K&K phono stage

Like Capeman, the KandK was my first kit building experience. To practice, I went online and bought a couple of cheap electronic kits at about $10 each just to practice a little soldering and removal of same before getting started on the real deal. Capeman, at 26 hours you have me beat!

Based on a telephone call to Kevin a few months ago, I believe the latest version of the kit (one analogue circuit board versus two) may be a little easier to build compared to the two board model. Mine is the moving coil version and I'm very pleased with it.

Inspired by the KandK, I built an Audio Note Dac2.0 signature and I'm really enjoying it. Like Kevin, Brian at AN Kits in Canada, was very helpful along the way.

I believe both the KandK and AN kits are incredible values. Like Capeman, I recommend referring to the photos often, especially for those of us who do not read circuit schematics.

The MC version of the K&K does not normally allow for adjustable loading, is that correct?

I guess I am confused about the MC loading thing -- if you have an input transformer, such as in the EAR and the K&K, does loading at different resistance values become unnecessary?

To answer your first question the original K&K SE has a knob on the back that let you select different cartridge load settings. For MC if I recall it was limited to 100, 300, 1000, and 47k ohms. I had Kevin take the setting for 47k ohms and set up the circuit board so I could plug in resistors to configure my own setting for this position. The new version of the K&K SE has a lot more settings for cartridge loading from what I have heard so maybe this tweak is unnecessary now.

I cannot answer your second question.

Call Kevin, he is very helpful and will spend the time it takes to get you what is needed.

http://www.kandkaudio.com

From the web site:
MC load switching (25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1.6K, and 47K ohms) using Caddock MK-132 resistors and a custom Grayhill rotary switch

Thank you, both. Somehow I completely missed that specification on the web site.

A question for you kit builders: can you recommend an appropriate soldering station for a project such as the K&K kit?