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Foreplay Vs Soul Sister

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Mike F1:
Just like the others I'm thrilled that the Valve articles are available, thank you.
Nice bedtime reading! :)

Upon looking at the Soul Sister pre-amp schematic it looks fairly simple albeit with some potential pricey/exotic parts. (i.e Tubes, Transformers, CCS)
For those who built this preamp, how does the Souls Sister stack up to a Foreplay 2 with the Anticipation mods or a stock Foreplay 3?

To add to that, how come the Soul Sister never made it to kit form? Was it price, tube availability or noise/hum by any chance??

Just curious.. wondering if it's a worth while project :)

Thanks

Mike

Paul Joppa:
Very timely question!

If you look closely, you will see that the Soul Sister looks a lot like the Paramount "soft-start" upgrade, except the Sister recommends a pair of 0D3 shunt regulators while the upgrade kit has a hybrid regulator for each channel. In fact, I had forgotten that the Sister also used the 5670!

We are in the process of trying a few new ideas for line stages, and this is one of them. Our bud richardl has built a prototype and is listening to it now. First impression is very positive; we'll have more information in a few months.

I am not sure - that was a long time ago - but I think it was price that killed it at the time. The output transformers are costly. But it did, and does, sound darn good.

Mikey:
Hi Mike,

I've built all of the preamps you mentioned, as well as one you didn't....an Extended Foreplay 3.
To answer your first question, I'd rank the preamps in the following order:

1.  Extended Foreplay 3
2.  Soul Sister
3.  Foreplay 3
4.  Foreplay 2 with C4S

Please bear in mind that my list is subjective, and you may well prefer something different than me.

To answer your second question; yes, the Soul Sister is certainly a worthwhile project!
It is easy to build, sounds great, and the B7 transformer output can be configured for balanced output
if you'd like.  I tried it both ways, and the preamp was dead quiet in each configuration.

Here are a few photos:

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi3.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy80%2Fmpaschetto%2FSoul%2520Sister%2520Preamp%2FPC030001-1.jpg&hash=d901c7ac94df7f2491db226b80fdeda5bb047715)

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi3.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy80%2Fmpaschetto%2FSoul%2520Sister%2520Preamp%2FDSC04058-1.jpg&hash=1950919b39d543add80dfc01499c375e47c5316b)

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi3.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy80%2Fmpaschetto%2FSoul%2520Sister%2520Preamp%2FDSC04059-1.jpg&hash=0b42cb5edff8906894fed12385c6dea90e9be8a6)

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi3.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy80%2Fmpaschetto%2FSoul%2520Sister%2520Preamp%2FDSC04057-1.jpg&hash=1075d54b59b809db5cadc90a5391a8481a497f64)

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi3.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy80%2Fmpaschetto%2FSoul%2520Sister%2520Preamp%2FDSC04055-1.jpg&hash=74d61b42fb9785e087a8f1bc2f3fe3f16a25eefb)

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi3.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy80%2Fmpaschetto%2FSoul%2520Sister%2520Preamp%2FPA080005.jpg&hash=bda17d62c4c28ee5111e9f0f721daa4718f5b766)

Mike

John Roman:
Beautiful work! I particularly like the way you wired up the attenuator. To me this is art , an industrial beauty if you will.
regards, John

chrisby:

--- Quote from: John Roman on March 17, 2011, 06:04:59 AM ---Beautiful work! I particularly like the way you wired up the attenuator. To me this is art , an industrial beauty if you will.
regards, John

--- End quote ---

Second that -
gorgeous work as always Mikey  -  do you have a gallery of all your "DIY" projects (as opposed to the very tasty commercial work), from which we can poach ideas - I mean garner inspiration ?

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