Servicing CJ...

[roberto]

Hola Chicos,

I noticed that every time I get a Conrad Johnson preamp for check or repair, most of the cover's screws are missing. These screws look ordinary, but they are not. It is very difficult to find the right thread. Or here in Costa Rica, the american standard screws are not the same thread size.

I hate to give back to the customer his preamp with these missing screws, so I wrote an email to Jeff, and he immediately sent to me a bunch of spare screws. An also, he sent both types of philips screws, the ones that are used in the PV series, and also in the ET series.

Yes, I do know that Jeff is a very wise person. He knows that a loose cover can resonate and this resonance could cause an odd quality sound.
I just wanted to thanks him for the help to this matter.

Happy listening!

[admin]

Great to hear. Sometimes a little thing like a few cents screw can make a big difference in sound if there is any bad vibration going on. By any chance, do you know what the screw size is? I'm surprised they would use a non-standard sizing.

[admin]

Great to hear. Sometimes a little thing like a few cents screw can make a big difference in sound if there is any bad vibration going on. By any chance, do you know what the screw size is? I'm surprised they would use a non-standard sizing.

[sleepysurf]

Nothing worse than being an audiophile with a few "loose screws." I know a few!

[AnotherJohnson]

I really love the modern casework. The top is so much easier to remove. When I look inside the modern CJ case, I see strong evidence of Jeff’s attention to detail, influenced by the experienced eye and mind of someone who can do service.

[roberto]

Good Point AJ,

Service is the most important, and the new design presents everything on hand. Easy to work and enough space too. I have an ET-3 with a noisy tube on one channel. I was lurking inside the unit. Only really quality parts are. Best resistors, best capacitors, and the design is quite nice.

Well done Jeff, the unit is a beauty.

Happy listening!

[Big Dog RJ]

Nothing worse than being an audiophile with a few "loose screws." I know a few!

Hee haw! Nice one mate, that's a statement!
I generally thought about it this way; to begin with there are certainly a few loose screws... then once the audiophile badge is earned, those loose screws went missing! So, basically these are not only loose screws but lost screws!

Hence, as Robbo mentioned...

Cheers maties, RJ

[Big Dog RJ]

Robbo mate,
It's definitely a good thing to know that JF is supporting his customers and the brand. It's too high a reputation to drop the ball...

Had a similar experience few years back, when my ACT2 went for a service and there were a few screws missing on the back panel. Ed D sent some spares via FedEx, arrived in record timing. I remember when I reported to the good wife that a few screws were missing, she said no $#!?

Take it easy maties, cheers
RJ

[AnotherJohnson]

Good Point AJ,

Service is the most important, and the new design presents everything on hand. Easy to work and enough space too. I have an ET-3 with a noisy tube on one channel. I was lurking inside the unit. Only really quality parts are. Best resistors, best capacitors, and the design is quite nice.

Well done Jeff, the unit is a beauty.

Happy listening!

I think the reviewers called it a mini-GAT.
I liked my ET3SE. I liked my ET7 better, and my ET7S2 better still.

I have really noticed the advanced game as JF brings his skills to the layouts.

It really still astonishes me that seemingly small geometric interior tweaks can be heard.

Maybe I should not laugh at the carbon fiber duplex covers.

My own theory of exterior power delivery was that it should look very much like house wiring right up to the unit. If the power cord looks like house wiring, it would be like plugging the house right into the socket on the back of the unit. But this doesn’t seem necessary based on my listening experiments.

The high end and SE CJ units come with a hospital grade power cord. I wonder how many swap these out for aftermarket cords. I wonder what they hear.

[roberto]

Yes AJ,

I am convinced too, that every little detail always counts for good. Little things start to sum, and at the end, it is big sum.

I love woods and their properties. Here we have very special wood, the Marimba musical notes are made by this precious wood. What it has, is the property to resonate real strong. If you use other type of wood, the marimba does not sings as it does with this wood. The harmonic complexity musical notes from a marimba is very difficult to achieve on the recordings. The combination with the Bamboo and the Cristobal is something that must be heard.

I have wood blocks that I put under some components and the wood absorbs the vibration coming from the power supply, making the device to be more accurate reproducing the music. I did put inside my ET-7 some woodblocks near the power supply and and near the sides of the metal cover...It is dead in vibration coming from the 60 Hz of the AC frequency line. Little things that might spoils the sound with the 60Hz upper tones and the lower tones...

I did a test, I called the wife and told her to have a listen. A song by Martha Gomez, a Chesky Recording. When the song was around the middle, I took out all the wood, and she immediately said: what did you do? Something is missing...are you sure you did not do anything to the sound? I did not tell her what I did. She went to the living room to bring her cellular phone, and I put all the wood back to where I had it before. I poor some wine in her glass, we were going to have a cup of wine, while listening to the music, and she said again: Roberto, you are fooling me, something is much better now, I do not know what is it, but now my ears are more happy, more pleasant.

I'm going to try with my Mpingo discs from Shun Mook, to do some tests regarding this... yes, I think this sickness is contagious...she got it too!

Happy listening,

Woof, woof.

[Big Dog RJ]

Hey Robbo mate,

With that test and demo, sounds like everything and everyone went to plan, positive results.

BTW, what did you add to that wine when you poured her a glass? Ha!

I need to add the same substance for my wifey as well, at least then she'll appreciate the madness.
Cheers mate, RJ

[roberto]

RJ,

I do not know what it is, but sometimes my system sounds very, very nice, and other days, the sound is OK, but you won't cut your veins for it ( this is a very Costa Rican expression ). At late night is the best! I have noticed this too. Perhaps is the quality of the Mains AC, and there is almost an absolute silence. Cars and motorcycles are not allow at night, because of the Pandemia, only for an emergency. I have a dedicated breaker circuit to power my system from the electric box of the house, and also I use a balanced AC power conditioner. This is the only way to have a very clean AC to power my system. After 30 to 40 minutes of listening, the system starts to sing much better. Perhaps when I find that I am not that happy, is because it is cold, not warmed enough...silly, isn't is?

I recently did another tweak. I have a shakti stone, and I had it right on top of the power transformer of the amp. I moved and put it on top of my dac power supply, and UpToneAudio JS-2. I had a serious listening, piano music basically and trios of quartets...not too many musical instruments and voices. Just good jazz and some classical music that I do really know. To my ears, everything is projected to the space, as there are much air between the musical instruments and voices. The harmonic texture is broad, with a truly sense of 3D. The cymbals are more evident, and remain there, with the drummer. Before this tweak, they were a little thin, now the have the naturalness body of a cymbal. I do love this! Also with the piano musical notes, I get more coherence, better understanding what both hands are doing.

Happy listening!

[Big Dog RJ]

That's good to know Robbo mate, all those minor things/ tweaks count on a highly transparent system.

In fact, I don't use any power conditioning, just pure AC mains with dedicated lines only for the system, wired 10A all the way directly to main board on separate CB switches. Thus, makes a significant difference, not only in terms of AC quality but also overall quietness.

Of course if you have very bad voltage swing then of course power conditioners are useful but they will limit the dynamics of the potential capabilities of the system. There are only a handful of very well designed AC re-generators that do a marvellous job of conditioning, PS Audio is one such device.

I remember at our old place it was very noisy. Apart from the unstable voltage, which was fixed many years after by the power distributor, there was a bus stop right in front of our kitchen. Each time the bus came by, I would actually pause play, wait for drop off and resume play. It was that annoying.

Late nights are the best, no buses no trains, at least no constant runs or interruptions...
Now at our new place, none of this disturbance. We're well secluded off in the bush, absolutely dead quiet. The only thing I can hear is our cat having a dream...
Basically any time of day or night, audio playback is top notch. In fact during the day/light, it's even better since the solar panel system works 100% during light. This makes a whole lot of things more stable. I could be wrong, not sure why but everything is absolutely quiet, so it's pretty easy to identify a noisy tube if one is heading towards failure.

I still prefer late night sessions though, I think you just hear more detail I guess. Cheers mate, and enjoy those fine tunes! RJ

[AnotherJohnson]

I had a very clear audible experience with power supply once.

I had bought a protective device. It was based on the voltage clamp concept.

It allowed protection for up to six devices against voltage surges.

I thought it was a good idea since we go back and forth every week between two houses and I can’t unplug the audio systems of an electrical storm comes up in one city while we’re at the other.

I installed it in one system, and plugged the amp, preamp and SACD player into it.

I sat back and listened after warm up, and it was easy to hear that things had changed for the worse. I removed it, and things returned to their normal enjoyable open sound.

I took it to the other house and installed it there. The same thing happened. It caused an audible degradation in the performance of the system.

So I moved it to the plug behind the bedside table where it could protect a lamp, a clock, and a phone charger. It was fine in that application.

I also had experience using the VPI PLC, the VPI SDS, and the VPI built power line conditioner for the Levinson 515. Although none of these degraded the sound, neither can I point to specific improvements that could be attributed to them.

As a consequence, I continue to be leary of power line treatment devices. I can’t dismiss what others get out of these, but I can’t justify personal experiments with the multi thousand dollar units that are offered for this purpose.

My own sense is that, if your power is decent, but your system sound varies from one day to the next, that it could be due to day to day physiological differences in one’s hearing possibly brought on by ambient pressure and humidity changes and our aging ears.

YMMV.

[AnotherJohnson]

As for spouses, my wife is quite capable of hearing differences, but couldn’t care less. I would like to think that I can hear differences readily too, and I do care.

The greater the resolving power of your system, the clearer differences are.

Last night I played two Kenny Burrell LPs recorded live at the Village Vanguard. They were both old records purchased used a long time ago. They did not please me so I put a Kenny Burrell CD on, also recorded at the Village Vanguard. It was mediocre too.

I looked closely at the recording engineers, and was not surprised to see “no name” people who do not have the reputation of say a Rudy Van Gelder. I suspect the tapes were weak to begin with.

I think my standard is higher today than it was the last time I listened to these works. That’s a cost that comes with system improvements. But Van Gelder’s work ALWAYS leads to audio joy.

Another YMMV is in play I suspect.

[AnotherJohnson]

FWIW, the records were clean, but not “restored” in the Kirmuss sense. I am wondering what cavitation based restoration might accomplish. I may start a thread on this.