Last night when I turned on my preamp, I smelled smoke! Holy cow. Bending down to take a close look, I actually saw some wisps leaking gently from the top of the preamp cover. I have owned this preamp for 7 or 8 years, and it has performed flawlessly in every way, so - to put it mildly - this was unexpected and elicited quite a bit of alarm. I unplugged the beast, removed the cover, and found the culprit. I confirmed with Blue Circle that it is a blown filament regulator (a what??). After nearly a decade of faithful service, it just plain wore-out. Anyways, the plan is to buy a new regulator, which costs a few dollars from an electronics supply house, and install it myself with the blessing of the designer. The only operations are a couple of snips, unscrew, re-screw in the new part, then solder two leads. Simple - right? Right.
Here is a picture of the exploded device.
Lastly, I now have the Bryston DAC analog output connected directly into my amps. Digital volume control is provided by TacT. Hmm... Interesting. I don't want to write anymore on that right now, but I just know there will be plenty to report on the way this new configuration sounds when I get my preamp up and running again.
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