aerius

Look up the housing price to yearly income ratio of the UK some day, it's even worse than that of the US. The only good thing is they actually have some savings over there as opposed to the negative savings rate in the US. On the downside their manufacturing base has been offshored to an even greater extent than the US. The Pound isn't tanking against the USD for no reason.

You're going to get creamed over there, their economy is headed straight down the shitter, they're actually in for the worst hardship of all the first world countries. Their government policies are literally going to leave the country broke, and they'll likely see a rerun of the post WWII recession and asset liquidation. They're no longer an oil exporter, and with that revenue stream gone they're in deep trouble. The Pound is falling fast against the USD, the fall will continue and may even accelerate.

If it's not fun and you're not motivated, just don't do it. It's a hobby, it's supposed to be fun, if it isn't fun anymore then move on and find something else to enjoy. One day in the future you might get an itch to do DIY again, or maybe you won't, but in either case don't worry about it, it's not your job, it's just a hobby. Interests change, people change, and that's life. To use a personal example, I used to play tennis a lot and it was a hell of a lot of fun, then I got tired of it and it wasn't fun anymore. I have close to $1000 in tennis equipment sitting around gathering dust, haven't played in years but that's fine, I don't lose any sleep over it or regret anything. Maybe I'll play again someday, maybe not, in the meantime I'm having way too much fun mountain biking.

Too early to say, but based on the available info to date it's "bad" and "blank check". A lot depends on what the Bonds and Foreign Exchange markets do in the next while. I'm also waiting for full details on the deal to come out since there's still some things which aren't clear yet, such as how much more MBS crap they're allowed to buy next year, how much crap is in their books, and what their acceptance standards for mortgages will be. As a rough ballpark figure, costs to the Treasury, that means you, the taxpayer, will be anywhere from $300 billion to several trillion. See here for the summary on Freddie & Fannie.

I don't know if there's any that are commercially available which don't use a step-up transformer, there's definitely designs available in the DIY world.

Problem is you have to be more careful with wiring, wire routing, and phono amp choice since the signal has to be amplified more, and any noise that gets picked up will also get amplified to a corresponding degree. For ease of setup and equipment matching, HOMC usually works better, but if you're chasing detail & resolution, go LOMC and be prepared for a few roadblocks along the way. Somethings things work out great but there's more potential for problems. My dealer favours HOMC for anything up to the mid to mid-high range, it's easier to get the system sounding good and keep it sounding good when the customer inevitably starts buying new gear and cycling it through his system.

I'd spend around half the money on a source and the rest goes towards buying marijuana to enhance my listening experience.

A piece of swordfish that's the size of a prime rib roast.

Just remembered this one while browsing DIYaudio. GedLee Nathan 10 in kit form will come in at $1300, plus what it costs to bribe someone to build it up for you if you can't build it yourself. I've never seen nor heard them, but the designer, Dr. Earl Geddes, really knows his stuff so I'd expect them to be darn good.

That could've bought some quality hookers and cocaine.

I've heard most of the Coincident line and dropped in for a visit to their factory. They may claim 2A3 amps are enough but realistically speaking they need a 300B or more. Note that the Super Victory is only rated at 92.5dB/1W, not much better than a typical speaker. Because of the engineering trade-offs it involves, it basically works out like this for speakers: Good, Cheap, Efficient. Pick 2. There's ways to do it but it involves using pro-audio drivers such as the ones from Beyma (Fab Audio does this) or 18sound, those drivers are damn expensive, but they're efficient and can handle a crapload of power.

Well, the thing is you'd like to use the TVC between the preamp and amp and have it do the SE to balance conversion as well. TVCs are generally optimized for lower signal levels such as what you'd find coming out of a CD player, your planned application is not what they're made for. What you could do is stick a TVC/AVC on the input of the preamp and then use another transformer on its output to do the SE/balanced conversion. That way both transformers run the way they're meant to and you don't have saturation or overload problems. Unfortunately the costs go up a fair bit, good transformers ain't cheap.

I've seen Fab Audio Stonehenge speakers pop up on Audiogon from time to time, I remember a set going for around $1500. Other than that the only thing I can think of is a DIY open baffle design of some sort based on the Visaton B200 driver with your choice of supplemental bass fill driver.

I prefer the first one. It puts the metal capacitors between the big power transformer and what looks like either a choke or a filament transformer. This should cut down on hum coupling from the power transformer to the choke (if it is one).

Sweet! Your next project, should you choose to accept, is to get an amp built around the EML AD1 mesh plate.

60dB in the phono section, another 15dB in the preamp section. I've heard one and it has more than enough gain for a ~0.25mV MC cartridge. But I can see how it could be marginal depending on the gain structure of the rest of the amplification chain and the efficiency of the speakers.

Both AVC and TVCs will run into saturation issues, as I understand it it's a function of the core material and not the single vs. dual windings. That's why 100% permalloy is found only in small signal applications and not in output transformers.

Nah, get someone to build you the Vacuum State FVP5 (PDF file). Or go nuts and build the fully balanced version on the Vacuum State schematics page.

Slagle. As in Dave Slagle. He makes good stuff and does custom orders. You can order his transformers from intact audio

Possible signal overload depending on the output of the preamp. The Tribute is spec'd for 6V RMS and I don't know what the specs are for other inductive volume controls, so it's possible the output from a preamp can overload them.

No man, if you're really serious about losing weight you should strand yourself in the mountains with no food for a few weeks. Another option is to drink disease infested groundwater in 3rd world countries to catch a bad stomach & intestinal virus so you end up purging bile & blood from both ends, then you can enjoy a nice long hospital stay hooked up to an IV drip. Guaranteed to take at least 25% off your body weight or your money back.

They were used passively in front of the power amps. It was source(s) ---> AVC box ---> power amps ---> speakers.

I haven't heard the Prometheus or DIY Hifi transformers yet, and I don't know anyone around here who has one. I've heard the S&B TX102, a Dave Slagle AVC, and a couple Tribute AVC's. Tribute & Slagle will both do custom jobs, if you need different spacing between steps, inductance values or whatnot, they can do it. My personal favourite is the Tribute followed by the Slagle, the Tribute sounds like it has a wider bandwidth, more details, more speed, more goodness. Kinda like hearing DHT's for the first time but not quite that dramatic, but it's the same idea. The Slagle is no slouch itself, the difference between it and the S&B is the same as going from the Tribute to the Slagle. I don't know how much of a difference you'd notice on a typical headphone system, most of the listening was done on a custom open baffle speaker rig using Lowther and Beyma drivers with a Heil tweeter.

I've heard it against the Prima DAC with Artemis Labs SP-1 amps and Reference 3A MM de Capo i speakers. The short summary: The Prima has a slightly larger soundstage but the Acute seems crisper & more focused with the imaging, need more listening time to be sure. Both have serious depth on the soundstage, Acute isn't quite as wide though. The de Capos have limited bass so it's pretty much the same for both down there, Acute has a slightly nicer midrange, the tone's a bit richer. Highs I don't know, the speakers don't have enough treble resolution to tell. Overall detail & resolution is very close, I couldn't tell one way or the other with the system. I guess the easiest way to explain it is this. Take a photo and load it up in Photoshop, that's the Prima DAC. Dial up the saturation a bit, that's the Acute.