Stereomour II mods

hmbscott · 10311

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Offline Paul Birkeland

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Reply #45 on: March 05, 2024, 01:26:50 PM
I'll have to pop by since they aren't all that far away.  I bet they could just whip out bases and finish them in house very easily.

Paul "PB" Birkeland

Bottlehead Grunt & The Repro Man


Offline hmbscott

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Reply #46 on: March 05, 2024, 04:51:48 PM
Wow! Gorgeous.

Scott
[Ortofon 2M Bronze > U-Turn Theory > Eros II] & [iMac via USB > Denafrips Ares 2] >> Moreplay >> Schiit Lokius EQ >> Stereomour II >> Hsu ULS-15 Sub >> homemade DML Speakers
Moreplay 2nd out >> [Crack + Speedball > HD 650]


Offline Paul Birkeland

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Reply #47 on: March 05, 2024, 05:56:46 PM
Wow! Gorgeous.

Yeah, everyone was like "wow, good job building those bases", and I had to break the bad news to them that I have no idea who made them or where they came from.  I sure would like a few more though!

Paul "PB" Birkeland

Bottlehead Grunt & The Repro Man


Offline Mucker

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Reply #48 on: March 06, 2024, 01:16:31 PM
Nice stuffs fellas! Shunt regulator .... yeah it's cool you are waiting on that because it will give you a good idea just how great the Stereomour II can be. It transformed mine.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2024, 01:37:27 PM by Mucker »



Offline hmbscott

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Reply #49 on: March 07, 2024, 04:22:11 PM
... Shunt regulator .... yeah it's cool you are waiting ...

Yeah, I'm looking forward to experiencing that!. It's going to be a while. I'm currently breaking in my tubes, and boy did they need it! The first hour of listening was a bit ... it sounded good, but something was definitely a bit off, because I just couldn't settle down to listen through an entire song. It seems like 75% of the break-in happened in that first hour though, and now that I've got maybe 15 hours on it, it is sounding like butter! I'm going to give the stock Psvains a full month or so, and then swap in my RCAs. And then ...

Scott
[Ortofon 2M Bronze > U-Turn Theory > Eros II] & [iMac via USB > Denafrips Ares 2] >> Moreplay >> Schiit Lokius EQ >> Stereomour II >> Hsu ULS-15 Sub >> homemade DML Speakers
Moreplay 2nd out >> [Crack + Speedball > HD 650]


Offline 2wo

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Reply #50 on: March 07, 2024, 05:42:43 PM
We need a night shot...John

John S.


Offline hmbscott

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Reply #51 on: May 01, 2024, 06:28:27 PM
It's taken forever, but I have finally finished the Claro Walnut bases for the Stereomour and Moreplay. It was a painstaking process because I am terrible at mitering and this was an amazing piece of wood that I didn't want to F-up (required building a custom jig to do it properly). I wanted to book-match and grain wrap the bases and to try a french polish. It took somewhere between 30 and 40 coats of shellac, but I really wanted to do justice to the spectacular grain.

Over the past few months I have fully burned in both the original Psvane tubes (good) and a pair of matched NOS RCA Black plates (amazing), and damn! The Moreplay & Stereomour can really sing!

Up next, and I'm a bit afraid, because the Stereomour already sounds perfect, the Shunt Regulator upgrade and DC filament supply.

At some point I will talk about the output impedance switching I built in to my Stereomour, it's really interesting. I use it a lot more than I ever expected.

Scott
[Ortofon 2M Bronze > U-Turn Theory > Eros II] & [iMac via USB > Denafrips Ares 2] >> Moreplay >> Schiit Lokius EQ >> Stereomour II >> Hsu ULS-15 Sub >> homemade DML Speakers
Moreplay 2nd out >> [Crack + Speedball > HD 650]


Offline Karl5150

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Reply #52 on: May 02, 2024, 03:23:02 AM
Your continued attention to detail has really paid off. Lovely.
Karl

Karl
Downstairs: Planar3>PH-16>Stereomour II>OB Betsy+
Upstairs: RP1>Eros/CD5004>Seductor (2x Monoblocks)>FH3
Office: Modi Uber 2/Sirius>SEX2.1.1>µFonken FF85WK + DC160 subs
BR: FiiO M6>SEX3.0.1>ScanSpeak 10F + TangBand W6 (Mono)/DT770Pro
Garage: X12 streamer>Quicksand>Minimus 77


Offline Thermioniclife

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Reply #53 on: May 02, 2024, 03:36:41 AM
Great job, love the corner spline's.

Lee R.


Offline hmbscott

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Reply #54 on: May 04, 2024, 07:11:08 PM
Night Shot.

Scott
[Ortofon 2M Bronze > U-Turn Theory > Eros II] & [iMac via USB > Denafrips Ares 2] >> Moreplay >> Schiit Lokius EQ >> Stereomour II >> Hsu ULS-15 Sub >> homemade DML Speakers
Moreplay 2nd out >> [Crack + Speedball > HD 650]


Offline 2wo

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Reply #55 on: May 05, 2024, 05:34:14 PM
"Hot time, summer in the city"

John S.


Offline hmbscott

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Reply #56 on: May 06, 2024, 11:08:02 AM
I installed the shunt regulator board a couple days ago, and the DC filament board today. The shunt regulator impacted high frequency performance the most obviously, introduced a touch of sparkle and high end clarity. To me, sonically similar to adding a Speedball to a Crack. Sounds even more awesome!

The DC board completely silenced a pretty loud heater hum, which prior to, could be heard from 10 feet away, so very nice!

Like a dunce, I was bending the lead of the very last 0.13 ohm 3W resistor needed to complete the DC filament install, and suddenly the lead snapped off, WTF ?!?! Because, as I discovered, I was "bending" it with my side cutters, doh. F it! Decided to voltage test the amp anyway even though it was missing that one resistor. After staring at the circuit for a couple minutes I realized the added resistors increase the voltage feeding the heater, being paralleled with the existing 0.15 ohm resistors, dropping the resistance to about 0.07 ohms. So, testing without one should be safe.

Turns out in my case my heater voltages are already running a bit hot, the socket with both of the new 0.13's installed was running too high (2.71 VDC), vs almost too high on the socket where I'd only installed one of them (2.62 VDC). I ended up removing all of the new 0.13 ohm resistors to get the correct target 2.5 VDC on both sockets. So accidentally cutting off that lead was the accidentally right thing to do. Hah.

And with that, my stripped-down pimped-out Stereomour II is officially finished. The Stereomour/Moreplay is an absolutely delicious sonic combination, thanks to the awesome crew at Bottlehead for creating them! And thanks to all who have offered encouragement and advice. Much appreciated!

Scott
[Ortofon 2M Bronze > U-Turn Theory > Eros II] & [iMac via USB > Denafrips Ares 2] >> Moreplay >> Schiit Lokius EQ >> Stereomour II >> Hsu ULS-15 Sub >> homemade DML Speakers
Moreplay 2nd out >> [Crack + Speedball > HD 650]