Quote:
Originally Posted by Fotoman
Has anyone done this? I've got a brand-new Classic 62SE on order from CJ and am considering various tube preamps. The logical choice of course is CJ but I am open to other options.
Thanks for any real world info you guys can provide.
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Well, it would sound REALLY good with a preamp such as the fully-dual mono First Sound Presence Deluxe tube preamp with Paramount Edition upgrade and ~150,000 µF of power supply capacitance
per channel.
BTW, I bought my First Sound preamp in 2019, and I can safely say is a LOT better-sounding than my CJ Premier 17LS and CT-5 tube preamps were. While they were lovely, my First Sound literally makes them sound "thin and two-dimensional." It's an
absolutely amazing-sounding tube preamp, and paired beautifully with my C-J LP70S power amp.
Here are some pics....
The chassis is fully dual-mono, with separate volume controls and pure copper bus bars and wiring using air dielectric pure copper wire.
Pure copper bus bars connect all the inputs and outputs and all internal chassis wiring is full Shunayta Research wire (Emmanuel Go of First Sound OEMs wire and CCI-X modules from Shunyata).
The volume controls use all hand-soldered individual Holco metal-film resistors.
Oh, BTW, the internal chassis is also painted copper-plated steel, so it
literally functions as a
Faraday cage. You can see the copper color of the chassis at the top left of the chassis, where the fastener fastens the cover to the main chassis.
The two
external linear power supplies are fully dual-mono, have approx. 145,000 µF of power supply capacitance per channel and also have the latest spec Shunyata CCI-X noise filters built-in (depicted by the red arrows), so you don't need to use a NR power cable for the power supplies, you can use a Shunyata XC, for example.
As it happens, I'm selling this bad boy for less than half of retail (retail is ~$17,690). I just had Emmanual Go of First Sound incorporate all of his latest upgrades (to Rev. MKIII-SI-x2), earlier this year, in February, so it's fully up to the latest specification
Here are some key points of the MKIII-SI-x2 upgrade from Emmanuel.
1) Upgrade of component/s from Shunyata Research.
2) Addressing resonance
3) Replacing current copper caps to Black Duelands
4) Change/s addressing fundamental nature of the presentation/performance
5) Addition of advanced processing to the crafting techniques
6) Improvement in crafting techniques
7) Replacement of Vishay metal-film resistors with newer Vishay "bulk-metal" foil resistors.
8) Upgrade involves both the main chassis and the external power supplies.
9) Both chassis are taken apart and put back again using the latest crafting techniques.
If you're possibly interested, just send me a PM.
Cheers!