Cello/King Repro for my Studer

Mike Lavigne

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Myles,

Rich Brown has brought the Cello/King Repro (manufactured by Charles King) you have to my home twice; once in November and another time in March. at the first visit it sounded great but the stock Studer circuit had more bass slam and energy. the second time it was much better, when using a single ended (RCA) output. it now is better than my stock Studer circuit in pretty much every way. lower noise floor, more refined and nuanced, a layer of grunge from the stock circuit is removed, and now it's more articulate and impactfull in the bass.

i'm going to order one soon but am curious about the issue of caps. i understand you have the Mundorf caps. how would you describe the sonic differences between the stock caps Charles uses and the Mundorf?

thanks.
 

U47

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Caps in tape preamp

I'm headed back east to visit Myles and Charlie in two weeks and am looking forward to hearing the King/Cello preamp with the Mundorf caps as well as the stock caps. It should be a fun and informative meeting. I'm going to be brining back the Nortronics headblock as well to add more confusion/fun to the mix.
Will report in two weeks what we hear. Myles might chime in later on this.


Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon
 

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MylesBAstor

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Ok I was going to save the King/Cello tape preamp for the Audio Review section. But I'll give a few impressions here since I'm the only one so far that had the opportunity to directly compare the "stock" version with the new Au/Ag "Mundorf" oil capacitor equipped version (both in SE form) in my own system thanks to the generosity of Charlie King! For the record, the Mudorfs will add about $320 or so (4 x 1 uF @$80 or so if on sale at partsconexxion.com) bring the cost of K/C tape pre to around $4170 . That said, one also get for the money a high quality phono section with 40, 50 and 60 db of gain; Charlie has been pushing me to listen to the K/C as phono but haven't had the chance yet.

I'm not sure how many have ever seen clinical trials closed way before the target date because the results were so statistically significant that it didn't make any sense to continue it.

That was what the Mundorfs were in comparison to the stock caps. Now I'm not one prone to hyperbole and unbridled enthusiasm but I have to say the Mundorf totally wiped out the stock caps (and the caps had about 150 hrs of playing on them-so they were well on their way to being burned in). Bass extension, lower noise floor, cymbal weight, midrange presence and harmonic content, imaging: all were siginificantly better with the Mundorfs (now how would it have sounded with Duelands? I sure would like to know but there cost was a little prohibitive to try for an experiment). Three 15 ips/2 track tapes, Roy Haynes Out on the Afternoon, Bill Evans Waltz for Debby and Hindemith VC, were all it took to hear the differences between the two units (done with the same ICs, power cords and left powered on for the whole comparison). Much of that murkiness I has associated with the TP project tapes in my system was reduced. One example of the increased transparency was the Jacqui Naylor recording, one that naysayers said was the weakest of the first TP lot; thru the K/C, she sounded like totally different singer and closer to what I heard when she performed at the Blue Note in NYC this winter. Her voice was lighter-yet it had a body that I don't normally associate with female vocalists.

That said, I wasn't getting the lowest octave and midrange harmonic content that I had previously heard with the K/C in my system (I had the opportunity to hear the K/C on several occasions before purchasing). Yes the Mundorf caps were better, but there was something missing with the newest modded unit. I tried many things including isolation of the power supply, different IC cables, etc. but the bass say on the Arnold Overtures wasn't as room rattling as before.

Then it dawned on me, and this is an interesting finding on long term memory of familiar items in one's system, that one of the two ESP Reference AC cords that I was using in the comparison, hadn't been treated with the audiodharma cable cooker. In fact, this was the section used as a control in the audiodharma review for Positive Feedback. And this the cooked ESP AC cord was being used with the stock K/C; so I hooked the cooked AC cord up to the Mundorf version and voila, the bass was back and pianos for instance were better fleshed out.

So that's a little sneak preview.
 

RogerD

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You can't go wrong with the Mundorf caps. They take about 100 hours to come in and when they do, great bass slam,a big and beautiful midrange,sweet,detailed highs.

It's probably the most beautiful cap made as far as quality workmanship. I use them in most of my gear and in my speaker crossovers.
 

MylesBAstor

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You can't go wrong with the Mundorf caps. They take about 100 hours to come in and when they do, great bass slam,a big and beautiful midrange,sweet,detailed highs.

It's probably the most beautiful cap made as far as quality workmanship. I use them in most of my gear and in my speaker crossovers.

I thought about the Duelands but they were out of my budget range :)
 

Mike Lavigne

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i've been auditioning the Cello Phono/Tape repro preamp the last few days from Charles King on my Studer A-820. Charlie purpose built this one for me to work with the 'Zeel' interface of the darTZeel.....so it has Charlie's best effort at the 50ohm BNC interface. i'm told by Rich Brown, who has assisted me with ths various auditions (2 previous besides this time) of the King/Cello, that Charlie actually reduced the capacitor count by 2 in this Cello to accomadate 50 ohm output. when Charlie tested this back on the East Coast he was unsure whether it worked correctly. in any case last Saturday Rich brought it by. we listened for a bit and then i convinced him to leave it with me for a few days.

well......it turns out that Charlie 'likely' nailed the 50 ohm interface....this sounds wonderful. i say 'likely' because there is no way to know how close to ideal it is. OTOH it sounds perfect to my ears. i'm able to use my 'leftover' 8 Meter 'Zeel' interconnect from my Evolution Acoustics upgrade and it works perfectly.

so this unit is not being driven down to Rich Brown in Portland, i'm buying it.

compared directly to the balanced stock output of the Studer, the King/Cello is much much better. the noise floor is quite a bit lower, dynamics are better, more detail, much more refined, the layer of grunge from the stock Studer output is gone......and the bass is simply stupendous!!!! Rich thinks the amazing bass performance of this particular unit is related to the elimination of those two capacitors.

you hear waaaay into the music, the nuance and delicacy is beyond anything i've heard from any source.

congrats to Charles King for making such a great sounding piece of gear.

i've been wanting better output electronics for my Studer for over 2 years; and now i have it. this King/Cello has the Mu-metal case, and an additional Mu-metal case inside. it also has adjustable EQ for adapting it to different heads.....i do plan on using it on my Ampex ATR-102. the King/Cello also is a high quality phono stage.....so i can add another tt on the other side of my room now if i like. three tt's is not nearly enough.

Charles King will be passing thru the Seattle area in july and stopping for a visit. i may have him switch out the 2 main caps for the Mundorfs at that time. it's hard to imagine it sounding better than what i'm now hearing but who knows?
 
Last edited:

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
i've been auditioning the Cello Phono/Tape repro preamp the last few days from Charles King on my Studer A-820. Charlie purpose built this one for me to work with the 'Zeel' interface of the darTZeel.....so it has Charlie's best effort at the 50ohm BNC interface. i'm told by Rich Brown, who has assisted me with ths various auditions (2 previous besides this time) of the King/Cello, that Charlie actually reduced the capacitor count by 2 in this Cello to accomadate 50 ohm output. when Charlie tested this back on the East Coast he was unsure whether it worked correctly. in any case last Saturday Rich brought it by. we listened for a bit and then i convinced him to leave it with me for a few days.

well......it turns out that Charlie 'likely' nailed the 50 ohm interface....this sounds wonderful. i say 'likely' because there is no way to know how close to ideal it is. OTOH it sounds perfect to my ears. i'm able to use my 'leftover' 8 Meter 'Zeel' interconnect from my Evolution Acoustics upgrade and it works perfectly.

so this unit is not being driven down to Rich Brown in Portland, i'm buying it.

compared directly to the balanced stock output of the Studer, the King/Cello is much much better. the noise floor is quite a bit lower, dynamics are better, more detail, much more refined, the layer of grunge from the stock Studer output is gone......and the bass is simply stupendous!!!! Rich thinks the amazing bass performance of this particular unit is related to the elimination of those two capacitors.

you hear waaaay into the music, the nuance and delicacy is beyond anything i've heard from any source.

congrats to Charles King for making such a great sounding piece of gear.

i've been wanting better output electronics for my Studer for over 2 years; and now i have it. this King/Cello has the MuMetal case, and an additional MuMetal case inside. it also has adjustable EQ for adapting it to different heads.....i do plan on using it on my Ampex ATR-102. the King/Cello also is a high quality phono stage.....so i can add another tt on the other side of my room now if i like. three tt's is not nearly enough.

Charles King will be passing thru the Seattle area in july and stopping for a visit. i may have him switch out the 2 main caps for the Mundorfs at that time. it's hard to imagine it sounding better than what i'm now hearing but who knows?

OK, now I'm interested
 

Mike Lavigne

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What is a MuMetal case

from Wikipedia;

Mumetal is a registered trademark for a nickel-iron alloy (approximately 75% nickel, 15% iron, plus copper and molybdenum) that has very high magnetic permeability. The high permeability makes the alloy very effective at screening static or low-frequency magnetic fields, which cannot be attenuated by other methods. The name came from the Greek letter mu (?) which represents permeability.

Mu-metal info

you'll find Mu-metal used in the best gear for isolating one part of the circut from another. in the case of a phono stage or tape repro it will solve lots of problems. it's not 'purdy' like milled aluminum but it makes for better performance.
 

Mike Lavigne

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i'm finding that listening to tapes thru the Cello who's performance might have been approached by the 45rpm performance from the Rockport have now jumped ahead clearly......for instance the 'Waltz for Debbie' and the 'Saxaphone Collossus'. now they are better; period. i hear waaay into these legendary but 'subtle' performances. the better output stages of my vinyl no longer have that advantage over my tape. i'm not saying that the Cello is better than my phono stages (at this point in time), i'm saying it is good enough to push the tape clearly past the vinyl.
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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i'm finding that listening to tapes thru the Cello who's performance might have been approached by the 45rpm performance from the Rockport have now jumped ahead clearly......for instance the 'Waltz for Debbie' and the 'Saxaphone Collossus'. now they are better; period. i hear waaay into these legendary but 'subtle' performances. the better output stages of my vinyl no longer have that advantage over my tape. i'm not saying that the Cello is better than my phono stages (at this point in time), i'm saying it is good enough to push the tape clearly past the vinyl.

Interesting how those things work :) Also makes one think if someone could do a bettter tube based repro too.

Just as listening to different types of heads makes a huge difference in the sound of the deck (listen to Bernie Grundman's new ORG stuff with his reworked Studer deck etc. and tell me if his new work isn't on a par or even better than Steve Hoffman's now? And remember, I'm no Classic Records fan).
 

U47

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Charlie has implemented a mu-metal inner case on Mike's preamp and all versions with the deluxe casework. The chassis is standard aluminum. Just wanted to clear that up- mu-metal is VERY expensive and would be too soft an alloy for an outer case.
We are hoping to have a listening session with Kara's tube preamp in two weeks in Seattle. I'm sure it will be a wonderful sounding preamp. It could shake up the Tube Tape/Phono world. We will report here in two weeks after the listening sessions.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon
 

Mike Lavigne

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Mike,
Shouldn't that be the case anyway???

Jay

no not really. 15ips master dubs won't necessarily always be clearly better than the very best vinyl versions played on absolutely top level vinyl gear. it would depend on the performance of the RTR deck and output electronics. vinyl can sound awesome. you are talking about an $80k vinyl front end verses maybe a $3k-$5k RTR deck.

i've heard Tape Project tapes on good but not great RTR decks in shows that mostly don't attain my Rockport level vinyl performance on 45's. not every Tape Project tape; but some of them. and with the stock output on my Studer some of those tapes were closely approached (or equaled) in performance by the Rockport on 45's.

but no more. with the Cello, my Studer with 15ips performance has leaped to a notch beyond any vinyl. there is not any area where the vinyl has an advantage.

remember; the software advantage of tape must be able to immerge intact through the muck of a 30+ year old transistor signal path full of all sorts of nasty stuff.....and have enough life left to beat the pure signal path of a state-of-the-art phono stage.
 

c1ferrari

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Hey Mike,

Any chance you could furnish pictures...I'm curious how Charlie's electronics attaches to the A820.
 

c1ferrari

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Now, this should be fun :p
Charlie has implemented a mu-metal inner case on Mike's preamp and all versions with the deluxe casework. The chassis is standard aluminum. Just wanted to clear that up- mu-metal is VERY expensive and would be too soft an alloy for an outer case.
We are hoping to have a listening session with Kara's tube preamp in two weeks in Seattle. I'm sure it will be a wonderful sounding preamp. It could shake up the Tube Tape/Phono world. We will report here in two weeks after the listening sessions.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon
 

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