John Piro, Craftsman Extraordinaire!

When John emailed me a picture of his WE753C clone cabinets, I had to have a pair!

JP in the man cave with my freshly minted Altec 753C boxes

JP's System (in constant flux)
Thorens TD124, Marantz 7T, Garrard 301
DIY Stuff
Marantz 8B, REL Precendent
DIY amps
Wharfedale SFB3

Garrard 301 + Karmadon Viscous Damped Tonearm

WIP - Gray Research HF-500 Turntable

Hey JP, are you prepping this for a Schröder BA tonearm? 😎

JP repurposed a WE chassis for his preamp

JP's preamp is based on JE Labs Circuit

JP's Simple 45 amp using James 6113HS OPTs

JP's Stereo SE300B with James 6123HS OPTs visited the man cave,
it's based on the JE Labs circuit

JP's Vintage RCA Collection

RCA Theatre Amps

RCA Theatre Amps

RCA Compression Drivers

RCA Horns

Altec 614 cabinet
by JP

Open Baffle by JP

Open Baffle by JP

JP's handcrafted multi-cell horn made from wood, 

based on the Western Electric WE26A 

REL Precedent 646B with a DIY front faceplate by JP

JP's take on the Dr. Bae/Silbatone 755A cabinet

Unlike my friends in Manila who have reported good things using the Altec 755C in this box, JP prefers the Lafayette SK98/Pioneer PIM8L

If you want to contact John for a commission, please leave a comment with your email address. Your comment will not be published, instead, I will reply with his contact info.

Coming Soon
JP757A

Syntec S220 Tonearm - bearing adjustment

AKA Piezo PU-402 or Sparta ST220

more info

I've handled a few of these through the years and the horizontal bearings usually have too much slack. I've yet to encounter a sample that had vertical bearing issues though.

Follow the tips below on how to reduce horizontal bearing slack.

This is a highly underrated tonearm that works great with medium to lower compliance cartridges!

Happy Listening!

TBT '96-'97: JE Labs Project Pics

I'll start the new decade with scanned negatives of my DIY Audio projects from the mid to late 90s. Most of these pictures were taken either with my Pentax K1000 or Leica M3 + Rigid 50mm Summicron, loaded with either Agfa Vista or Kodak Plus X, processed by a local lab. I didn't know how to develop film yet back then. 😉 

ca. '96

My last Dyna PAS hack

This Dyna PAS 2 chassis sports an RCA phono circuit with Ni-Cad batteries for cathode bias. Check out those wonderful (then) anti-high-end paper in oil caps from Jensen, Facon and Icar. Too bad they get leaky after a couple of years.

Yup, that's an octal socket in the line stage for the mighty 6SN7!

Under the hood of the outboard power supply is a choke for the B+ for better filtration. Connection to the main preamp is via an octal plug/socket.

By this time I was already a firm believer in tube rectification. I retained the original PAS transformer for B+ supply duty only and relegated DC filament duty to another power transformer.

JE Labs Stereo "Classic" SE300B with Audio Note UK 2.5K OPTs

A Thorens TD124 + a (then) newly-acquired ($60!) Grace G540L tonearm + Grado 8MZ on my very first laminated plywood plinth project. All these components are still in service.

The original Simple 45

ca. '97

JE Labs Stereo SE2A3 with Tango U808 OPTs

JE Labs Classic SE300B mono-block with Audio Note UK 3K OPT

I briefly owned a pair of AES/Soliloquy 5.2 TQWT speakers. Coming from Spendor LS3/5As, these sounded lean and weren't more efficient either - probably in the high 80s rather than the claimed low 90s.😏

Fortunately, I snagged a pair of Altec 755Cs at a hamfest and quickly whipped out a pair of small open baffles. I was hooked!

The Altec 755Cs in open baffles based on dimensions published by Stereo Sound "Tube Kingdom" Issue No. 3/1996. And yes, I added a Garrard 301 to my system!

I got my Garrard 301 in the early summer of '97 along with the Altec 755Cs. 

This was the block diagram of my system before the end of the millennium as a featured "Home-brewer" in Sound Practices.  I can't believe 20 years went by so quickly!

Preview for 2020

 I've become so busy the last few months and wasn't able to upload as much as I intended to. So here's what's in the pipeline for the coming year.

My one and only...

The JP757A - a John Piro (re)creation, amongst others...

Revisit MM/MI phono cartridges

American Classics 

Japanese Idler Drive(s)

'68 G401

DIY tube DAC

Tonearms are like violin bows

my camera adventures

Happy Holidays and a Great New Year to Everyone!

JE Labs Audio Playground AKA System No. 2

 My main system has remained pretty constant for over 20 years, except for a couple of milestones. However, the same can't be said about my audio playground which sits beside my home office, in which the only thing constant is change. 😉

 Testing a few flea market/thrift store finds: a Kenwood KT880D tuner, a Sony DVP NS900V, a Magnavox CD2000, comparing a pair of Electro-Voice Sonocaster portable speakers vs. Lafayette SK98s, revisiting a Rek O Kut L34 + S160 tonearm + Shure M3D 

The power amp is my JEL Simple 45 with Tamura F475s driven by the JEL Loctal Preamp.

Trying a pair of Sansui T-104 horn tweeters on top of Altec 755Cs in Altec 618 cabinets, Denon DP1250 + Rega R200 tonearm + Audio-Technica AT3600L, comparing the Scott LT110B vs. the Kenwood KT880D vs. the Yamaha T-2

A JEL Loctal Preamp drives the JEL Simple 46 amp with Noguchi PMF 10WS OPTs.

Since I blogged about the Altec 755A in Dr. Bae/Silbatone cabinets, this system has remained pretty consistent with a Gates CB77 + Fidelity Research FR54 + DL103 + Shure MC transformers or a moving permalloy Nagaoka MP10 serving LPs + the JEL Loctal Preamp  and JEL Simple 46 or Dyna ST35 doing preamp/amp duties.

This system also served as a cross reference for the  CD/DAC mods, Multi-bit DACs, Thrift Store CD players, Darling Amp, JEL Style, FM Tuner reviews, amongst others that I blogged about this past year.

At the end of summer, the boss decided that it was time to mitigate the flooding problem during heavy rain and snow in the lower level of our home. 

Since this entailed removing the drywall in the hifi man cave, everything had to be stored or relocated and dust-proofed. 

It's been over a month since the retaining wall was sealed with waterproof coating. We've had a couple of strong rains and it's been dry so far. But we're in no hurry to replace the drywall. We want to make sure that it'll stay dry through the worst precipitation Mother Nature sends our way.

Meanwhile, even if I have a nice mono hi-fi in the living room, I miss stereophonic sound.

The boss was kind enough to allow the re-commissioning of the near-field system. To make unpacking simpler, I minimized the use of tube electronics. 

I'm currently DJ'ing between a Denon DP1250 + DA50 and a Sony TTS2500 + Grace G565 with various MM and MC cartridges. Line level sources include a Raspberry Pi 3B+/Volumio > Musical Fidelity V-Link USB to S/PDIF* > NOS'd Arcam Delta Black Box DAC and an NAD 4300 AM/FM tuner.

*I acquired this for less than half the cost of an Allo DigiOne and it sounds just as good!

A Realistic 32-1100A Stereo Mixer I found at a flea market for 10 bucks is doing preamp duty. It has provisions for three line level inputs or 2 x magnetic phono + 1 line level. I thought the magnetic phono inputs were pretty decent on this discrete transistorized unit (no op-amps) until I got another discrete solid-state Radio Shack product, the 42-2109 phono preamp. This unit produced a warmer, more vivid midrange with even better extension in the frequency extremes. 

To warm things up further, I inserted a pair of UTC A20 line level transformers between the Rat Shack Stereo Mixer and the Nobsound NS-02g. 

Belden 9497

The Belden 9497 speaker cables softened the slight edginess betraying the solid-state DNA of the JLH 1969 Class A amp clone and made the Altec 755Cs in Altec 618 cabinets sound snappy!

Judicious mixing and matching of yesteryears' solid-state audio components employing discrete circuitry with the line transformers and a cable tweak inserted in between, mimicked the musical experience I typically enjoy only from an all vacuum tube set up. It's akin to the Fuji Acros film simulation setting in my Fuji X-E3 camera. But there's still no substitute for the real thing. 😉