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The Emmeline II B-52


tiberian

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Kevin's review of the B52 from the pictures ray has posted.

THE GOOD

The aestetics of this unit are very nice. Still way to many

ray samuels logo's and the logo's are way to big. But i happen

to like the looks of the thing. KG's rating---- A-

The quality of assembly, the quality of the parts, the quality

of the layout. Outstanding. A particular company north of the

border should look at how things are supposed to be done.

KG's rating---- A

At least the box is finally big enough so the electrolytics

won't burn up due to the heat. Still a few more holes in the

main board would definitely help.

THE BAD

Circuitry description.

Differential amplifier on the input. Turns unbalanced signals into balanced

or amplifies balanced signals. Output capacitively coupled to the 4 channel

dact step attenuator. Output of the attenuator goes two places, one

is the cathode follower preamp output stage, and the other is the balanced

srpp headphone amplifier stage. KG's rating ---- C-

Yes in fact as far as a headphone amp is concerned its 2 raptors in one box.

As a preamp it has a cathode follower output stage, so it actually really behaves

like as a preamp. Output impedance of about 2k is far better than the 100k

impedance of the stealth. I feel sorry for all those stuck with stealth's which

are now completely worthless.

Yes the headphone stage is TWO SRPP stages in series with TWO output

capacitors in series with the headphone. Double the output impedance.

Double the slush bucket bass into low impedance headphones.

THE UGLY

What is this thing. A preamp?? If so where is the remote control.

A Headphone amp?? Where is the low output impedance.

Instead of doing one thing right, it does two things wrong.

First thing if you really are going to use it as a preamp, chuck the 2 x 12au7

preamp output tubes and replace with 6n1p (after dealing with the filament

voltage issue).

But really with the same number of tubes and deleting the headphone output

it would be easy to design a new board that fits into the same chassis and

turns the thing into a conrad johnson clone. Plenty of room now for composite

triodes.

FOR A FEW PENNIES MORE ray could have actually added 2 wires into the power

supply cable and avoided contaminating the high voltage ground with the grunge

produced by the ultra cheapo fillament switchers.

The B52 really is the best thing by far that ray has ever done.

Stereophile should eat the thing up.

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