in the catalogue.

18 months later, what happened?

[petercom]

Originally Posted by Shane

18 months later, what happened?

Frankly I was 'warned off' by Noel Keywood who pointed out that, if we published it as a kit, everyone would 'copy' it but sales of the kit would be small. I don't know the truth of that, but it is an interesting observation that anything that doesn't include a specialised transformer does not sell well as a kit.

So we won't be doing it as a kit, but maybe as a finished product. We are starting to sell more 'built' products as word gets out as to the quality of performance that we are providing, so there will be room for it in the line-up. (we've added some built product to our eBay shop too to see how it goes).

[Richard]

Hi Peter,

Interesting, and a shame for enthusiasts who have lost out on a good product. I hope you make it available at some stage. Wouldn't a quality pcb and case still make an attractively priced kit possible both from the purchaser's and your points of view?

Things have changed somewhat in the 14 years since the first HFW/WAD supplements came out with the 5-20 monoblocs on simple folded chassis. Back then there was very little web and very few suppliers. Even the common circuits such as 5-20 weren't easy to get and parts such as TXs even less so. You may remember Peter Q of AN actually advertising to buy valve related literature back then!

[andrew ivimey]

I wonder what would happen if you marketted this phono stage, Peter.

My memory of the SS phonostage was that it was superb.

[Tony Moore]

If the price was right, I'd buy one. Even just pcb or pcb + case.

Tony

[Clive]

Why not product the kit but in the HFW article leave out the component values? There may be some copying of the circuit by people who've purchased the kit but this leakage would be relatively small. Of course it could end up being published on the internet by someone but the same applies to Phono 3.

[Sid and Coke]

One of the biggest benefits of a kit is having all of the basic components pre-selected and supplied. I know that there are certain commercial considerations ( cost) that means that some of the supplied parts can be improved upon, but this often is what makes a DIY kit so much fun, especially with World design products, where there is an online support forum as well as a telephone helpline. I don't know of many (any !) other places where you get the chance to speak to one of the designers.

Another good thing about a kit is that all the parts are available from one place. Too many times when i've been doing DIY projects off the internet I've had to source different specific components from 4 or 5 different suppliers, so even if the Basic design was published (illegally ? ) on the web, if the pricing and performance of the WD kit was attractive enough, DIYers would do what they've always done, buy the basic kit and then set about fine tuning it.

My current Phono stage is a Rotel RQ970Bx that I modified following a DIY article published in HFW back in about 1994, buying and sourcing the modification parts cost me more than the amp !