The Conrad Johnson PV Upgrades Rethink

I've had a hard time convincing others to pay for the upgrades I've made to my Conrad Johnson PV10A, and probably with good reason. I have no reputation for success in this area, and potential customers are rightfully concerned about leaving their precious preamps in my hands.

So I'm going to do a couple of things. First, I'm going to take some oscilloscope pictures of the power supply rails to hopefully demonstrate the improvements made by the additional regulator stages. This will let users visually see the difference in noise and channel separation.

Second, I'm sending my PV10 to Conrad Johnson to be measured against specifications. I'll be posting the results here, good or bad. This may take a while as I'm waiting on a box, and really am not anxious to be without my preamp. God these violins sound good. :)

Also, this may matter only to me, I've decided not to offer these as kit forms, the upgrades are just too complicated for most people to do, and have too many steps. I would have to spend a month with documentation, and then probably spend significant amounts of time supporting the end user.

Lastly, I had originally planned on offering 5 or 6 versions of the Power1 upgrades, including various levels of upgrades on the basic system board. This is too confusing. Instead I'm going to offer 3:

• Basic upgrade - Replaces important parts on main board power supply, upgrades heater voltage stage. Vishay and Mills resistors, Panasonic FM and Nichicon caps and Gold/Ceramic tube sockets. Specifics may vary according to original.
  
• Power1L - L is for Line stage. Basic + upgrades main regulator, adds 2 Power1 Modules for dual-mono operation. Best for those who are using non-vinyl sources like FM, CD's and external DACs.
  
• Power1V - V is for Vinyl. Just like the Power1L but converts the phono stage to dual mono operation as well. A little more expensive due to additional board level changes.
  

Prices to be determined. I'm really more interested in the Power1 upgrades because they are the most dramatic and easily verifiable changes. The basic upgrades help a little, but if you don't have the Power1 modules, you may not even be able to tell. Yeah, they cost more too. However, I have to say, I don't think anyone is offering such significant improvements in sound, who isn't also changing the overall character of the sound. Like I said before, if you want a CJ preamp to sound that much different, go buy an Audio Research preamp instead. If you want to sit around and tweak output capacitors all day, go buy some small value inductors or an equalizer. If on the other hand, you want your precious CJ preamp to sound as glorious as it can, send it to me.

I probably won't get serious about offering these upgrades until the summer, as I am re-designing the Power1 module for a smaller size, and different parts mix. Also, response hasn't been great, so I need to get some better documentation to show people why these are upgrades, not modifications.