Posted on Friday, 20th April 2012 by Auw Jimmy

I bought Yamamoto 9Pin socket few weeks ago and I just realize that actually I need the PCB in order to make the soldering process easier. As you also notice, the 9Pin socket has very tiny pins. Soldering them probably would not be an easy job, especially if we are playing with big AWG cable (I’m using 12 AWG or 2 mm size for filament).

As my goods have been shipped out, then I have to arrange another shipment for this PCB. I contacted Shigeki in order to get this PCB. But suddenly, I got something flashing on my head. Why shouldn’t we try to make ourselves? It wouldn’t be much cheaper, but could have some fun. Anyway, I don’t really need extra pins on the PCB like shown on Yamamoto PCB below. I would prefer to have empty hole PCB to solder my cable. That would be easier, huh?

Below is very nice PCB by Yamamoto for it’s 9Pin socket.

The after several hours playing with DipTrace (no one got default library for 9Pin Teflon tube socket, I only could find the Ceramic type which is larger in diameter) – finally I came up with a new custom library for this socket. I printed it out and checked with the real socket to see if I made a good size for the pins. Voila, it’s just perfectly nice!

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Tags: DipTrace, PCB, Teflon, Tube Socket, Yamamoto
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Posted on Sunday, 15th April 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Jensen has 4 types in their Copper Foil Paper-In-Oil line-up capacitor. Actually, they are same capacitor, but only has different chassis or enclosure. Unfortunately, the different in enclosure produces different sound (and eventually different price). I’m not saying the most expensive is the best one (at least for my ears). That’s why it’s quite interesting to try them. Jensen has 4 types of enclosure/tube: Aluminum, Paper, Copper, and Ceramic. I have tried 3 of them (Aluminum, Paper, and Copper). It’s time to get the last one, the Ceramic tube to fulfill my thirst on this ‘oily capacitor world’. Before you got disappointed, there will be no test result on this post as I must pass around 100-200 hours break-in period first.

Below are some reading which could be interesting:
Battle of 3 Capacitors
Extreme Capacitor Battle 1st Session
Extreme Capacitor Battle 2nd Session

And below is the appearance of the Jensen Ceramic tube capacitor.

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Tags: Capacitor, Ceramic, jensen
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Posted on Sunday, 15th April 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Finally after a long journey, I find few pcs of DPDT switch with center off. You might be asking why we should have a center off switch? Probably not everyone needs this kind of switch. One application crosses my mind is to measure stereo channel bias with single bias meter only. Probably due to safety and durability issue, you will not measure your bias all the time you use your system. So with this switch, you can always switch left or right to measure respective channel and put back to the center to turn the measurement off.

And this Nittei Musen brand has been in this industry more than half century ago… Welcome to the 21st century!

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Tags: Center Off, DPDT, Nittei Musen, switch
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Posted on Sunday, 8th April 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Tamura’s iron is not new kid on the block. They have been here for a quite long time. Even Westerner also admits the quality of Tamura (well, we can see some contenders from West side but hardly to beat Japanese Iron). I’m interested to try some of Tamura’s Choke. I’ve used the A-4004, which currently a top of the line Choke from Tamura (actually, Tamura doesn’t have Choke line-up as much as Hashimoto or Tango) and quite satisfy with its performace. But I was tempted to try their other two Choke line-up: The Amorphous and The Vintage series.

Amorphous currently available in 2 variants. I take the A-4006 which capable to deliver 200mA on 10H or 400mA on 2.5H. Should be enough for most of your Single Ended or Push Pull application. For the Vintage series (this is the name that I use to call, not official from Tamura), I take the A-395 which will hold 120mA on 10H.

All those three Chokes are similar in size and weight. ‘Similar’ doesn’t mean 100% exactly same, right?

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Tags: Amorphous, Choke, Tamura
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Posted on Sunday, 8th April 2012 by Auw Jimmy

If you have been in this audio industry quite some time, then you might not be surprised to hear this name: Yamamoto. Yamamoto is well known for its Telfon tube socket. Although we can find other products manufactured by this brand.

To be honest, there are not much tube socket manufacturer in the world (I mean, “good” tube socket manufacturer). Off course you can always find “standard” tube socket (could be Ceramic base, Teflon, Bakelite, and other materials). The price also could vary, from less than US$ 10 a piece, to over US$ 10 to 20 a piece (usually for Teflon based).

Yamamoto holds its own class, as Japanese manufacturer with high quality construction. But the bad thing is, you have to spend more to grab his product

Despite its quality, Yamamoto also quite genius to release some dual construction tube socket. One of them which suits my need is the UX-UF socket combination. I can save space to make my system able to use two type of rectifiers: B4/UF based rectifier (RGN, what else?) and UX based rectifier (like #80 or #83 Mercury Vapor type). Actually the original idea was to use 300B and PX25, but we can always have another use, right?

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Tags: Teflon, Tube Socket, Yamamoto
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