Starfish revival

Hi TIm, if you can track it down I might well be interested.

 

Paul, if you don't get hands on the starfish of Tlm let me know. I will let you know when I receive my boards...

 

Thank you jpk

 

Its not in the loft. Might be in the understairs cupboard

 

You have probably stored it in a safe place, that's how I lose track of most things!

 

My boards arrived and I didn't store them in a safe place yet

 

I am interested in a board if you are prepared to part with one.
Let me know price if you are.
Cheers Paul

 

Hi Paul, please PM me with your details. The PCB as shown is for one channel (i.e. mono), the regulators are on separate boards (again mono), and you would need a raw PSU to power the hole thing up... Let me know how you want to proceed!

 

Some progress:



The picture shows the boards for one channel: the green PCB is the preamp board and the blue PCB is the 7x regulator board. Everything works, the sound is very good, even cleaner and smoother than the starfish I got from sq225917. I fitted UKZ 47uF caps on the power rails, Promisic golden 47uF as feedback, RN60 resistors, 2.2uF SMR films as input caps, 10uF tants as output caps, vintage Philips BC550/560 transistors. The regulator board has a CLC at the output (10uF - 100uH - 22uF), other than that it's a standard datasheet circuit with 10uF tants on the adjust pins (layout from TO but populated with 4x 317 and 3x 337). Output caps are NHG. Between these and the UKZ on the preamp board there are MRS25 resistors with 1R, so I decided for the most simple solution:



Next I will improve the regulator board and fit zener for voltage adjustment instead of the resistor / trim pot.

 

Where do you get your polystyrene capacitors?

 

I searched them from many different places:

Mouser
Farnell
Hificollective
Don Audio
Audiophonics

...but not Ebay!

[EDIT: links added]

 

I'm sure this has been answered, Is the Starfish based on the 552 with it's split supply and has anyone done a A-B test between a Starfish and 552 purely on sound quality. It seems to me Naim have used the same basic circuit(s) since day one so I presume layout and power supply are the reason there is such a sound difference between the range of NAC's. I want to build a preamp and the starfish seems to be ideal for my needs.

 

I once owned a 552, but never heard a comparison of the Starfish to a Naim. The powering sheme of the Starfish is said to be similar to the 552, but others might know more about this. Probably the DR versions have improvements not only in the supply regulations but also elsewhere (like the current sources in the power amps). What I can say is that both the Starfish and my clone sound very good

 

I love to have a complete pcb set .

 

I have a built starfish in a 32.5 case if you are interested...

 

very interesting how does it compare to a 32.5 then? Never heard one only tinkered with 821 and NJ 321,729 and RSL boards.

 

You can PM me about this!

 

Folks, I put a copy of Jim's original Starfish schematic here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f2ct739uxrsmg9a/StarFish PreAmp Schematic.pdf

 

It is certainly more Naimy than the 32.5, mind you the 32.5 had been tweaked with an ALWSR per board. Starfish has everything in spades, drive and beat and slam...if those are the right words...just more Naim.

I've never heard the RSL or NJ boards.

 

You really need to remove the Traco and NERT to make a Starfish sing.

Pair of super teddy regs is my recommendation.

Pete