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Classé CAM 350 monoblock power amplifier Page 2

Is there a Genie in the Lamp?
The CAM 350s arrived midway through my August 2000 review of the Magnepan MG3.6/R loudspeaker and immediately took up residence in my main system.

Over the years, in daydreams in which I'd mentally paired Magnepans with my dream amp, the most dramatic effects were significant improvements in transparency, dynamics, and the resolution of low-level detail. In my musings, that last little bit of gauze that my Maggies could never seem to shake would simply vaporize. The tiniest details would be revealed, imbuing images with a vibrant life and body. Subtle…

Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier Parts List

Parts List

Potentiometers:
VR1: Your choice of ALPS "Black Beauty" 100k stereo audio taper pot, Penny & Giles RF15-2-20k-A 20k stereo audio taper pot or ALPS "Budget Gourmet" 100k stereo audio taper pot (Radio Shack part #271-1732).

VR2 & 3: Bourns 3386-OT1 5k sealed cermet miniature trimpot.

Buffers:
IC1 & 2: PMI BUF-03AJ milspec version. (The impecunious can experiment with the less-expensive BUF-03J and -EJ commercial versions, which have reduced slew rates and drive capabilities, but these have not been auditioned.)

Switches:
SW1 & 2…

Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier Schematics

Fig.1 Click on image for larger view

Fig.2 Click on image for larger view

Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier Letters

Letters in response appeared in Vol.15 No.2, February 1992

Passive semantics
Editor:
My audiophile interest and activity date back to the time when a cactus thorn was the high-end stylus of choice, ca 1938. This predates the preamplifier by approximately ten years.

In its first embodiment, a preamp was just that: a self-powered extra stage of amplification between the phono cartridge and whatever amplifier was being used. This was made necessary by the very low voltage output of GE's new variable reluctance cartridge as it began to replace the crystal devices we…

Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier Mo' Better Mods, Page 1

Mo' Better Mods
Stereophile Vol.15 No.11, November 1992
Corey Greenberg revisits his Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier (footnote 1)

"Dad-blamed Postal Service!" Elvis fumed, shooting up a Mitsubishi big-screen TV with his blue .357 and taking a pull off a Big Red. "Mah one chance tuh be awn a genyoowahn US stamp, an' they got me lookin' jes' like some cleenteen WIMP, man!" A smoking shard of the big-screen's control panel fell earthward. Elvis whirled, blew it into dust before it hit the ground.

Why was the King Of Rock And Roll in my dreams again? To holler about the…

Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier Mo' Better Mods, Page 2

People, people who need people
First things first: When I was wading through different pots from Penny & Giles, Bourns, Vishay, and Radio Shack, I thought I preferred the sound of the high-grade Alps pot Joe Grado sold me to the Penny & Giles pot I'd originally used. It's hard making direct comparisons between volume pots when you have to unsolder, remove, and resolder all the hookup wires each time you switch. However, Steve Giunta used the P&G in his preamp; since it appeared to be the only difference in parts between the two units, I put my P&G back in. Sure enough, the…

Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier Mo' Better Mods, Page 3

KCag & the sunshine band
I had originally wired up my preamp with Straight Wire LSI-Encore, an excellent reasonably priced cable. But now I was in the throes of Modkateer Fever; mere excellence wasn't good enough anymore.

I've always liked the various Kimber Kables (the AC cord on my preamp is a Kimber Power Kord), so I got hold of some of their silver KCAG interconnect; you know, that cool-looking white stuff with the three braided wires and no shield. Inside the preamp, I used it just like it's used for interconnect: one wire for signal, the other two tied together for ground. I…

Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier Mo' Better Mods, Page 4

Lather knows best
You want lather? I'll give you lather; when I changed the Alps pot out for the Penny & Giles, the preamp sounded more open on top. When I installed the high-speed rectifiers, the low-level detail became much clearer and the slight grain through the mids was banished. When I rewired the audio circuit with Kimber silver wire, the sound became even more alive.

But when I installed the dual-regulated power supply, the preamp was transformed. Bass lines just bounced out of the BUFs, deeper and tighter than I'd ever heard them over the mighty Muse subwoofer; the sense…

The <I>Rhapsody</I> Project

Thirteen Ways of Listening to a Recording Session (with apologies to Wallace Stevens): Wes Phillips

I The chapel is quiet. Early morning sunlight, tinted by stained glass, glares through the gloom. Golden dust-motes leap up at our entrance, flashing crimson, then cerulean as they dance among our rattling footsteps.

Silence is not emptiness, I muse, sitting in the deserted sanctuary. Even when still, the space is full of itself. The walls and roof are but a skin; what they contain is the thing itself.

II Hyperion Knight, drawn to the Steinway, begins to play, and the…

The <I>Rhapsody</I> Project Page 2

VII A two-hour break separates the rehearsal and recording sessions. I sit in the chapel watching the dying daylight dull the stained glass. The roof creaks—heated by the afternoon sun, it has begun to cool. As the timbers shrink, they rub against one another and moan.

The chapel, even when quiet, is filled by its own sound. The rustling pops from the cooling boards pierce through it, simultaneously transforming and defining it. Is this what John Cage meant when he said, "There is no silence?"

VIII What sounds more hopeful than a stage-full of musicians honking, climbing scales,…