Disclaimer: This website is not intended to be project guide for
amateurs. I did not explain everything but I explained a lot.
I am too
lazy / busy to make all schematics, to take good pictures or to provide
measurements and part specifications.
Executive brief: in this private website I summarized my 20 years of
experience in designing, building and modyfying the stereo hi-fi
equipment. Oryginally inspired by Audio-Note' Peter Quvortrup
philosophy of constant upgrading by better parts, I started a new era
in
my audio hobby - DIY. Then encouraged by Thorsten Loesch page I started
learning about all things related to digital. In the countless
articles I try to share
with others the various projects which I tried myself. I minimize the
voo-doo talking, and try to ridicule the myths. As diploma engineer I
demistyfy many marketing fairy tales and I try to reward honest
companies with my aplause. I do not differenciate between 100 USD dac
from Hong Kong, or a 20 years old Philips player for 20 Euro on ebay, a
grandfathers' SABA radio or Mark Levinson, Linn, Mc. Intosh or Wadia
products. They all can be equally good or equally bad.
I deal with simple improvements, modifications, tweaks, very heavy
surgery - all kinds of things you can do to improve your stereo. I also
deal with buying HIFI online from Hong-Kong and China. There is a
little bit about restoration of old gear, about room accoustics, and
about listening enjoyment. Psychoaccoustics, soldering technique,
measurements and component matching sometimes also appear in my pages.
You can find many confronting opinions, because what I deeply believed
20 years ago (that Scanspeak is the only good loudspeaker out there) is
not necessarily my belief today. So in the form of BLOG rather than a
finite webpage - I applaud many products like CD Player Grundig or
ribbon tweeter Raven 2 to be World's best. After some time, thanks to
my
relentless pursuit for truth - I discover new kings and report that
finding to you. So don't blame me for changing kings and queens every
quarter or so. That is the very nature of the search. And by the way,
the chase is better than the catch.
I devote great deal of time to tube technology, tubes in general and
the circuits. I try many different Telefunken. Siemens, Amperex,
Philips, Kenrad, Brimar and Sylvania tubes and I compare them to
Russian
military ones which I love. But of course YMMV.
Finally, I talk a lot about the tube output stage - the Lampizator. I
think it is great. After 5 years of research on over 200 CD players I
arrived at a conclusion that NOTHING beats properly made Lampizator
stage, and I described a couple of Lampizator variants
with more than 20 different tubes.
I published a short summary of this experience in my DOC called
LAMPIZATOR 2.0 which was
released in july 2008.
Finally - in 2010 I decided to take this hobby as my job and I opened a
small boutique factory making DAC converters, preamps and kits. I also
run a small e-Store as side job. The company now is 10 people of which
5 are employees and 5 contractors.
Enjoy ...
