Recent content by RyanSoundLab

After 11 years of serving the audiophile community, I'm going to retire from my second career. Ryan Sound Lab (RSL) will cease production of upgrade circuit boards for Naim equipment on 31 December 2023. The reason is that I'd like more time for other things. As you may imagine, with a single...

Earlier RSL MM boards used 100pf as the input capacitance. There's really no "standard" as such but that is typical for MM preamps. Sounds like you already know that increasing capacitance will increase the high frequencies and vice versa. If you cartridge is too bright, you'd have to replace...

If you show a photo of the RSL boards or tell me your FIL's name, I can identify the version era of them. Might help if you do want to sell them. However, no matter what era, they will sound better than the original Naim boards IMHO.

I have a pair of Briks also made in the USA from the same era. Bought from Roy Hall of Concert Hall electronics. Converted them to active (a real PITA but amazing results). Now running with ICEPower Class D amps that blow away the previous Naim power amps. Over the 25 years I've had Briks...

Thanks for the test results. Everyone hears differently and everyone's system is different, of course. Enjoy your two options.

To address Jez's statement, you already have the equipment to do a direct comparison of the Grad/TPX combination vs the RSL combination (after you switch the power amp cable to go directly from the preamp). Why not start there and let us know what you think?

As far as the RSL 72/ZapCap goes, you can do just what you say - simply move the 4-pin DIN cable from the back of the ZapCap to the "output" position on the rear of the 72. I just verified that a minute ago and it works perfectly. You should hear some improvement in the sound. I can't find...

I'll be very interested in your comparison/mix-and-match results. I can't speak to the specs for the TPX2/Grad1 units but the RSL 72 needs 25v or more (up to about 30v is fine). It uses the standard Naim type SNAIC connector cable to the RSL ZapCap (which is already set for 25v). Depending on...

Thanks for your sympathy! You're not as sorry as I am - haha!

Agree 100% with Tricky1. I've been personally burned for a lot of money with overseas bank transfers to companies that look so good on line (too good to be true - and they weren't!). Once you send it, it's gone forever. Some of these companies even answered emails up until I sent the money...

Already mentioned but worth repeating in a different way. Electric guitars/pickups have a strong output in the midrange and a significant fall off in both bass and treble. Your typical guitar amp compensates for these by boosting both bass and treble. You don't want anything like a hifi amp...

Agree on the radiation characteristics and frequency response. I was referring to the Zobel networks that target the speaker resonances in my note.

Forgot one other thing. At least for the passive version, Linn designed it have the mid-range speakers hooked up with inverted polarity. However, when my friend and I did some tests with the active version, we much preferred the polarity to be normal - the same as the woofers and tweeters...

When I reverse-engineered the original brik's passive crossover, it showed bass down -3db@292Hz (2-pole), mid down -3db@423Hz and 2.4kHz (both 3-pole), and the tweeter [email protected](3-pole). I can't verify the actual design points but those numbers are what the Spice model shows if I plug in the...

My CD5 had similar problems (except for the Stupid problems which we've all also had!). Over the period of a couple of years, the player started to balk when trying to read certain CDs. You could hear it spin up but then slow down and "no disc" appear. The problem got worse over time. Then...