Saturday, November 23, 2013

Mains DC blocker and RFI\EMI power filter



















In Australia our mains supply has gone from clean power to not so clean power. For a number of years now I have built power filters into my power amps but not in media players or preamps.  DC on the mains can cause many problems with audio gear and particularly audio gear using a toroid transformer a DC mains blocker may improve sonic performance. This simple DC blocker also incorporates an RFI\EMI power filter. A choke on the input lead and 10A slow blow fuse round out a simple and neat solution to "dirty" mains power.

OPAMP phono preamp with high RIAA EQ accuracy




































The creator of the oddawtt series of tube amps and kits has developed an OPAMP based, highly accurate, phono preamp. In my build you can switch between, MM and MC and in MC mode switch between 50 and 100ohms load. This MC loading suites my Ortofon Rondo Blue and I can switch between the two loadings on the fly to gauge the effect. I run my build on 4 X 9V batteries and on a 1.75" square single prototype cct. brd. I have a simple resistive network to provide +/- 18V. A couple of low ESR 220uf caps ensure smooth power to the chip an OPA2134. A battery test point is at the front.

The cap compliment is polies and MKT with a NP electro on the output. Better caps could have been used but a wanted a neat tight build. The preamp came out looking attractive and most of all sounds glorious. For an inexpensive build with great flexibility (two switchable TT inputs for my Rega (MC) and AT (MM) TTs)this would be hard to beat. Tested RIAA EQ tracking is better than 0.25db!