I'll be interested in your observations of the PJCSS compared to the Hammonds, once you get a chance. I've noticed a bit of buzz myself, now that I've "promoted" the Quickie to pre-amp status and placed it between the Seduction/DAC and S.E.X. amp (these product names really are hilarious, by the way....). If the CSS loading is as good or better than the chokes and doesn't have the inherit ability to pick up RF or AC line noise (as the chokes do), they sound like a winner.
After listening to the Quickie with PJCSS for a few weeks now, I have to say that I am certainly enjoying it. I'm not comfortable really giving a detailed comparision between the PJCSS and the Hammond chokes, since my sonic memory cannot span weeks. Plus I have been listening to somewhat different music lately, and a lot of older recordings that are certainly not Hi-Fi. However, I am comfortable in saying that I don't feel like I'm giving anything up by running the PJCSS instead of the chokes. The bass is there. The emotion is there. The sound stage is there, and the Quickie is now absolutely quiet -- I can hear the tiniest hiss with the gain cranked way up and my ear less than inch from the ribbon tweeter. In contrast to this, I immediately noticed an improvement in the bass, the gain, and the detail when I added the chokes to the stock circuit, even though they added some buzz that I could not completely supress.
Since I've already upgraded the coupling caps, I believe the only thing other thing I'm going to do with this circuit is upgrade the pot and then play the heck out of it for a year or so.
