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- SA-1000 Upgrades
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- "I
love my upgraded 1000. Its ability to portray the acoustic envelope
of a room is uncanny. Case in point: I was at a recital the other
day, where a pianist played an 1824 Musio Clementi piano in a smallish
hall that fit only about 100 people. In such an environment the
music is all around you. While the piano is obviously in front,
there is also a lot of fast reverberation and reflected sound that
fills in from the sides and back. I came home and fired up a disc
of a minimalist recording of an Irish harp, also in a smallish room,
and heard almost the exact same effect. Every once in a while I
wonder if there are speakers behind me!" -- John Kittredge,
Windsor, Mass.
- "The NP100 and SA-1000 upgrades
sounds great! It's like
a $4,000 system upgrade for a lot less. I'm very happy with the results.
Keep me on your mailing list for future upgrades." -- Michael
Carey, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
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- The Upgrades
- Line Stage Upgrades (Standard
and Premium)
- Phono Stage Rebuild
- Power Supply Upgrades (Level
I and II)
- Power Transformer Upgrade
- Option: Better RCA Jacks
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Option: Upgraded Volume and
Balance Controls - NOW with DACT & Remote Control
Option:
Circuit Board Damping
There are a lot of upgrades possible with the SA-1000. Just because
it was the least expensive "thousand-series" Counterpoint
preamp doesn't mean that you can't get fantastic sound. After all, like
the more expensive preamps, it has a chassis, some knobs and a power
supply. All we need to do is upgrade some of the circuitry and components
and it will outperform preamps costing five times as much.
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- Line
Stage Upgrades -- This
is the place to start -- all the signals go through the line stage.
- LSP Standard Upgrade. I
replace the tube's grid bias, plate load, and buildout resistors with
Caddock Tetrinox and Mills Non-inductive wirewound resistors,
and I upgrade input and output coupling caps to
TRT Dynamicaps capacitors. The energy
storage caps are also upgraded.
I then bypass output MOSFET buffer, and shunt more current through
the line stage tube, lowering its output impedance so it can directly
drive your power amplifier.
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| Upgrading
the resistors and capacitors in the line stage gives the tube
the kind of support circuitry it needs to speak with exceptional
clarity and purity; bypassing the output buffer eliminates solid-state
colorations and lets you hear the tube. The whole effect is a
richer, livelier, more detailed sound with more precise focus
and timbreal accuracy. (Line Stage Premium shown, but with Auricaps
[no longer used, we've switched to Dynamicaps].) |
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Price
for SA-1000 Line Stage Standard Upgrade: $675
LSP Premium Upgrade.
Just like the standard Line Stage upgrade, but with TRT Dynamicaps in
the output, and with the tube's filament (heater) supply upgraded for
dramatically better sound, with FRED diodes and Continental Capacitor
power supply bypass caps (better-sounding in this application than Black
Gate nonpolars). This upgrade is immediately audible as being smoother,
more detailed, more dynamic and more liquid-sounding than the standard.
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Price
for SA-1000 Line Stage PremiumUpgrade: $860
Phono
Stage Upgrades for the SA-1000
- Standard
Phono Stage Rebuild. What's
good for the line stage is superb for the phono stage, where the using
high-quality components really shines, especially in the first stage
and riaa de-emphasis network where high-frequency energy levels are
extremely high. Upgrading the phono stage is more costly than upgrading
the line stage because it is over twice as complex, but the increase
is sound purity, imaging precision, air and musicality, is readily apparent.
The bottom line here is better-sounding, more transparent sound from
your vinyl.
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Price
for SA-1000 Standard Phono Rebuild: $775
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)
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(add$110
setup fee if not done
with an "LSP" upgrade)
SA-1000
Power Supply Upgrades.
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| The
solid-state high voltage power supply in the SA-1000 provides
the power the tubes use to amplify the signal. Every bit of audio
you run through the preamp will benefit from sweeter-sounding
power. The high voltage power supply in the SA-1000 uses a few
Zener diodes, a transistor and some $2.00 aluminum electrolytic
capacitors to provide the power the tube uses to amplify the signal.
It accomplishes the job of regulating the voltage, but sounds
substantially better, with more bass, more transparent upper mids
and treble and better imaging. |
- I offer two levels of
upgrade for the SA-1000's power supply, for different budgets and
listening preferences.
- Power Supply Level I Upgrade.
Similar to the Line Stage
Passives upgrade, the Level I Upgrade improves the many of the power
supply's resistors and capacitors, upgrades the pass transistor
to a Zetex high-gain transistors, eliminates the hashy-sounding
Zener diodes, and -- most importantly -- replaces several key electrolytic
capacitors with Continental oli-filled capacitors.
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| Power
supply upgrades for the SA-1000 provide a very audible improvement
in richness and clarity with greatly reduced transistor edginess.These
neon bulbs light brightly when the unit is turned on, bypassing
current until the tubes are warmed up. Kind of a cool touch,
I think. |
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Price for
SA-1000 Power Supply Level I Upgrade: $750
Add $110 setup
fee to this price if not done with a Line Stage upgrade.)
- Power Supply Level II
Upgrade. It's like the Level I Upgrade but with better components,and
with more components upgraded. The Level I Upgrade cleans up the
more obvious bottlenecks to great sound.
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| The
Level II Power Supply upgrade goes much deeper, with more
components upgraded, and more expensive components used
in upgrading for a quieter background and silkier highs
and and upgrading the slow, noisy silicon rectifiers with
great-sounding FRED diodes.The net result of all these improvements
is an amazingly luscious, detailed sound with deeper bass. |
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Price for
SA-1000 Power Supply Level II Upgrade: $950
(Add
$110 setup fee to
this price if not done with a Line Stage upgrade.)
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- Option:
SA-1000 Power Transformer Upgrade.
The power transformer in the SA-1000
can be upgraded to an extremely nice toroid. Counterpoint built their
own transformers, which made sense from a business perspective, but
as a designer I always wished we could use Plitron
toroidal transformers.
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| I
don't know how they do it, but Plitron toroids sound great. No
one else comes close. All other transformers make the SA-1000
sound sluggish and thick; a Plitron brings the sound to life:
delicate and vibrant with a dead-quiet background. These transformers
are custom-built to my specifications. |
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Price to
Upgrade to Plitron Transformer: $340
(add$110 setup
fee if not done with an "LSP" upgrade)
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- Option:
Better RCA Jacks.
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| The
jacks on the SA-1000 can be upgraded to use jacks with much better
metallurgy. This can be done selectively: you might wish to only
do your CD and phono inputs, and the main outputs. I can replace
some or all of your jacks with direct-gold over copper CM1F-OFC
from Sound Connections. |
Price to
Upgrade RCA Jacks: $70 for first stereo pair,
$30 for each pair thereafter.
(add$110 setup
fee if not done with an "LSP" upgrade)
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- Option:
Upgraded Volume and Balance Controls, including the DACT stepped attenuator.
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| TKD
makes excellent feeling and sounding volume and balance controls.
Once you've heard (and felt) the difference between a $7.00 volume
control and a $70.00 control you'll understand why people go to
such lengths to get cheap controls out of their signal path. (Wire
leads are brought out from the circuit board to connect to the
new control.) |
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| The best-possible, best-sounding control: Danish Audio ConnecT's stepped control with optional remote control. Click here for more information and pricing. |
For the "he-men" (and
she-women) out there, why not have the balance control bypassed altogether?
You know you don't use it, why run the signal through it?
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Price
to Upgrade Volume Control to TKD: $115
Price to Upgrade Balance Control to TKD: $130
Price to Bypass Balance Control Altogether: No Charge
For pricing on the DACT volume control, click here.
(add$110 setup
fee if not done with an "LSP" upgrade)
Option:
Circuit Board Damping
Circuit
boards are light and stiff -- they are resonant as heck, which causes
smearing of the sound. Your audio will be substantially improved when
we apply thick wool felt damping pads between the circuit boards and
the chassis to damp all resonances. This results in MUCH tighter imaging
and spatial resolution, MUCH greater retrieval of low-level details,
a surprising reduction in edginess, and a greater weight to the tone,
which makes everything sound fuller and more "real." Click here for pricing. (add$100
setup fee if not done with an
"LSP" upgrade)
If I can be of any further assistance,
do not hesitate to contact me.
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A L T A V I S T A
A U D I O
L.L.C.
2027 Charleen Circle · Carlsbad, CA 92008 · USA
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Email: mike@altavistaaudio.com
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