1. Make it easier to build to reach a larger audience
2. Make it more flexible, so that purchasers can configure it to match their needs and budget more fully.
3. Incorporate all of the past updates into a new layout that allows everyone to chose between tube and solid state rectification as well as allowing the advanced builder more latitude to try alternative signal path capacitors.
This morning I finished building the "maxed out" version of the new phono pre kit and I am now listening to it. I am very pleased with what I hear and it has no break-in time on it to speak of yet.
So what to expect:
A basic MM phono preamp kit that will sell for well under $1000 that use the same topology as the maxed out version, but with more economical capacitors and transformers. This version can ultimately be upgraded to the maxed out version at a later time with relatively little trouble.
The ability to mix-and-match components, such as Kimber or Cardas caps, mu-metal or amorphous core transformers, and features, such as MM only, MC only, etc., to create an intermediate cost preamp kit.
An all-out "maxed out" phono preamp kit that has all of the "bells and whistles", including superior MC loading adjustability, polarity switching and mono/stereo switching.
When to expect it:
I will be capable of shipping a few "maxed out" kits within the next 2 weeks, depending on when I receive a couple more parts. I'm working on new front panels still for the basic phono preamp, so that will be longer in coming, but not too long.
For those of you with the original kit, you are not missing anything sonically if you have installed (or purchased your kit with) the Cardas cap upgrades and the input stage upgrade. The only difference of any potential sonic consequence in the new kit is the possible use of a tube rectifier in the power supply, more space for the parafeed cap which allows the "maxed out" version to accommodate a Mundorf Silver/Gold cap, and the switch to a 6DJ8 equivalent, the 6N23P, which sounds surprisingly close to the 6N1P, but allows recreational tube rollers to wear out the tube sockets and support the economy.
Please be patient with this transition and the chaos it and the RAKK dac Mk II is generating. Call or e-mail me with your questions. Pictures will be available soon. The external visual differences won't be very significant. Stand by.
Kevin Carter
K&K Audio
www.kandkaudio.com