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Allen Wright's Pre-Amps

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Posted on October 24, 2001 at 10:04:47
ronace


 
Has anyone out there built the Allen Wright (Vacuum State Electronics)FVP5A Single Ended Output Pre-Amp or his Super-regs? I'm considering gutting the innards of an AR SP-8 and utilize its switches, knobs in/out jacks and Power transformer etc. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
ronace

 

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Re: Allen Wright's Pre-Amps, posted on October 24, 2001 at 10:12:14
Joe LG


 
Ronace,

I have built the FVP5 (linestage part only) am very satisfied with it. Very quiet linestage. You can buy the swuperreg as a kit from Allen or one of his distributors.

Regards,
Joe LG

 

Re: Allen Wright's Pre-Amps, posted on October 24, 2001 at 10:23:45
ronace


 
Did you build the line stage from scratch or did you buy the FVP5 as a kit. Allen sells the FVP5A kits at a cost of $975 for the pair. It seems to me I could build this a lot cheaper. Do you agree?
ronace

 

Re: Allen Wright's Pre-Amps, posted on October 24, 2001 at 12:30:47
larry moore


 
yes, I built one before the kit was available. I also built a couple of SupeRegs. SupeRegs are nice as is the preamp.

 

Re: Allen Wright's Pre-Amps, posted on October 24, 2001 at 13:13:35
J Epstein
Reviewer

Posts: 1041
Joined: April 6, 2000
 Have you seen the VSE kits though? Hard to improve upon the build quality at any price, they are built like a brick shithouse. Hammer nails with 'em.

Sound pretty good too, of course.

 

I always..., posted on October 24, 2001 at 15:28:32
Willie The Squid
Audiophile

Posts: 376
Location: Puget Sound, Washington
Joined: November 8, 1999
 ...like to complement Mr. Wright when an opportunity arises here at AA.

I have been using a 12 year old design of his, implemented in the Tara Passage FVP. It uses a pair of 12at7s in the phono stage and a pair of 12au7s in the line stage. Even though many of the parts are of average quality, this pre-amp is really something special. I have little doubt that his newest designs and implementations are superior. They are not inexpensive, even in kit form. They are arguably among the short list of "state of the art" pre-amps.

I then purchased his "Tube Pre-amp Cookbook" which is a wonderful explanation of his philosophy and approach to design. It is an interesting read and incredibly funny. I learned quite a bit about pre-amps generally and my pre-amp in particular. And it has caused me to long for the day that I might acquire a fully decked out Allen Wright designed differential pre-amp -- but such a unit would cost more than all my other equipment combined!

WTS

 

I'm also his reader :), posted on October 24, 2001 at 16:03:11
Joseph Lau


 
Allen wright ! I think it design is really good. I also read his pre-amps cook book and super cable cook book. It tell me many good idea. So I trust on it design is not bad.

 

I had the pleasure...., posted on October 24, 2001 at 17:10:36
Doug Flynn


 
the other day of hearing Allen Wright's top of the line full function balanced preamp when I visited one of the guys here in Oz who manufactures them. We listened to it using Allen's prototype forced symetry power amps (yes, they do actually exist).

The combination was very impressive indeed. The preamp had a massive 74 db of gain - no noise whatsoever using low output MC's. It uses 6922's throughout and is built like a mofo. I now have much respect for this tube (I used to think 6DJ8's sucked).

See ya
Doug

 

Re: Allen Wright's Pre-Amps, posted on October 25, 2001 at 06:34:42
Joe LG
Audiophile

Posts: 168
Joined: September 15, 2001
 Ronace,

I built it myself from scratch. It is more challenging than building it from a kit. The total cost for the whole linestage is around USD 850.00. The parts I used include Hovland for the output coupling caps, Elna Cerafine for the power supply, Tango choke for the power supply Holco for the audio circuit, DACT attenuator for volume control etc. For the shunt regulator, I bought his kit from a local supplier. My implmentation is a 2 chassis thing with the power supply separate from the audio circuit.

I live in Malaysia so some things may be cheaper (e.g. fabrication of chassis) while other parts are more expensive.

Regards,
Joe LG

 

Re: Allen Wright's Pre-Amps, posted on October 25, 2001 at 10:20:13
Allen Wright


 
Hi gang,
I'm not a regular here but someone told me you were discussing me - so that's why my ears were burning!

Sure you can build my designs cheaper than I sell the kits - I'm in business and have to keep alive, so my products have tohave regular commercial margins built in. Otherwise I'd have to do something else to keep alive and keep all my ideas to myself.

Regarding the FVP5A design, the schematic comes with all new copies of the TubePreamp CookBook and can also be found on our website .

It's been recently been with two of the TNT.com reviewers and they should be publishing it soon - they said I will not be unhappy with the review!

Allen (Vacuum State Electronics)

 

Re: SuperRegs, posted on October 25, 2001 at 13:59:08
Lew
Audiophile

Posts: 10911
Location: Bethesda, Maryland
Joined: December 11, 2000
 I use a pair of SuperRegulators, built from factory kits but with some parts "upgrades" of my own, to regulate "plus" and "minus" halves of the balanced HV supply in my Atma-sphere MP1 pre-amp. I was a bit apprehensive going in, because I believed dogmatically in the sonic superiority of "tube" regulation. I filtered the outputs of the Super Regs with separate 50uF polypropylene caps. I am very pleased with the results, and I can detect no nasty solid-state signature whatever. Also, the voltages remain bang-on exactly as I originally set them after many months of use.

 

Re: Allen Wright's Pre-Amps, posted on October 29, 2001 at 01:22:07
kenev


 
Ronace,
I have too built Allen's FVP5 preamp (complete, i.e. phono + line). Note that this version I have built is not the FVP5A, in which triode sections of 6922 are used above and below output cathode follower stage. The previous version I built uses MOSFETs instead - the FVP5A should be better.
The preamp is incredibly excellent, especially the phono stage is the best I have heard (not heard many though). I built this preamp from scratch, not only because it costed much less than the kit, but also beacause I'm a DIY addict and I like to take the journey of building a project all the way long, from designing my own layout, to finding the best components I can afford and designing the case to my own taste. At the end, it was a great classroom completing this project and I learned a lot. For the Super Regulator (which I think is a must if you want to get full benefit from this preamp), I ordered it as a kit from Allen - it's cheap anyway and its contribution to the preamp's performance is essential. It's 1 1/2 year now that I'm using it and never had to readjust anything.
For the future, I'm planning to built his RTP3C preamp - a fully differential design from input to output. This is highly acclaimed and I'm sure this will be the last preamplifier I will ever build.
IMHO, Allen is great and I surely can say that I trust every design he has put. Be sure also to get and read his Tube Preamplifier Cook Book. I learned a lot from this.
Evan

 

Re: Trying to open page - temporary problems?, posted on October 30, 2001 at 03:22:46
Genn


 
I tried out www.vacuumstate.com without sucsess.

 

Re: Allen Wright's Pre-Amps, posted on October 30, 2001 at 12:47:43
ronace


 
Thanks for the info.
I did read his book and it is great.
ronace

 

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