Tom Evans Mastergroove SR mkIII Repair

[willbewill]

Tom Evans Mastergroove SR mkIII Repair

A very informative video

[JohnLex]

His vids are really well produced and very captivating, this example being a case in point. I have the view that although clearly talented, he is pretty typical of the electrical engineer and expresses a cynical and moderated mockery of audio/hifi/?  enthusiasm. The term Audiophile is so tainted through mockery I see no value in it's use beyond it's contemporary association.

I would like to think that most here do not hold to the cynicism of the many YT comments. Such a depressing dark and negative bag of misery. I have come to the conclusion that most hifi criticisms come from individuals who indicate their ignorance through their INANE comments based on or coming from a position of complete Ignorance, Envy and Poverty of both mind and wallet. I find it impossible to understand the negativity posted by people, who by their pressence are suggesting enthusiasm. But by their comments merely prove my aforementioned misery. I wonder what kind of people follow a hobby only to slag off other peoples purchases, knowledge and PLEASURE. The JOY of music that indefinable deeply personal magic. Thank F' I don't have to suffer these small minded Pr**** in my life. 

Currently listening to B.R.M.C Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on my moderately priced but carefully developed system. Such Rockin JOY ! Long live the open mind and the generous enthusiast who brings positivity and shares his/her knowledge to make the musical lives of others better than it was. 

As for the Tom Evans. It would be good to hear from an owner who has lived with one of these units and has experience of similarly priced phono preamps. Despite what appears to be a boutique diy assembly it may be unequalled in performance at £25K? It would be nice to keep an open mind despite the obvious cynicism.

[nigel]

Oooh ... I'm a big fan of "Mend it Mark" - I don't always agree with the way he goes about things, but there's no doubting his talent and expertise (and also - I don't repair things for a living and he does, so who am I to judge?). I very much appreciate the amount of effort he also puts into cosmetic restoration, of which this video was a good example.

As to that preamp, some of the negative comments are not without foundation, but maybe it does sound like no other. Custom casework in very small quantities is very expensive and if all that electronics was hand assembled, then there are untold hours of work in there. Remember also that we didn't see inside that (very large!) power supply box, which presumably is also part of the cost.

What did alarm me, though (enough to make me gasp when he opened the box  ), was the huge quantity of tantalum capacitors in there. Decades of experience in electronics manufacturing has led me to the conclusion that they are the least reliable of all electronic parts. I even said to myself, before he got into the diagnosis "I bet it's one of those tantalums" .... and it was.
I very much doubt it will be the last one to fail, either. Wow.

[stratokaster83]

It's hard not to develop a cynical attitude when you see a 25,000GBP product which looks like a Rube Goldberg machine and is held together with hot glue, cardboard and plastic standoffs. Surely it wouldn't eat into his profit margins too much to use proper brass standoffs? Also the power supply seems to be designed to impress people who don't remove their towels in the locker room  

Tantalum capacitors and some (all?) aspects of build quality aside, it appears to be well designed - using separate power supplies for each stage of each channel is a good thing, and putting preregulators before actual regulators means that the power rails are probably extremely clean. Looks like the final stage of voltage regulation is semi-discrete, probably quite similar to the Sulzer regulator which is very high performance. Although if I was looking for an opamp-based MC phono preamp, I would get Michael Fidler's MC Pro and pocket the difference, but I understand that for some people the price is actually the main attraction.

Edit: I didn't realise that this preamplifier has passive RIAA EQ, and the gain of the first stage appears to be ~56dB, now that's a design that would make any clicks and pops quite painful due to low overload margin