A somewhat historic occasion - Foreplay III retires

[Doc B.]

We have been experiencing a new challenge in recent months, that being keeping all of our kits fully stocked to reduce lead times. Yeah, it's always been a challenge, but the expanded number of kits we have come out with is making it even more challenging. The other issue we have come up against is the difficulty of retiring some kits so that we can introduce a replacement. The joke around here is that the plan was to discontinue Seduction so we could introduce a revision about 6 years ago.

What happens is that we get to a point where we have inventory depleted so that we can stop production, but then one or two more people want to order. So then we have to order enough parts to justify the price, and we end up with 25 or 50 or 100 more kits worth of parts.

We have a new 300B based preamp under development that I feel is a very good match to Paramount. And Paramount is now the only kit we sell that actually requires a preamp. The plan had been to retire Foreplay III when we have that kit ready. However we have just hit a point where we have sold out the existing stock of Foreplay III, in the special sale we ran a couple weeks ago. Those kits will be shipping tomorrow, and I have taken advantage of the situation to announce that we have retired the Foreplay III as of today. We will still offer the Extended upgrade kit for those who have not yet upgraded their stock Foreplay III kit, and we hope to have the 300B preamp ready in the next couple of months.

Thanks so much to the hundreds of people who purchased a Foreplay III! We promise the next one will be even better.

[Paul Joppa]

Keep your eyes out for four guys on horseback, probably wearing black hoods. The apocalypse is near!

[Doc B.]

Nah, we'll just name the new preamp Foreplay IV.

[xcortes]

"we hope to have the 300B preamp ready in the next couple of months"

Wo hoooooooooo!

I want to order the first one.

[Thoburn]

Oh Man..........

My brother in law was planning to buy a Foreplay III in a week or so to use with his extensively modified Jolida amp. 300B tubes ain't cheap. What price might the new Foreplay IV be?

[Sh7eleven]

I am eternally grateful for the Foreplay. Its what brought me here and got me into DIY.  It was both easy enough to complete so that I could have a quality piece that produced music, and challenging enough so that I knew I had a lot more to learn about audio.  RIP.

[Paully]

Man, this puts me in a conundrum.  I converted my FPIII to 7N7 then stockpiled several lifetime's worth.  But how I stop myself from buying the new preamp I don't know.

[earwaxxer]

Paully - the answer is - you probably wont be able to stop yourself from buying the 300b preamp. Especially if its an easy buy (not too expensive). That seems to be how the 'audiophile' market has been evolving as of late. It seems to be evolving along the lines of the 'good bang for the buck' taking the lead. No surprise given the economy the way it is. With tube preamps continuing to hover in the '$several thousand' average ballpark a sub $1K diy will be very attractive. IMO, the competition in the one to several thousand range is getting really intense. Wyrd 4 sound hit that segment several years ago when there weren't many players there. It loaded now. Its the Schitt audio's of the world that are now shaking it up again in the 'compete with China' sub $1K price range. Many audiophiles out there now have at least one very nice piece of gear made in China. That changes your expectations. Interesting to see where the hobby will go from here....

[Grainger49]

Ok, so Foreplay 1, 2 & III have been retired.  Will the next preamp be a Foreplay IV?

Paully has a stock of 300Bs so he is hoping for a good price on the new preamp.

[Dr. Toobz]

Maybe Bottlehead should take a cue from Apple's latest iteration of the iPad - just call it the "new" Foreplay. Or perhaps aim for double meaning, 4Play.

In any case, looking forward to seeing some prototype shots of the new 300B preamp!

[fullheadofnothing]

Jeez, I take an afternoon off from the forum and THIS happens!

The FPIII will always be a special piece of gear for me: first thing I built, first time I blew up a capacitor (hopefully the last), first time I burned a dining table with a soldering iron (didn't burn myself until I built the Seduction), first time I got tubes in my system, first switched attenuators, first dual volume controls, first time rolling tubes, first time modding, first time drilling a hole into a completed chassis. That little box of parts really changed my life for the better in a lot of ways. My only regret is that I waited so long before I ordered.

There are great potential names for the next generation:
Foreplay III.1,
PiPlate/PiPlay (3.14)
Fourplay
Keeping the Roman Numeral theme:
IVplay (pronounced "foreplay")
Foreplay CCC-B ('cause it's a 300B, see?)

I vote for whatever confuses the most people...

[Doc B.]

The preamp will be somewhat more than $1K. How much I can't say yet. We could probably offer it without tubes for those who have their own to bring it down some. Here's some of what we are thinking as of today and subject to change -

dual mono power supply with either a single large or two smaller power transformers
either 6AQ5 or 6BQ5 active loaded hybrid shunt regulation for each active loaded 300B
regulated filament supply - we are studying a couple different rationales for this
coarse and fine stereo stepped attenuator with 36 1.5dB steps- the prototype is showing great promise to be the best sounding attenuator we have had in our system
improved (over FPIII) signal path wire
possible balanced input and/or output upgrade options

Some of you have heard the prototype 300B preamp vs. Foreplay III and some other prototypes. The rest of you will just have to trust me that this is a clear cut evolutionary step above the FPIII. I feel that it is a particularly good match with the Paramount design, and that is of course the one amp design we currently make that is intended for use with a preamp.

[xcortes]

I know it's supposed to be a preamp as in preamp but I'm wondering how will it drive a good pair of headphone transformers, or another 300B stage with a coupling transformer a la Sakuma, or maybe this is the ticket to put before the Ionovacs and get rid of the Specos.

OK, I'll build one as a preamp but one can only wonder.

I've never before anticipated a product like this one.

Oh, and I love the IVplay name.

[Paully]

Me, a stash of 300B?  I wish!  But offering it sans tubes doesn't seem to be a bad idea to me.  Maybe the option of with or without if that doesn't unnecessarily complicate the ordering system.  And it knocks $100 or so off the price for people who already have a few and may help sell more kits.  Oh well, time to start saving up.

[earwaxxer]

right, with or without tubes could be the way to go. that would help people realize the cost of the tubes, as well as an option for those that have them. We are going to piss our pants either way!