SA-1000  
 

SA-1000 Upgrades

"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.
 
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
    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.
 
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. Both energy storage caps are upgradedd to Continental Capacitor Type A caps. 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 without that transistor sound.
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].)

Price for SA-1000 Line Stage Standard Upgrade: $1200
LSP Premium Upgrade. Just like the standard Line Stage upgrade, but with largerTRT Dynamicaps in the output, and with the tube's filament (heater) supply upgraded for dramatically better sound, with FRED diodes, and naked Z-foil TX2575 resistors in the signal path. This upgrade is immediately audible as being smoother, more detailed, more dynamic and more liquid-sounding than the standard.
Price for SA-1000 Line Stage PremiumUpgrade: $1600

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.
Price for SA-1000 Standard Phono Rebuild: $1300
(add setup fee if not done with an "LSP" upgrade)

SA-1000 Power Supply Upgrades.

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 and -- most importantly -- replaces several key electrolytic capacitors with Continental oli-filled capacitors.
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.

 
Price for SA-1000 Power Supply Level I Upgrade: $1250
Add 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.
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.


Price for SA-1000 Power Supply Level II Upgrade: $1500
(Add setup fee to this price if not done with a Line Stage upgrade.)

 
 
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.
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.
 
Price to Upgrade to Plitron Transformer: $525
(Requires installation of Power Supply Level I or Level II)

 
Option: Better RCA Jacks.
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: $120 for first stereo pair,
$60 for each pair thereafter.
(Requires installation of Line Stage, Phono Stage, or Power Supply Level I or Level II Upgrades)
 
 
 
Option: Upgraded Volume and Balance Controls, including the DACT stepped attenuator.

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.)

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?

 
Price to Upgrade Volume Control to TKD: $200
Price to Upgrade Balance Control to TKD: $220
Price to Bypass Balance Control Altogether: No Charge
For pricing on the DACT volume control, click here.
(Requires installation of Line Stage, Phono Stage, or Power Supply Level I or Level II Upgrades)

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. (Requires installation of Line Stage, Phono Stage, or Power Supply Level I or Level II Upgrades)

If I can be of any further assistance, do not hesitate to contact me.

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