Preamp recommendations ?

[Krunchy]

Hi Seawolf, So glad to hear you are back with the venerable little APT , they are hard to beat, I am still indebted to you & P. Warner for the heads up on these. After messing around with some other gear these days, the one thing that I think is missing on these wonderful units is/are XLR in/outs. I am surprised they were not part of the desing, he thought about everything else, must have had a good reason for leaving them out of the scheme.
The APT w/the Crown PS 400 is a nice little combo.

[SEAWOLF97]

Hi Seawolf, So glad to hear you are back with the venerable little APT , they are hard to beat, I am still indebted to you & P. Warner for the heads up on these. .

Yes, BUT ...did you read the manual yet ?? There is soo much good info on the unit that us NOT readily apparent. TH even explains why he chose certain types of switches. Written as if he is talking to a friend.

I am indebited to P.Warner also..he showed up , dumped a gem recommendation on us and hasnt been seen since.

On the BGW , I did get a little bleedover of the XM tuner when on phono , the APT is dead quiet.

[Krunchy]

Yes, BUT ...did you read the manual yet ??

I'm still working on it ...Im a slow reader (its my second language)....of manuals

Anything interesting on the crosshairs ?
Must go to office, catch up later, enjoy the day!

[loach71]

Yes, BUT ...did you read the manual yet ?? There is soo much good info on the unit that us NOT readily apparent. TH even explains why he chose certain types of switches. Written as if he is talking to a friend.

I am indebited to P.Warner also..he showed up , dumped a gem recommendation on us and hasnt been seen since.

On the BGW , I did get a little bleedover of the XM tuner when on phono , the APT is dead quiet.

You should clean all the switches with Caig DeOxit -- the noise and crosstalk will go away.h

[SEAWOLF97]

I'm still working on it ...Im a slow reader (its my second language)....of manuals

Anything interesting on the crosshairs ?
!

well Engrish is my first (of 3) and it still took me a while

interesting ? naw..the local flippers seem to have CL RSS feeds to their cells and the good stuff is going fast. I only get their leftovers or misses.

[Krunchy]

You should clean all the switches with Caig DeOxit -- the noise and crosstalk will go away.h

Hello Loach, that DeOx is lilke having DW40 in the shop, if you're messing with stereo gear, it comes in real handy.

Seawolf, sorry to hear about the flippers, there's always something it seems.

Enjoy the weekend!...wait a minute, do the weekends even feel like weekends to you, are they meaningless once a person is retired? was always curious about that.

[SEAWOLF97]

Enjoy the weekend!...wait a minute, do the weekends even feel like weekends to you, are they meaningless once a person is retired? was always curious about that.

weekends ?? more people on the road . longer lines , more CL postings ,,,,,,worked many years to get to this level of leisure....(tho I seem to be working harder , now that I'm not employed , there are so many projects now, that even if the qeue stopped filling today, I'd still never finish them all) AND ...the honneydew list grows proportionately as your free time does..

[Krunchy]

weekends ?? more people on the road . longer lines , more CL postings ,,,,,,worked many years to get to this level of leisure....(tho I seem to be working harder , now that I'm not employed , there are so many projects now, that even if the qeue stopped filling today, I'd still never finish them all)

Had a feeling about that!

[SEAWOLF97]

I'm still working on it ...Im a slow reader (its my second language)....of manuals !

Did you read about and engage the "infrasonic filter" ??? Its on the back side...(see book)

[Krunchy]

Not yet, was involved in working out regular sonic issues wrt the monsters' cross overs. Thats enough hifi & lofi for me this weekend. Hope your weekend was a good one Wofl!

[sourceoneaudio]

nO PROBLEM , Rich ..I always appreciate your comments

(least you arent some banned wanker pretending he's someone else , 'cause he moved and got a different IP.)

Now that is some funny SHEEET!

[SEAWOLF97]

Last summer I did something stupid ...was rewiring/cleaning up cables behind the stack and thot power was OFF ..it wasnt...pulled a connector from the Apt preamp and heard a POP... DEAD !! checked it all out ...Apt was dead dead dead.
(the only time in my life that I've done this) ..so rigged up the backup BGW pre and went on.....it has been bugging the crap out of me ever since.

Last month, meekly went into Audio Specialties and queried Doug, who is a great repairman ... I had searched for at least a half hour inside the Apt and couldn't find the fuse .... he had a unit in the store and we opened it and he showed me the fuse ...it's soldered inline , disguised and buried. YUK ...went home and opened it up , found the fuse and desoldered it....went for an improvement and wired in an auto fuse holder, but ....still no joy.

Been getting back to vinyl these last couple of months and I know the Apt is much better for phono playback. It has adjustable capatance, resistance, . compensation for warp, and for hf POP and even channel trim for the cart....I like the little guy so much that this week I bit the bullet, swallowed my pride , and took it in for an estimate..

Happy Part : problem was more than just the fuse...a bridge rectifier went too.. Doug would fix it all and clean all the switches for $75...I happily said YES.

got it back today and am in audio nirvana again ....

[P.Warner]

Glad to hear your are in Nirvana again but what you described has me a bit concerned. As much as it can be horrendous to the power amp and speakers, hot-plugging connections to a preamp should not cause internal damage, particularly to the power supply. Pulling a connector and hearing a POP...DEAD!! to then discover a blown diode bridge (and the fuse?) would indicate you are sending current through from other components. You had to have generated a transient of some good proportions so finding a floating voltage should be rather obvious. There is the other possibility: I had mentioned to you about the discussions on the APT needing capacitors given its age but I will gladly defer to other brethren here as to whether older, otherwise well behaved, electrolytics might be culpable in a sudden event as you described. Yep, that's food for thought!

[robertbartsch]

I bought a 5 channel Adcom preamp/tuner on FleaBay last week for $129 for my basement listening. For the money, you can't beat this one.


It has a stout output signal that drives an 200 watt Adcom amp very well. That is more than I can say about many pre-amps. - one Onkyo that come to mind has a very small output signal.

[SEAWOLF97]

I bought a 5 channel Adcom preamp/tuner on FleaBay last week for $129 for my basement listening. For the money, you can't beat this one.
It has a stout output signal that drives an 200 watt Adcom amp very well. That is more than I can say about many pre-amps. - one Onkyo that come to mind has a very small output signal.

things have changed a bit since last post here....

The Apt, while still sounding great had the power switch die...but was nice enough to die in the ON position..put the BGW back in...sold the Apt to another LHF member.

When playing the BGW at low gain, 1 channel would drop out. Started longing for a remote control , then with my bail out from XM, decided that FM again wouldn't be a bad deal.

Been impressed with my Adcom GFA-555 amp and started to look into Adcom preamps...there is a model with remote and FM tuner...GTP-500II. ....CL knew what I needed and soon after up came a listing with the Adcom in question , he had an Adcom 5 channel pre also and a GDA-600 "phase inverter"

I looked up the GDA ..of course its a DAC ..so I nego'ed a package price and went down to West Linn to get them ...familiar story...3 million dollar custom house on the river with private boat dock...an orthodontist.

Gave him $125 for BOTH ....started using the DAC with Pandora coming optical from the laptop almost immediately. The pre sat around a while until recently I grabbed all those Philips rca cables...when time came to swap the cables, I did the pre also.

Bottom line...the GTP-500II has fine metal build quality ...looks good...gain switch is continuously adjustable , so will play both channels at low volume. has remote (tho really only useful for UP & DOWN and source changing) , tuner very sensitive (pulls strong static free when the Denon receiver across the room WON't) ...its pretty sweet sounding (have disconnected the EQ) , and a real bargain....if you have similar needs , the Adcom is a great choice..