After reading your thoughtful review, audiofun, I am now determined to purchase the Pyramid PS26KX. But I am wondering, how does it connect to the iPhono?? It looks like the Pyramid has banana plug-looking outs for the DC current (screw terminal), so how do you connect it to the iPhono?
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Excellent, thank you very much. By the way, your first review of the original iPhono was very informative and inspiring. I had already been an owner of the iPhono for almost a year, and it kept getting better and better, then I upgraded the power supply to the iPower, and the improvement was so awesome that I wondered "why is no one talking about this amp?" Sure, there had been a couple of good reviews, but those reviews weren’t enthusiastic enough in my opinion, and they were published before the iPower upgrade existed, so I searched around hoping to find more discussion and praise, and found your review where you compare it to preamps costing 6k-9k, and I finally thought "at least SOMEONE gets it!"
So when I heard that the iPhono2 was coming out, there was no hesitation to place the preorder. When I finally received it, I noticed immediately that the iPhono2, even without any burn in time, was noticeably better than the original. Then it just kept sounding better and better, and for the past 6 months or so I’ve been waiting for the praise to come trickling in. I still feel like neither the original Iphono, nor the iPhono2 get nearly enough praise, not widely enough anyway. Fremer’s review was good, but he didn’t go into enough detail for my liking. He mentioned that it was twice as good as the original iPhono, but to me it felt like he didn’t realize the magnitude of that statement. As a reader, after seeing a claim like that, I would have liked much more elaboration on the various aspects of the iPhono2’s sound, and your review has done a much more detailed job on that than Mikey’s.
There was another good review of the original iPhono, by Doctorjohn of Cheaptubeaudio, and he described the iPhono’s ability to create realistic "hall sound", and compared it to the forward-sounding in-your-face presentation of preamps like the Phonomena II, which he described as "upfront and unnatural", like it’s trying overly hard to impress you, but leaves you with only "a pastiche of highlights" instead of the full nuance of the recording. He contrasted it with the iPhono, which creates a more nuanced sound that doesn’t try to kick you in the face, but demands that you sit back and listen. He actually described all the praise heaped on the Phonomena as being an example of "how wrong Hi-Fi has become". I tend to agree with him, and I’m always reminded of that quote by Elaine from Seinfeld, "it’s like a big budget movie with a story that goes NOWHERE" |
Hey Audiofun, I finally ordered the Pyramid PS26KX, it should arrive in a couple of days. I'd like to follow your suggestion and put an AMR fuse in there - just wondering what type of fuse you recommend. There are two "AMR Ifi fuses" on Tweek Geek, I assume those are the ones you are recommending? There are two sizes and multiple fuse values to choose from, just wondering which fuse size and value you recommend?
Just looking at the PS26KX instruction manual online, it looks like it has a "glass tube fuse 6A/250 VAC". Did you pick the AMR 6.3A "slow blow" fuse? I can't find any information about what size of fuse the PS26KX takes. Did you pick the small or large fuse?
Any help would be appreciated. |
Nevermind, they contacted me and offered a better deal on shipping, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to bad mouth them on a public forum.
I received the power supply today, and even running it with the regular fuse, I am AMAZED at the difference this has made. Poster gkp above doubts that the basic character of a device can change from things like burn in, but my impressions after the first few hours of use is that using this LPS has changed the sound dramatically in character, not just made it quieter or more noise-free. It sounds a lot less bright. It’s like a high frequency veil has been lifted and now you hear more intricacies and definition in the midrange and lower frequencies, and the sound is just much less in your face and more intricate while also sounding competent and very well imaged. Voices sound much more alive, and the sound is a lot less in your face, it sounds like the whole soundstage has changed, like you entered a different auditorium with tremendous hall sound, and everything sounds much more defined and well-placed on the sound stage. The whole presentation/imaging has changed, the voicing has changed, it sounds warmer and almost tube-like. Comparing back and forth between the wall wart and the LPS, I am astounded by the difference. On some records the differences are so great that it sounds like you're listening to a different master, sometimes to a different song! I had no idea a power supply could even affect such things, my jaw has been on the floor all evening. Can’t thank you enough for the recommendation! Looking forward to getting those fuses. |
audiofun:
It's nice to see you posting a bit more frequently the past few days, I always learn a lot from your posts and enjoy benefiting from your expertise.
About the power supply, it makes sense what you are saying about the phono stage modulating the power supply with the input signal to produce the output signal, I just never thought of it quite that way before. I knew that clean power is important, but I had no idea that it was to this extent! I remember the original upgrade on the first generation iPhono, when I upgraded to the iPower wall wart, it made a huge difference that shocked me at the time, but it was nothing compared to the transformation this LPS has caused. I knew that getting better power would clean the signal up, give you blacker backgrounds, but I had no idea it could change the impact and the character of the presentation to SUCH an extent.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you get your attenuating reverse RIAA interconnect? I would say my iPhono2 has a couple of hundred hours on it by now, so it's still nowhere close to being fully run in. I considered burning it in, but I hit a dead end when googling around for a reverse RIAA interconnect. Did you build yours? Is it possible to work around needing one? For example, if I were to record the signal coming straight from my turntable with an analog-to-digital converter, then use an mp3 player of some kind to play that signal, wouldn't that effectively be the same thing, provided I level match the signal to match? Or is the load going to be off if I do that? It would be nice to run this unit in over the course of a couple of weeks instead of waiting another year or two. |
Interesting point about the attenuation of the output signal to get .5mv output, but just to be absolutely clear, I was talking about recording the signal coming straight from the turntable, before it ever gets to the phono preamp, so shouldn't that record a very quiet RIAA signal? My intent would be to capture the exact RIAA signal coming straight from the turntable, then play it with an mp3 player, doing my best to match the loudness to the original recorded signal. The reason I think this might be possible is because I have seen inverse RIAA burn in CDs for sale. These CDs do not need a burn-in device that attenuates the signal, you just use your regular CD player and connect the output to your phono preamp. These CDs are merely playing digital files, at the right loudness, with an RIAA curve applied to them. So if I record the signal coming from my cartridge, wouldn't I be effectively creating one of these burn-in CD's, as long as I level match the volume to be exactly the same (which I assume is the hardest part)?
Reading another audiogon thread on phono preamp burn in, there is some discussion on the fact that some of these phono burn in CDs contain the "pre-emphasis" that is applied to vinyl records and then de-emphasized by the phono stage, and others do not. I assume that if I record the signal coming straight from an LP, that my signal would contain this "pre-emphasis", so it seems to me that if I record the signal from my cartridge, I'd be getting not just a burn in CD, but a very good burn in CD that contains RIAA pre-emphasis. Again, all this would depend on whether I can level match the signal to be close to the cartridge output. So, I just don't get why this a bad idea, unless your point is that matching the signal output is the most difficult part? Or am I missing something?
Maybe I'll try it on my cheap vintage amp, just to make sure I'm not overloading the phono stage during the trial and error. Then, once I get the levels right, I can move it to the iPhono2.
It' s not that I'm too cheap to buy the burn-in device (I just found one on ebay for around $60 Canadian, which is awesome), it's that I would like to be able to do it with stuff I already have, and I don't want to wait two or three weeks for the burn-in device to arrive. If I could somehow start now, I could be almost finished burning it in by that time. I also don't imagine I'd have much use for this device after burning in the iPhono2, but you never know what the future might bring.
Also, I'm assuming that the MM and MC part of the iPhono2 are separate circuits? So if I burn in the MM for 700 hours, that doesn't automatically mean the MC circuit is also burned in? Or is this an incorrect assumption? I use both inputs regularly. |
No worries, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my amateur questions. I am attempting the recording right now, just to test it out, and it is recording fine. I agree there are other things that could go wrong, which crossed my mind as well - you mention the cd reading a skip or scratch a certain way, and I'm thinking if the media player I'd be using might make a weird noise when being powered on or off, or being attached to a power source. You also have to be careful about plugging in connectors while the thing is on. All things I'll test out in the next few hours, but I figure I'll try it and see how it sounds just playing it through my system, and if it sounds similar enough to my turntable and not making any weird noises, I'll go ahead with it. I am leaning towards this method more so out of impatience than anything else, as the burn in device would take about 3 weeks to arrive.
Are you leaving your Pyramid on 24/7, or are you only powering it on while listening? When I was using the wall wart I just kept it plugged in 24/7 but reading the reviews for this Pyramid, some people complain about it not lasting very long, so I am hesitant to keep it powered on 24/7. I'll probably use the wall wart again for the burn in. |
Okay, so I am playing the recorded stuff on a fiio portable player plugged into the MM input of the iPhono2, and it’s working really well. No weird noises, sounds exactly like my turntable. I’m monitoring the iPhono2’s output and it’s not clipping or even getting into the orange. The only thing is,the signal is so quiet that I have to blast the fiio pretty much up to full volume to get it anywhere close to the normal sound of my turntable. Which means I’m essentially playing a super quiet recording amplified very loud, is there an inherent problem in that compared to playing a loud recording and attenuating it?
I ordered the burn in device but now I’m wondering if that might have been a waste of money. I just tried the MC input and it works equally well, although I hear a slight bit more background noise than I do off my turntable on the MC, but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be. I suspect it's just powerline noise or grounding from me messing with the wires. Something sounds like a faint helicopter in the background - maybe noise from other wall warts? But other than the slight increase in background noise, the MC setting is working really well.
If anybody is interested in getting these files, just message me. It would work from any music player, and you can test it out for yourself and see that nothing is overloading and that nothing weird is going on. |
Yeah I am thinking pulling the fan out of mine as well. It's dead cold even after hours of use.
I might still buy that burn-in device so I can run in the MC stage. I wouldn't feel as comfortable using this DYI method on the MC input as I am on the MM input.
I recorded a few LP sides over the past couple of hours, a compilation album with multiple genres on it, some orchestral stuff, some bizarre electronic music with lots of weird sounds, and the frequency sweeps from the Cardas test record. Hopefully playing these on loop will give it lots to chew on.
Just curious if you would recommend any a/c power line noise filtering devices, right now I am not using any power conditioning, but I have considered things like the Blue Cirle PLC Thingee. Now that I have seen the difference clean power makes, I am wondering about what other noise there might be in my power lines. |
Funny how life works sometimes, I have been eyeing the PLC Thingee FX2 X0e for a while. The newer FX2 models claim to have twice the filtering capacity, and the "x0e" models have a wider spectrum of noise filtering. If you got yours at an audio show two years ago you probably have the newer FX2 x0e model.
I'm sorry to somewhat highjack your thread with questions about power supplies and strategies for burning in phono preamps, just been very excited about all of this since experiencing the Pyramid LPS. Been a bit too busy for audio the past 18 months, and kind of got myself to a point where I don't spend much time with it, and when I do spend time with it I'm usually trying to fix some issue rather than enjoying the music, so I just got to a point where it feels like a chore and I am not enjoying it as much as I used to, but now I'm getting the rewarding feelings again big time. I also digitize my vinyl records to produce high quality 24/96 FLAC files for listening on-the-go, so the past little while I keep thinking there's no point in digitizing any of my records until I get the new power supply or until the iPhono2 fully burns in, or until I get a power conditioner.
Just don't want to put myself into a position where I do a bunch of work but then have to re-do everything, so I keep getting this feeling that I might as well wait until I get all my upgrades, and until the unit fully burns in, before I really commit to the bulk of the work. Now I finally have the LPS, the AMR fuse is on its way, and I got the unit burning in 24/7, so I'm finally seeing the finish line and that's very exciting.
P.S. The MC setting picking up a bit more noise on the line makes sense, as that input does apply way more gain to the incoming signal, and I did not take the time to carefully remove 100% of the the grounding noise (it's harder to hear when you are bypassing the phono preamp and recording the super quiet cartridge signal directly, you have to turn your amp up to max just to hear anything). I did my best to get rid of as much grounding noise as I could, but I don't think it's as perfect as I had it before. But even so, it's really not bad and it sounds almost perfect. I'm thinking it won't affect the burn in, since it's possible for it to be way worse, I actually got it really quiet all things considering.
Anyway, I'd like to try to bring the conversation back to the iPhono2. Thanks for taking the time and letting me pick your brain.
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Dang, I got the fuses and they turned out to be the wrong size. It seems that the PS26KX needs the large fuse, not the small. Looks like it'll be another two week wait, but it's no big deal. So far I have had the iPhono2 burning in for 9 days and a few hours, which adds up to over 220 hours, and I had at least 150 on it prior to that. It took a year and 3 months to put that first 150 on it, so it's amazing that in just 9 days I can reach 370 hours. And MAN is it sounding good. It's becoming more and more nuanced and warm and losing harshness as the time goes. The character just keeps changing, it really keeps surprising you.
For anyone reading this who is wondering if you should wait for this thing to burn in on its own, or try the burn in, all I can tell you is that I regret not doing this sooner. In about three weeks you can get this thing to 700 hours, whereas that same amount of burn in would take years, even if you listened for a couple of hours every single day.
At first I thought that burning it in would deprive me of the "education" of listening to it happen, as another poster also suggested, but I find that this has been a very educational process. I check the sound pretty much every day to see where it's at, and you get to watch it change by the day. It's really fun, and it makes the changes more salient than they would be if you stretched this process over years.
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It's really too bad that this otherwise great thread has been derailed with a bunch of sound and fury.
I have been enjoying the iPhono2 immensely since my last post. I now have well over 700 hours on it, still using the Pyramid LPS. I also got the Blue Circle stuff I have been eyeing for a while. Picked up a Blue Circle Fx2 X0e powerline conditioner, as well as a Blue Cicle balanced power module. Oh man, filtering out the noise from the powerlines made a tremendous difference in the sound - it removed this high frequency glare that I didn't even realize was in the sound. I'm convinced that the brightness that some people experience with the iPhono2 is a result of dirty power lines.
So I heard a huge improvement with the Blue Circle powerline conditioner and balanced power module, but I cannot stress the importance of the fuse you are using, and the astounding difference it makes to the sound. I was so blown away by the way the AMR fuse completely changed the sound signature and overall presentation and imaging (honestly it sounds like I am listening to a different turntable and cartridge) ,so I kept reading and went down the fuse rabbit hole. In December I got a good deal on some SR Black fuses, so I put one in the LPS and also in the Blue Circle balanced power module. And the difference was once again jaw-dropping. The SR Black fuses are absolutely incredible, and my system sounds nothing like it did back when I was using the provided power supply. I am in heaven right now, enjoying my system more than ever :D
I also modded the Pyramid LPS with an "Asylum Cord" power cord (Belden 19364 cable and a
Marinco 5266 plug, both cryo treated), and also replaced the wire going from the fuse to the on/off switch with some cryo treated Neotech UPOCC hook-up wire.
Also made a higher quality power cord for the iPhono2 as well, using some stranded Neotech OCC wire. These items only cost a few dollars, but have brought the sound up to yet another level. I honestly can't believe what I am hearing.
Honestly I can't thank you enough, audiofun. All the advice you've provided here has been absolutely spot on.
The reported problems with the iPhono2 are nothing more than a faulty batch of power supplies, but it seems there were a bunch of dudes with axes to grind ready to pounce. Reading all these disappointed dudes' experiences on stevehoffman forum is disappointing, but funnily enough I had my own weird experience with the iPhono2 and almost returned it. I would defend the product to the death now, but at one point I was so pissed off at it. I couldn't get this grounding hum to go away no matter what I did; grounding the grounding post didn't work, I tried grounding every item connected to it in every possible combination and nothing worked. I was convinced the thing was defective and almost returned it, but wanted to give it one last real attempt. I touched a real ground off the outer shell of the output RCA's (the ground of the output signal), and finally the thing was silent. So I just wrapped a ground wire around them and it was silent ever since, and also stopped running hot. I've had it for almost 2 years now, it's been turned on 24/7 the entire time and it's doing great.
Anyway, this business with having to ground the output RCA's was only with the supplied power supply. With the Linear Power Supply, the output rca's don't need to be grounded, and also the thing never runs hot anymore. It's just luke warm to the touch.
Seriously, I am pretty sure all those problems with it running hot and having weird hums are from the power supply, and some of the guys who returned it probably could have got it to work if they tried long enough, but I can't really blame them. iFi had a bad batch of power supplies or something. Mine seems fine but it only worked when I grounded the output RCA's. And mine is a pre-order unit, so it was one of the very first shipped. I can't say enough about how awesome this thing is, and I am so incredibly grateful that I didn't return it. But to be fair, the grumblers have a point in that iFi actually has some pretty strict wording on their website about using only the provided power supply, so really, the people who are complaining are the ones who have are following the manufacturer's instructions, and they are also not getting anywhere close to getting the best sound out of their units. And all of us who use linear power supplies are praising the units, but we're actually going against the manufacturer's recommendations. It's kind of ironic that we're praising the thing and they're roasting it. |
lewm,
Thanks for the congratulations and your thoughtful post. I have been lurking this website for years and always enjoy reading your posts.
Not sure what was going on with having to ground the output RCA’s on the iPhono2, but it was indeed weird. I agree as per your explanation, it shouldn’t be the case, but maybe something in the iPhono2 was not connected properly, or maybe it was because the provided power supply is only a 2-prong power supply without a ground prong. Either way, connecting the turntable’s phono cable ground wire to the iPhono2’s ground post did nothing, and when I tried grounding the iPhono2’s ground post to a real ground it actually made it worse. I was out of ideas and was ready to return the product, but before doing that I decided to open a ticket with iFi and see if they can figure it out. iFi said it’s almost definitely a missing ground somewhere. I had the iPhono2 hooked up to an ADC, and the ADC was connected to a computer with an optical cable. iFi thought it was because I was using an optical cable going from my ADC to the computer, which has no ground, and they recommended using a coax, so I tried that and the hum was still there.
In my attempts to diagnose the hum, I took the ADC completely out of the chain and connected a pair of headphones directly to the iPhono2’s outputs, and the hum was still there. It was only when I accidentally touched a real ground off the output RCA’s that it finally went silent.
What you say about the iPhono2 needing a fuse to sound its best seems a bit unfair at face value, to be honest. You could say that about any tweak for any turntable, amp, anything. My turntable doesn’t need the expensive mat I’m using, but it sounds better with it. My amp sounds better with a nice powercord than a cheap one. It’s not fair to single out the iPhono for this. Besides, the iPhono2 itself doesn’t take a fuse. It’s the linear power supply (that iFi doesn’t recommend using) that takes a fuse. We’re talking about tweaks here.
As for the "quantum" thing, I completely understand the reluctance to buy into something with "quantum" in the name (except the TV show Quantum Leap, which rules). I have always been a skeptic and cannot stand the pseudoscience that various new-agers are always putting forward, laden with "sciencey"-sounding buzzwords like Quantum.
There was another audiogon forum where a user said something similar - they were intrigued by the SR Black fuses, but they had reservations about Synergistic Research based on a strong disagreement with the company’s philosophy. In a previous life, I also would have immediately dismissed anything with Quantum in the name, quickly laughed, assumed charlatanism and placebo was at work, and moved on.
But I only pulled the trigger on this product after reading the many testimonies on various audio forums, including several threads on audiogon. I wasn’t even a believer in fuses until a few months ago. It’s interesting that even people who believe in audio cables, power cords, power conditioners, are still reluctant to consider fuses. We all have that line where it’s like "ok, this is too much". Fuses are probably the most easily dismissed, yet significant tweak out there. After experiencing the improvement the AMR fuse made, I got curious and read at least a dozen forums, specifically searching for posts from users who have experience with multiple fuses. No one really praised the AMR that much, a couple of people said it was good and had lush midrange, but the couple of people who had both the AMR’s and the SR Blacks couldn’t stop talking about how good SR Blacks were. The guy I bought my Blacks from is an amp maker, and he had various high end fuses for sale, from AMR to Furutech to Isoclean, and his opinion was the same as what I had read on many forums - the SR Blacks are not just a little better than the other fuses, they are a lot better. Having scoured many discussions about the SR Blacks, I have personally never seen a post by somebody who tried the SR Black fuse and was not absolutely astonished by it. Even Synergistic Research puts their money where their mouth is and offers a 30 day trial with a full refund to anyone who is not satisfied, and to my knowledge, no one ever sends these things back. Mine were used, on a very good deal, and I knew that if I didn’t hear a difference or didn’t think it was worth the money, I could sell them for the same price that I bought them, so there was really no risk.
I completely understand the reservation of supporting a company that one feels perpetuates pseudoscience with the terminology they use, but that’s more of a political decision than an epistemic one, and I’m personally not as invested in "identifying" as a skeptic and punishing companies for supporting pseudosciencey language as I used to be (and I totally used to be that guy). I’m just interested in what’s true. If these SR Blacks transform your system as much as people say, or if it’s all just hype, I wanted to know. So, for me, this exercise was not about which companies I support and which ones I don’t, or voting with my wallet. I was just blown away by the difference the AMR fuses made, and I wanted to see what else was possible. The SR Blacks were the most hyped fuses out there, and I could try them without financial risk, and curiosity got the better of me.
While I am still an extremely skeptical person, most of the "audio skeptics" I come across reading online forums are mind-readers who assume they know the inner-workings of everyone else’s mind. They act convinced that everyone they disagree with is fooling themselves or is under the spell of the placebo effect, and this goes not just to fuses but to power cables, interconnects, speaker cables, everything. I started out being one of these people, but I’ve been surprised way too many times in this hobby to ever again dismiss something a priori. At one point I believed cables made no difference, and eventually I heard the difference myself. The same thing happened with my belief in digital cables, power cords, and most recently fuses. So while I am still very skeptical and science minded these days, I want to at least check for myself.
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