SA-5000 Upgrades

"If you own one of these beauties, have Mike re-do it! . . . The bass-midrange-treble improved! The imaging is breathtaking, it's like having the singers & players in the room with me. Dynamics are scary! You adjust the volume so it is comfortable to listen to, and all of a sudden, something comes out of nowhere & knocks your socks off. It is a LOT quieter. Those little silences between the notes are incredible. You can hear notes decay much better. You can follow individual players & singers much easier, everyone is in their own, individual spaces. Not that they are of the super-etched type, it is just so natural, like the real thing! . . . the soundstage is completely "divorced" from the speakers. It's like they're there, but not needed. This may not make any sense to anyone reading this, I'm having a very hard time explaining this ! At night, there is this "wall" of sound coming at you. INCREDIBLE!! . . . Give Mike Elliott a call. You'll never know how good this unit is, until you hear what he does to it!"

"P.S., I recently compared my upgraded SA-5000 to my friend's Krell KRC-3 pre-amp. The only thing I can say positively about it is that it is slightly quieter. In every other way, your pre-amp bested it by a wide margin. Imaging, dynamics and frequency balance was better with the SA-5000. The Krell sounded bland to me! Imaging was like 2-dimensional cutouts, not the 3-dimensional imaging I've gotten used to. And this vertical imaging thing still astounds me! Listening to someone playing guitar and singing, or playing piano and singing. I can hear the distinct differences in height."

Jim Germann
Tonawanda, NY

"My SA 5000 upgrade is better than ever. Never dreamt the changes would be so dramatic. My turntable is incredible; the CD is better . . . even my tuner sounds great. If the amp upgrade does what you say, well, I'll have a better-sounding system than I ever dreamed -- and at a reasonable cost."

-- Ed Freedman
Woodmere, NY

 

"The original SA-5000 was highly regarded, and this new version is a stunning improvement. Yes, the work and parts are expensive, but it was still much less expensive than purchasing an all-new preamp -- and one that may not have the care and dedication of the designer that this one has. And the results are, in my mind, resoundingly worthwhile."

 

David Kakenmaster
Definitive Audio

 

 

The SA-5000 is a great preamp, with amazing potential. The vacuum tube power supply sounds phenomenal and having the audio board mounted on a floating suspension isolates the componentry from outside vibrations. I do a process of parts upgrades and install better wiring. All these modifications use a class of parts I could never afford to use in production because the cost of a new preamplifier using these parts would have been astronomical. But I do far, far more than simply upgrade the components — I make several changes to the circuitry itself. After all, I am the designer of this preamplifier, so I am intimately familiar with how it operates. You have to hear the improvement in clarity, transparency, richness and harmonic "rightness" to believe it.

Because of the way the product is put together, with a "floating" audio board with a high number of wires connecting it to the associated front and rear boards, disassembly and re-assembly is time-consuming, so the labor content of any modification work performed is necessarily high.

The Upgrades

Line Stage Upgrades (Standard and new-style Premium
Direct In Modification
Balanced Outputs
Power Supply Upgrades
Phono Stage Rebuild
OPTION: Upgraded Power Umbilical
Upgraded Volume and Balance Controls with DACT and Remote Control
Improved RCA Jacks
Circuit Board Damping
Tube Upgrades
A Special Note About Shipping the SA-5000

Line Stage Upgrades -- This is the place to start -- all the signals go through the line stage.

Here's the front-end of an upgraded SA-5000 Line Stage. The new output caps are located to the rear of the unit and are not visible in this picture. Note the flat, white Caddock resistors and large black Mills resistors. (Earlier version shown with Auri and Multicaps, we now use Dynamicaps.)

 

Line Stage Standard Upgrade. I replace the tube's grid bias, plate load, and buildout resistors with Caddock Tetrinox film resistors and Mills Non-inductive wirewound resistors, and I upgrade input and output coupling caps to TRT Dynamicap capacitors. The energy storage caps are also upgraded. All 47 of the wires that bring signal into and out of the audio board are upgraded to Cardas OFC Litz wire.

Price for SA-5000 "LSP" Standard Upgrade: $900

LSP Premium Upgrade. Just like the standard LSP upgrade, but with Continental Capacitor Type-A power supply bypass caps (see photo below). This upgrade is tremendously transparent, sweet, lifelike, three-dimensional and musically involving.

Price for SA-5000 "LSP Premium" Upgrade: $1435

For the "LSP Premium" (premium line stage) upgrade we mount a couple of Continental Capacitors to the underside of the top cover for line stage energy storage. It took us a few months to figure out how to fit them in the already crowded SA-5000 chassis, but the wires are long enough so you can open the hood to change tubes, they unplug from the caps if you need more room, and the sound is totally worth it!

Option: SA-5000 "Direct In" Mod. If the preamp was mine, I would disable the front panel Absolute Polarity function switch to eliminate the FET from the line stage signal path. After this mod is performed the front panel mono/noninvert/invert switch does nothing, but that’s a small price to pay, in my estimation, for the increased purity of sound that results by getting that transistor out of the signal path.

Price for SA-5000 "Direct In" Upgrade: Add $110

Option: Balanced Outputs.

	SA-5000 with Balanced Outs. This unit did not have pre-existing XLR mounting holes.

Price to add Balanced Outs: $400 for SA-5000's with pre-existing XLR mounting holes on the rear,
$460 for SA-5000's without pre-existing XLR mounting holes on the rear.
(add $110 setup fee if not done with an "LSP" upgrade)

SA-5000 Power Supply Upgrades.
The vacuum-tube voltage regulator section in the SA-5000 provides power to the line and phono stages. It is this very power supply that is responsible for the SA-5000 sounding so much better than the less-expensive SA-3000. But guess what? You're not really hearing what a great performer the SA-5000 really is until the power supply is upgraded.

I offer two levels of upgrade for the SA-5000 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 power supply's resistors and capacitors, eliminating or upgrading solid-state parts, and replacing several key electrolytic capacitors with Continental, and Nichicon MUSE capacitors. In addition, the pass tubes are upgraded to 6922's, the error amplifier tube is upgraded to a new 12AX7, and we modify the rectifier tube socket to take the better-sounding 6BW4 type rectifiers as well as the standard 6CA4 and 6V4 rectifiers, giving you a choice of tube to use there. Note that we do not automatically upgrade this tube (the one in the power supply) because there are so many choices available. If you want this tube upgraded, take a look at the selection and pricing on the rectifier tube chart and tell us what tube you'd like. Smoother sound, no more high-frequency "hash," and much more bass punch. This is a very audible improvement.

	SA-5000 Level I Power Supply Upgrade. This unit belongs to Chip Chilton.

The high-voltage regulator section of the audio board is responsible for the overall sonic "signature" of the product. No matter how good the audio sections themselves might be, if the power supply can't provide them with uncolored, fast power when they need it, you'll never hear what they can do. Improving the quality of the power feeding the Line and Phono sections allows them to speak more dynamically and easily.

Power Supply Level II Upgrade. It's like the Level I Upgrade shown above, but with better components. The Level I Upgrade just cleans up the more obvious bottlenecks to great sound. This upgrade goes much deeper, with more components upgraded, and more expensive components upgraded, like replacing the large electrolytics in the power supply chassis with Continental Capacitors' oil-filled parts, for a quieter background and silkier highs. A solid-state current source is replaced with a passive network, a solid-state voltage reference is converted to a single clean-sounding resistor, and the tube sockets are upgraded to ceramic-gold. The net result of all these improvements is a very open, exciting, detailed and generally likeable sound. You'll be surprised by how many nuances you'll hear in your recordings!

Price for SA-5000 Power Supply Level II Upgrade: $1250
Add $110 setup fee to this price if not done with an "LSP" upgrade.)

SA-5000 "PSR" (Phono Stage Rebuild).

If you listen to a lot of vinyl, and cherish your recordings, get this upgrade. After all, what's good for the line stage is superb for the phono stage, where 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 in sound purity, imaging precision, air and musicality, is readily apparent. During the process, I remove a lot of solid-state parts from the signal path, including two solid-state buffers per channel, and one JFET per channel -- these are no longer the '80's, and no one cares that these parts resulted in better measurement specifications, the bottom line is that the phono section triodes sound better, are more musical, tubelike and liquid, when the extra parts are removed.

Phono Option : Transformer Step-up MC Input. Natural sound with no transistor interface -- for the listener who wants the best possible sound for MC cartridges.

The original SA-5000 has both MM and MC inputs and uses a JFET (junction field-effect transistor) for the MC step-up. JFETs, like all transistors, have their own sonic signature. It's not bad, it's not real transistory, but it's not as smooth and sweet as a tube.
     It is possible to eliminate the JFET from the MC signal path and use a transformer as an MC step-up device. We use transformers designed expressly for this purpose by the Jensen Transformer Company.* UPDATE: The Sowter 8055, when used the right way, outperforms the Jensen offerings. I will shortly change this page to reflect this.
      (Click here to read more about why transformers are your best choice for MC step-up.)

Jensen step-up transformers on the rear eliminate the original transistor step-up circuit, providing liquid sound. (Picture is of an SA-9 belonging to Michael Savuto, Analogue Associates -- a fine modifier of Acoustat servo amplifiers, but the idea applies to the SA-5000).

There are two ways the SA-5000 can be modified to use MC stepup transformers:

1. For The Fellow That Knows What He Wants: The original MC step-up JFET is removed from the input stage and replaced with a pair of MC transformers. The MM inputs remain available for MM use. Not only does the flexibility of the preamp remain unchanged, there is an additional benefit even when listening to MM cartridges! This is because even when in MM mode, the SA-5000's MC JFET is connected from the tube cathode to ground. It's biased fully "on" and "looks like" a pure resistance to the phono tube, but as we know, using the very best-sounding resistors is important in an audio product and that JFET in the tube's cathode circuit is not a great-sounding resistor. By installing an MC transformer and removing the MC JFET, both the MC and the MM inputs benefit. THIS IS THE BEST-SOUNDING CHOICE!

2. For The Man Who Is Afraid To Commit: If you know you will not be using an MM cartridge, we can keep the existing MC input jacks and their associated JFET step up circuitry. But we take the MM jacks and connect then to a pair of MC transformers. Both sets of inputs become MC inputs, and both are available for use (using the internal MC/MM switch to select between them). One set provides gain via a JFET, and one via the new transformers. However please note that unlike the option above, the original MC JFET which is located between the input tube's cathode and ground in classic cascode fashion is not removed. When the SA-5000 is in MC mode, the MC cartridge signal is connected to the JFET which provides low-noise signal gain, driving the tube through its cathode. But even when we select the MM (new tranformer-driven MC inputs) that JFET is still in the tube's cathode. It is biased on so hard that it looks like a resistor so it should not color the sound . . . but you can still hear the its subtle "JFET-y" sound: a slight brightening, a slight grain and mist on the treble.

Price for SA-5000 MC Transformer Inputs (either way):

$280 for the transformers, and $420 for installation. Note: the price for the Sowter transformer will necessarily change as the dollar rises and falls vis a vis the British pound. Please check with me for current pricing.

* If you'd like to provide your own MC step-up transformers, please contact us. We need to check for fit and compatibility and if we can install the parts, deduct $224 from the cost of this option.

Other Options.

Upgraded Power Supply Umbilical Cord.

You know how a good interconnect sounds miles better than the $2 interconnects that came with your CD player? Or how high-end speaker cables trounce zip cord? Or how a good AC Mains cord can transform the sound of your system? The same applies to the cable that connects your preamp to its power supply. New in summer of 2007 I am offering upgraded power supply umbilicals that so completely outperform the original $20 umbilical in every way possible. It's not even a close race.

Click here for more information and pricing for the Power Supply Umbilical upgrade.

Upgraded Volume and Balance Trim Controls.

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.

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 trim controls bypassed altogether? You know you don't use them, why run the signal through them?Or, if you need the flexibility of balance controls, and want the cleanest signal path possible, how about converting to dual-volume controls? I can install TKD volume controls in the right and left Trim control locations in the SA-5000, and disconnect the existing volume control. It's a little more difficult to control, but you get control over balance and volume while only having one control in the signal path.

Price to Upgrade Volume Control: $115
Price to Upgrade Both Trim Controls: $140
Price to Bypass Trim Controls Altogether:$30
Price to Convert to Dual-Mono Volume Controls: $140
For pricing on the DACT volume control, click here.
(add $110 setup fee to these prices if not done with an "LSP" upgrade)

SA-5000 "Connection" Mod.

Here I replace the old RCA jacks with oxygen-free direct-gold-over-copper RCA jacks from Sound Connections.

Price for SA-5000 "Connection" Upgrade: $115 for the First Pair of Jacks,
Add $30 for Every Other Pair Upgraded
Price if You Upgrade All the Jacks: $400 ($75 discount)
(add $110 setup fee to the above price if not done with an "LSP" upgrade)

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 $110 setup fee this price if not done with an "LSP" upgrade)

Tube Options. I can provide replacement tubes for this unit. Go to the Replacement Tubes page and select the SA-5000 information to read about the required tubes, and what I suggest.

A Special Note About Shipping the SA-5000:

The SA-5000's internal suspended subchassis needs to be secured before shipping. If you don't, the heavy subchassis may break free from its mounts and cause a lot of internal damage. Use the three red-headed bolts that were provided with the unit and insert them into the appropriate holes on the bottom of the chassis. Tighten them to firmly cinch the internal suspended chassis down. If you do not have the original bolts, you will need to go and buy three 4-40 x 3/4'' bolts and three 6-32 x 3/4'' bolts (both philips pan head). First try the 4-40 bolts. If they are too loose, use the 6-32 bolts. These are American sizes -- there are no metric bolts that will fit. Earlier SA-5000's use the smaller diameter bolts; later production runs used the larger bolt.

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