I received the Boozhound Labs JFET Moving Coil (MC) Pre-Preamp Kit a while back and I promptly assembled the small circuit board. Iβm a sucker for a simple kit and a hot iron. That is where it all stopped. The circuit board remained complete and laying about for a few years. Recently I required another MC stage because the tube moving-magnet (MM) preamp I had just completed did not work all that well with the Jean Hiraga MC stage I had been using for years. It appeared the Hiraga had too much output and was over-driving the tube stage.
So I needed another MC stage.I borrowed a friends Denon MC step-up-transformer (SUT) unit. The system sounded better with the SUT driving the tube MM stage but also sounded a bit dull. This finally pushed me to complete the Boozhound Labs MC Pre-Preamp kit.The Boozhound Laboratories JFET Moving Coil Pre-preamp kit includes PCB and all passive components to populate the PCB. Four Stand-offs for mounting the PCB are included. You have to provide your own chassis, power supply (12-24VDC), and various connectors. The Boozhound Laboratories JFET Moving Coil Pre-preamp kit features:
- Minimalist circuit using the 2SK170 JFET;
- ~30dB gain;
- Russian K40Y paper-in-oil coupling capacitors;
- Nichicon Muse electrolytic filter capacitors;
- nice quality PCB (made in USA);
- circuit requires external 12-24VDC power supply (batteries work well);
- Assembled dimensions (height with included standoffs): 4 x 2 x 1.625 (inches).
The MC PrePre kit only has a handful of components and for the practiced DIYer the whole soldering chore can be over in less than an hour
For more detail: