Quickie as a phono preamp

[sameerverma]

I'm looking to use the Quickie as a preamp for a turntable with a Grado Blue 1 cartridge. Is this a good fit? My amp does not have a phono input, so I do need a preamp.

thx,
Sameer

 

[kgoss]

The Quickie is a line stage preamp.  You should be looking at the Reduction or Eros kits.

 

[Wanderer]

Quickie does not provide enough gain or the correct equalization to function as a phono pre. 

I would love an inexpensive battery operated tube based phono pre. It has been asked about but it's probably not practical.

If you need a battery operated phono pre you might hunt around for a used Radio Shack "Little Rat". I used a "Little Rat" for a while and they work.
 

 

[Grainger49]

Phono stages require two stages of amplification. The Quickie it one triode stage per channel.  It simply doesn't have the gain for a phono stage.

Maybe two Quickies on a larger chassis?

 

[Paul Joppa]

The kind of dry-battery tubes used in Quickie don't have enough gain to get by with less than three tubes for a phono preamp. I have repeatedly tried and failed to come up with a two-tube design.

 

[aragorn723]

3-4 3s4s shouldn't be a problem as they are really inexpensive..

Heck, you could be using these!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Electric-300B-vintage-tube-match-quad-/121501150910?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item1c4a086ebe

Dave

 

[dnewell68]

How about a solid state battery powered phono preamp to match the quickie and quicksand? Maybe call it Quicksilver?

 

[Paul Joppa]

How about a solid state battery powered phono preamp to match the quickie and quicksand? Maybe call it Quicksilver?

Tempting. I'll look into it!

 

[dnewell68]

How about a solid state battery powered phono preamp to match the quickie and quicksand? Maybe call it Quicksilver?

Tempting. I'll look into it!

Or, possibly a hybrid phono preamp? 3s4 tubes from the quickie followed by an op amp and RIAA equalization. The 3s4 tubes will give it that lovely  tube sound we all crave, and the op amp will give it the gain it needs.

 

[sameerverma]

Thank you all for your replies. I got a Quickie. My kids helped me build it

I got a phono preamp (TC-760LC MM/MC phono preamp) that I place between the turntable (UturnAudio Orbit with Grado Blue 1) and the Quickie. Then I feed the output from the Quickie into a power amp. Works well.

cheers,
Sameer

 

[Grainger49]

Congratulations on a perfect build.

I chuckled when I saw that your volume goes to 11.  Nice touch.

 

[tsingle999]

Nice build!
I would love to get a battery phono pre from BH!

 

[sameerverma]

Congratulations on a perfect build.

I chuckled when I saw that your volume goes to 11.  Nice touch.

Thanks! The numbering was inspired by this conversation: https://twitter.com/williamshatner/status/514608480917803008

 

[cpaul]

Note there are a number of battery-powered solid-state phono stages.  The Boozhound and the Hagerman Bugle come to mind.  Then there's the Oatley K301 that uses a 6418 "pencil" tube first/gain stage with a solid state buffer stage (wired like a cathode follower, can't recall it's name).  While the K301 uses a mains supply, B+ appears to be 30v so you might be able to power it with batteries.  Filament is 1.25v at 10mA, but it looks like it's pulled off of the B+ somehow so I'm not sure what the total draw is on B+.  Note the filament supply seems odd to me, but a lot of people like this phono pre. 

Finally, if you like to DIY from scratch, Steve Bench has a 6088 "pencil tube" phono stage that he powered from batteries.  Life is about 200 hrs on D cell filament batteries and B+ is apparently 2mA at 70v.  It uses 8x 9v batteries, and if we assume they are 200mAH batteries, we'd get 100 hours out of them (in theory). 

OK, just a few options.  I think I may have posted about some of these in an earlier post several years ago, but I can't recall.