Multi purpose audio server

 Digital media is no doubt the current trend of things in almost all of our daily lives. In audio world this is not exception. Many have tried to tap into the benefit digital media can offer for audio and is very common this days to see streaming as the source. Many brands have come out with different kind of solution to digital playback no matter is physical media or streaming. It is always a dream to have many different features or  functions that can be found in one box. Is not doubt value for money is one key consideration on media box. Myself have personally like CD very much but don't quite like to have a CD player. My alternate option is to have a digital player to play the CD that has been ripped into wav files or other file format. Of course consideration of storage as well but price for storage is very affordable. Not much of concern. As I was looking for storage, I came across this Japanese company IO-Data (https://www.iodata.jp/fidata/en/) . Its a company that produces hard disk and storage. What is interesting about the company is it takes interest in audio. The company has developed some very high end storage for the sole purpose of audio quality. Being high end the price is also a premium. Not exactly something I was looking for. Looking further in the company product, I came across a more affordable product which is also very interesting with all its functions. (https://www.iodata.jp/ssp/soundgenic/en/). The product is a network server and storage named Soundgenic. After watching some review on youtube and it does look very promising. I took the plunge as it is available in Malaysia.

I made the order and is send from Japan. The thing to take note is this unit is from Japan its all in Japanese language only. The international version will have English language. A little of a bummer but no big deal. The good news is the mobile apps for this server is all in English. 😁 This is a 2 TB model of the network storage server. This is the lowest spec model out of total of 4 different models offer from IO-Data. With some discount I bought online, it came to about RM1300 include shipping. This model has the usual 2TB hard disk and other model come with SSD drive. As a start for me I think this will do. 

Out from the box this looks very simple as a black box. The company name in front with Hi-Res audio sticker. No display of any kind except on the top right corner has a small LED light for indicator if the unit is turn on. 

On the back is all the connections. From the left is the power with 12V DC input. The next port is the usual LAN port that support 1000mbps. Than it has 2 USB ports with USB 2 and USB 3. There is the hard reset button and follow by the power button. Is pretty simple and the unit is design as headless unit with controls all on mobile apps which is supported by Android and Apple. The unit is pretty much just plug and play. The one thing to take note is the unit need a LAN cable for it to work as this is also a NAS storage itself. There is no WIFI for this unit which I think it make sense.

To setup is very straight forward. First thing is to install the mobile apps of Fidata and connect the soundgenic to your home network via the LAN cable port. Once is turn on, it will be auto recognized by your network as a network storage device. The storage can be accessible from your normal windows or mac machines as a network drive. Pretty much can copy anything into the storage as if this is a normal hard disk on the network. Once the files are inside the storage , it can be use any other devices within the same network.

With the fidata apps, there are a lot more you can do with the soundgenic. First thing, you can do is use it as a player. From the picture above, it looks quite typical kind of player. You can use the Apple airplay or normal bluetooth to playback from your mobile devices through the player even with Spotify Connect. Of course playback from the hard disk in the soundgenic is also one other option. How this is output will be through the USB port. The USB can be connected to external DAC of your hifi component. The USB port is also able to connect with external USB hard drive.

What is the important or attraction for me is the USB optical drive supported by the unit. In this case, I have a USB optical drive connected to the soundgenic. This means, it will now be a CD player too with the external drive. The feature I really wanted is the ability to ripped the CD into the hard disk without any software or control. Once you pop in the CD, the soundgenic will automatically ripped the songs from the CD into WAV or FLAC of your choice. The cover art and information is all automatically populated as well as the unit is also using your internet for this purpose. Once the files are ripped you can share it to any other devices within your network. 

Overall this is all in one box for all the things pretty much needed for the need of digital audio. For the price and what it can offer in features, I will think is very hard to beat. This is all made in Japan comparing to many Chinese made products in the market that are on the same price range. The sound quality playback from the unit itself is also remarkable. I personally compare it with my Asus Tinker board with Volumio playback to be almost on par. This is definitely a worthy investment for a good quality audio playback and storage.

CCY Engineering F7 Power Amp Part 1.5 - An "Unofficial" First Listen

When Chong, the head honcho of CCY Engineering, told me about his "preorder price" for the F7 power amp, an idea flashed through my mind. I couldn't resist the urge to test the idea out. So here we have this write-up, which I call "Part 1.5", as it is a detour from my usual practice of testing out equipment in my dedicated room, with the system set up in a more conventional "audiophile-approved" way.  

The F7's is going for RM 1,688 now (refer to part 1 here for technical spec of the amp). To get a class A amp at this price point must rank as a bargain. My idea was that as a lot of people are spending a lot of  time working from home at this time of pandemic, me included, wouldn't it be cool if I could set up a cost-effective but good sounding system in my home office, capable of providing a high level of musical satisfaction while operating in a normal work space (i.e., not specifically set up/treated for HiFi). For me, my work-from-home arrangement is done from a spare bedroom in my home.

For this experiment, I paired the F7 with equipment and cables I already had. For source duty, I went back to my old but still fine-sounding Marantz DV-7001 universal player (I play CDs, still am not firmly in the streaming crowd yet). 

For pre-amp, I pressed into duty the Chinese passive preamp that I bought awhile ago, which I wanted to use with my Pass Labs Aleph 3 (while hoping I could find a used unit of the Aleph 3's matching preamp the Aleph L). This passive no-name preamp is minimalist in that it operates only on an Alps potentiometer and comes with only 1 input and 1 output.

The speakers were the Mission M30i which my kid no longer used. The Missions were 'cute' speakers (i.e., small), so I didn't expect them to give me room-filling sound, but I didn't need that too in my circumstance. 

I put the system on a Ikea table opposite my workstation. Again no fancy and not even basic HiFi furniture. Give the elongated shape of the F7, I didn't have enough real estate on the table top to fit in the Marantz player, so I placed it underneath the table (again, this would not have been an audiophile approved thingy to do).

All the partnering equipment added up costing less than the F7 itself, except the Marantz player when new, but I think a DVD player would have lost a significant chunk of its value by now too. 

So, from an audiophile point of view, the F7 had many things stacked against it. 

Anyway, I wanted to see whether I could enjoy some music while I work, with a system costing about, I would say, RM3k - RM4k.

The initial listening revealed a problem with this arrangement. The sound was congested and blurred in the upper bass and lower mid regions. I thought t could be caused by the driver configuration on the Mission speakers, which is inverted (bass/mid driver on top, the tweeter below), putting the tweeter way below my ear height, the height differential was further exacerbated by my close range listening position which was just about 1.5m away. I decided to improvise by tilting the front baffle of the speakers up a little, and found a satisfying solution with the speakers' front lifted about 1 cm from the table top by slotting a CD case underneath it (again, this would not be audiophile-approved way). Anyway, the tilt largely resolved the congestion issue, what remained I thought could be addressed by increasing the spread distance between the 2 speakers, to do that I'd need to put them on proper speaker stands, but I got lazy 😁. 

The CCY F7 ran hot, its I-beam chassis was very warm to the touch once it was fully warmed up and stabilized (a 1 hour period should be good enough, just like my other class A Pass Labs amps), though I think it did not get as hot as my Aleph 3 amp.

After a few days' listening, I got a handle of this system's capability. Limited by the small Missions, it could not handle loudness and scale to my satisfaction, it played best with simpler music. However, that does not mean that it could work only with slow and languid music, on the contrary, the sound was lively and dynamic contrast was very good, it was definitely not a snooze-inducing listen. What really surprised me was a good measure of the sound characteristics in the mid and high regions that made me fell in love with my first Pass Labs amp, the Aleph 3 (Class A 30 watts).  

I never heard music coming out of the Mission 30i like this, especially in the mid and high. I heard a satisfying level of transparency and separation in the sound (other than the little residual congestion in the bass region I attributed to the speakers), the high was clean and quite smooth and devoid of harshness and undue sharpness. I credited the CCY F7 for all this.    

Below is a iPhone SE recording of this system playing a track from this Itzhak Perlman  / Pinchass Zukerman album, track 7 Jean-Marie Leclair Sonata Op 3 No 4 first movement - Allegro assai.

This is a track with 2 violins. From the clip, you could hear that the music presentation was lively and had a good amount of nuances, the violin tone was quite naturally portrayed, and the interplay between the 2 violins made the track an interesting listen (if you hear some humming noise from the beginning of the clip, that is the hum from my air-cond compressor from outside the room window).

Next up is an excerpt of Joni Mitchell's "Urge for Going", she sung with just a guitar accompaniment. There was a trace of natural warmth in this replay that was reminiscent of my past experience with other class A amps that I found quite appealing.

I like the CCY F7 a lot from this 'unofficial' first listen. Its sound is pristine and smooth, and the music presentation is alive. I shall put it through a more challenging pace in my listening room next, with much more capable speakers.

CCY Engineering's facebook page https://web.facebook.com/CcyEngineering-109995560498110

The Giant Subs

Subwoofer or subs which most audio enthusiast will called. Everyone who into home theater or Hifi will not need introduction to a sub. Is a boom box so to called it. I am going to focus on this sub in a home theater setup. I call this sub a monster that I have recently change to. This sub which is non other than the JL Audio F212 V2 dual drivers subwoofer. 

The subs as from the picture is quite a tall subwoofer standing at 81cm, is like half size floor stander speaker. It also weight 102 kg. This is good enough reason to called it a monster sub. Each of the driver is a 12 inches ultra long throw W7 drivers. The power is 3600 watts RMS for this beast. It have both balanced ((XLR/TRS Combo) and unbalanced connections.

From the front panels left to right , power switch, daro connection, room optimzation (demo, defeat, calibrate). 2 LED indicators (Master/Slave), level mode, master volume, lights dim, low pass filter, trim, phase and polarity. This features are handy for calibration.

This are some of the accessories included in the box. One pair of gloves, the calibration mic and 4 pieces of sliders. This is very useful tool. It is use to slide under the foot of the subwoofer to allow easier moving of the sub sliding on the floor. I cannot imagine carrying this 102kg moving about in the room. I will give an extra point to JL Audio on this small accessory which is a big help.

A picture for comparison a floor stander speaker to the subwoofer. One good thing about having a sub like this is saving some floor space. Is like having 2 subs stack up. Thinking back before I was having 2 large SVS subwoofers is really taking up lots of floor space. This is a positive point for me. 

Digital Automatic Room Optimization (D.A.R.O.) system as the name suggest is a build in auto calibration on the subwoofer. I will describe as similar to how a mic is connected to an AVR and run the auto calibration. Basically is the same but this is done specific for bass management. As this is setup for home theater purpose, after running the DARO will than run the auto calibration in the AVR as follow up to complete the setup.

This is the graph from REW on the bass response. Blue line is the before applying any EQ to it. The redline is with EQ to flatten it. This is pretty amazing given the fact that this is just 1 subwoofer vs previously of dual SVS ultra subwoofers. Now the movie experience is with "kick". The bass slam is pretty real right smack to the viewer. Totally enjoying it. 

CCY Engineering F7 Power Amp Part 1 - An Introduction

Here we have another hifi product designed and made in Malaysia, this time it is a power amplifier. 

What excites me about this amplifier is its design. Its topology, as I understand from Mr. Chong the head honcho of CCY Engineering, borrows heavily from Nelson Pass' design in his First Watt F7 model. I am a big Pass Labs fan since its Aleph days (I still have an Aleph 3 power amp in my collection) and am a very happy user of a pair of XA160.5 monoblocks. However, we don't come across First Watt much, if at all, in Malaysia, as it doesn't have a local distributor/dealer, but I have long desired to listen to a First Watt amplifier. 

So, when I heard that CCY was making a power amplifier based on a First Watt design, my interest was piqued. A friend bought one of the early CCY F7 units coming out of CCY Engineering. He allowed me to hijack it for a while to do this series of write-up/reviews (Lim, thanks!). The unit was duly delivered to my place by Mr. Chong himself a few days ago. In this first write-up I would like to touch on its design and I'll cover its sound performance in the next few articles. 

As far as I could ascertain, the CCY F7 amplifier is the second amplifier coming out of CCY Engineering. This second amp continues with the creative, unique, idiosyncratic and almost whimsical chassis design of the first amplifier (the CCY A2450), with the colour of faceplate changed from red on the previous model to black. 

From the photo you can see that the amplifier, uniquely, uses an I-beam as its main body, giving it an elongated, slightly-longer-than-a-shoe-box shape. The circuit board is attached to the underside of the central plate of the I-beam, with the metal plate itself acting pretty much as a heat sink, which is an important necessity as the CCY F7 is a Class A amp.  

The back of the amp is pretty straightforward, it has a IEC power inlet, a pair of RCA input, and a pair of loudspeaker output which, not very conveniently for me, takes only banana plugs as I'd prefer spade which offers a tighter and more secured contact for amp and loudspeaker, I feel.

You would also notice that the amp does not come with a power on/off switch. This is not much of an issue if you can switch the amp on or off at the wall. But if you can't, e.g., if the amp is plugged into a power conditioner that is shared with other equipment, CCY includes with the F7 an umbilical cord with a massive power switch, which your powercord can then plug into. 

First Watt amplifiers are pretty much niche products, they produce low output power (less than 25 watts into 8 ohms), but have relatively high power consumption and run hot, as they are Class A amplifiers. The CCY F7 is no exception to this Class A mould. While First Watt has not published the F7 schematics officially, as it is still one of the current models in its lineup, Chong has based his F7 version on information and high resolution photos and images of the First Watt F7 on the internet.

Chong told me the following about the CCY F7 amp, I quote:

"Topology highlights -

1. This is a push-pull class A amp, running on negative feedback, the uniqueness is that it also applies some amount of positive current feedback from the output captured right AFTER the speaker load back to the input.

As speaker impedance changes across the music bandwidth, the lower the impedance goes, the higher the positive feedback sent back and superimposed with the input, here’s the magic of the F7.

 Build highlights:

1. Dual Mono setup, left and right channels are electrically isolated.

2. All-in-one PCB Layout, no flying wires on any connector other than the transformer.

3. Input stage with NOS Toshiba JFETs 2SJ74/2SK170

4. Output stage with Exicon Lateral Mosfets ECX10N20/ECX10P20

5. O-shape Toroid Transformer

6. DC offset Relay speaker Protection.

7. A total of 144,000uF(72,000uF/channel) capacitance with CRC configuration at Power supply.

 Specifications:

1. 20W @ 8ohm / 30w @ 4ohm

2. Gain 14dB

3. Input Impedance @ ~25k ohm

4. Output Impedance @ ~0.4 ohm"

The underbelly of the CCY F7 is protected with a wire mesh, the circuit is visible through it. Better photos of the innards can be seen on CCY Engineering's facebook page https://web.facebook.com/CcyEngineering-109995560498110. Here is a photo I found on the FB page, with the big O-shape toroidal transformer seen to the front of the amp:

My immediate task now is to run it for a short while, as it is new out of the box, then do some serious listening. I'll do my listening sessions with some speakers that are commensurate with the CCY F7's price point and will also throw something more challenging at it to see how it will fare. 

I'll share some background of CCY Engineering's founder Mr Chong, together with my listening impression of the amp in my next few write-ups. Stay tuned. 

Another Power Cord Comparo?

My Kuzma Stabi SD set up, with 12 inch arm and Benz Micro LP cartridge, still same as before. However, I never though switching power cords to the AC speed controller(left) can make so much changes to the sound

Agree or not, power cords do make a difference to the sound of hifi that we hear. My experiences with power cord, or any other audio cable, is well documented in these pages. However, almost all the power cord swapping I made was direct to electronics, such as power cord to CD player, or cassette deck, pre-amp & power amps surely. Love the journey so far.

However lately, I am a little baffled when I swapped power cords to the AC speed controller of my Kuzma Stabi SD turntable. Why am I baffled, you asked? Well you see, unlike a CD player or cassette deck, the AC speed controller has no electrical connection what so ever to the turn table, tone arm or cartridge! The AC speed controller only powers the belt drive motor, which only point of connection to the turn table is the rubber belt, which is mechanical! So, in a way you can say electrical changes the working properties of mechanical, if the sound I heard is different from swapping each of the 4 power cords below? I will run down what I distinctly heard with each power cord below:

    

Audi Agile Concept Tuning is a shielded power cord design. However in this application, it just sounded very un-refined with white hash, not very good for a shielded design 

First up, the Audio Agile Concept Tuning power cord. Once plugged in to the Kuzma AC speed controller, the music has a nice rhythmic sure foot ness to the sound, as some would recognize as PRAT factor. The tonality was very neutral balanced high, mid & low. Bass was bold, solid and nicely tuneful. Mids are un-colored but the highs is where this cable fails. There's a constant white hash mixed in to the high frequency reproduction which results in a somewhat streaky and shrill treble. Cymbals are splashy & high hats sound edgy & hardened. May be that was why the Kuzma CAR-30 cartridge sounded the way it did? Because at that time of the Kuzma CAR-30 review, this power cord was used and perhaps the Kuzma was just reflecting the contributions of the Audio Agile Concept Tuning power cord? Was I being fair to the Kuzma? I think it might be time to re-visit that cartridge in the near future..........

  

Supra Lorad 2.5 power cord is a very soft and nicely shielded design, which I used in a variety of application, but doesn't seems to work well enough for this AC speed controller use

The Supra Lorad 2.5 power cable is next. Once I swapped the Supra in, replacing the Audio Agile, the first & immediate relief is the high frequencies. Gone are the splashy cymbals and hardened high hats. The white hash that's mixed in to the music's high frequencies are much, much reduced too, but nevertheless, I still heard a bit of the white hash. Much like the Audio Agile, the mids are neutral but bass is a little less tuneful, or bouncy as they say. Bass body is no longer as bold, but still maintained a nice degree of solidness. Overall, this is a much better cable, for the Kuzma AC speed controller for it's sins of omission which is for all purposes, less offensive, but no less enjoyable.

PS Audio Punch power cord. I have more than a few PS Audio power cords used in my hifi system, and it's one of my go to power cords usually. Not sure why it's the worst sounding cable here?

Next up replacing the Supra Lorad, is the PS Audio Punch power cord. This is the thickest and least flexible power cord of the group. I had to wrestle it like a cobra before I could get it to plug in to the Kuzma AC speed controller IEC socket. And once plugged in the weight & the rigidness of the PC Audio Punch power cord caused the light weight AC controller to stand on it's hind legs! I had to put a weight on the AC speed controller for a day to keep it on all 4 feet. Once I started listening, the sound ain't that pretty either! 

The PS Audio sounding so slow, that I have to re-calibrate the speed controller for 33 &45 rpm a few notches faster. Next problem is the bass, which is fat & muddy. Mid range is totally over warm to the point of sounding over riped. The highs are rolled off and surprisingly, not too refined either! The only good thing was that the white hash is gone! I waited a few days, hoping for the power cord to settle down, and hopefully things will improve. However it still sounding more or less as described above even after 2 weeks in the turn table system. I had come to a point where enough is enough!

To be fair, I later used the PS Audio Punch power cord on my Teac UD-501 DAC and it sounded extremely pleasant & nice, which took off some of the digitalis grain from the streaming music. Well at least it didn't go to waste...............

    

This Gotham 85025 cut from reel power cord & Copper Color plug combo really surprised me for it's low cost to performance ratio. Possibly one of the best DIY power cord one can make

The last and final candidate is a DIY effort where I bought Gotham 85025 cut from reel power cord and self terminated with Copper Color Rhodium plugs for both IEC and NEMA ends of the power cord. I must remarked that from my experience using those China made Copper Color plugs, they are some of the best value, nicely built and great sounding plugs, if your budget does not stretch that far or you may feel Furutech plugs are not required. The Copper Color plugs are probably the best China made plugs you can buy today.

Sorry, I digressed. I proceeded to remove the PS Audio Punch and use this Gotham power cord instead. The moment the needle first dropped, I knew I am experiencing musical bliss again. Yes, the AC controller speed had to be tuned down again for 33 & 45rpm, after the PS Audio adjustment. Once the speed was set right, everything is nice and balanced, with a top down coherent of frequency reproduction. No more white hash audible in the highs either. The highs were clean yet refreshingly airy, smooth with no trace of edginess or hardness. The mids are nicely rounded and projected slightly up front, which makes the vocals stand out from the music. The bass starts & stops accurately, with clean note to note transfer, and no hang overs. The cables are not overly thick, slightly stiff, but still very bendable and at the very least, no need to wrestle it like a cobra.

Of the 4 power cords I tested here, I found the Gotham cable & Copper Color plug combo most balanced & satisfying to listen to. So impressed with it, I made another set of the same combo to power my Linn LP12 Mose kit external power supply box for the Hercules Gold II board.     

I can neither explain or validate what I experienced with the 4 different power cords and how it effects the sound of the turn table, despite being non electrically connected. It's just another of those things in hifi that baffles the mind. If you are reading up to here and think you have a good explanation to my experience, please comment below. I am looking forward to learn from you guys too!

Newbie Analogue Journey

I have started my hifi journey many years ago even before streaming are main stream music. CD is predominantly the format in hifi for a long time until streaming changes all that, even more so for the Vinyl record. I personally have been in digital music most of the time with the beginning of FLAC / WAV until moving into DSD. So over the years many DAC I have own with all kind of players too. Few years back, I came to experience in analogue music listening to some pretty nice turntables.

I started to research and read up on turntables. What to look out for mainly for a newbie to get into Vinyl music. Few things to consider when looking for turntables. Firstly, its the drive (motor) to spin the platter. There are 2 types, the belt drive and the direct drive. 

From picture you can clearly see there is a belt being use from the motor to the spindle. This drive and spin the spindle than on top the platter of the turntable. The advantage of this is less motor noise that might introduce into the sound. This is quite important and Vinyl is very sensitive to external noise. The disadvantage of it is the start of the spin and the time it stops spinning is slower than a direct drive.

This picture is show a direct drive turntable with the motor directly attached to the spindle. Is different from the belt drive that this type doesn't required a belt. The advantage of this will be the spin will be almost immediate for the start and stop. The disadvantage will be the noise the motor might introduce into the sound.

The next thing to look for is the speed. Mainly there are 33 1/3 or 45 RPM in speed for turntable. The thing to look for is how easy you can switch in between speed. Some turntable is very easy with just a push of a button. Some have to remove the platter and made adjustment. Example of the Rega P10 turntable with this external power supply has 2 switches to change the speed.

 Next piece to look now is the tonearm. This is very important to having a good steady hold of the cartridge while is tracking the Vinyl record. In this part the thing to think about is how easy it can be adjusted to setup the tracking force of the cartridge and also height of the arm sometimes is important to have the proper tracking. 

The one last thing and the most important is the Cartridge. Two different types of cartridge, the MM (moving magnet) and MC (moving cartridge). The different types have different gain which is important to consider for your hardware which is the phono pre amp. 

Its kind of overwhelming when I first started to read to understand all that. Put that all aside, there are many turntables this days are all ready to plug and play. Some turntables are able to even stream through bluetooth or even USB capable. Technology has change analogue quite a bit too. Out of the box many turntables are good to go and they are reasonably good start.

For me one more thing about vinyl record is all this beautiful records. This is one of the only media you can actually see the beauty as it spins. Good music is important but esthetic is pretty important too as you will be seated to enjoy the music while enjoying the beauty of your records.

 

More Mober For Linn Sondek LP12

Mober sub-platter for Linn LP12 tur table, though Cirkus compatible, I much prefer the sound when mated to it's intended partner, the Mober bearing.

In my last story about the Mober sub platter, as started with my desire for the latest Linn Karousel bearing upgrade, but the prohibitive pricing of Linn lead me to looking else where. Along came the Mober items purchased from Edmund Chan who makes these Mober products & ships out of Hong Kong. 

Doing the Mober bearing upgrade, much like the Karuosel, requires the Vahalla or Hercules power supply board to be moved out of the turn table, in to a separate external box. That means my Hercules II Gold power supply board will need a box to be housed in. Fear not, Mober has a solution in the form of a Mose kit!

In the process of reading up on the Karousel vs Mober bearing, it would seem to me that Edmund had started putting the Mober bearing in to the market 2 years ahead of Linn! However, the emergence of Karuosel has made Mober to introduce an improved version with collar mount option, compared to the 3 point mount of the previous design, as in Linn's Cirkus bearing. Competition does indeed spark innovation in this case!

Now let us go through the build pictorial:

Mober(left) bearing vs Linn Cirkus(right). Notice how much bigger the Mober bearing is at the bottom? The Mober bearing also offers collar mount, which I feel in much better than 3 point mounting, as the stress points are even out with collar mount.

The bridge comparison, left is the Mober supplied unit which came as part of the bearing package. Compared to the Linn supplied unit, notice the bearing thru hole in the center, which is much bigger diameter with the Mober unit. Also note the heavier steel gauge used, and that improved wire hold down design, which is far more rigid compared to Linn's fragile looking P-clip, not shown here.   

On the back is similar story, the Mober parts exudes quality build that Linn can only dream about!

The Mose casing to house my Hercules II Gold power supply board. This 2U design casing is aluminum extruded and finished in satin black for an overall high quality look & feel.

The back panel of the Mose box, a multi pin socket provides easy & removable wiring option from the turn table.

Even the IEC socket provided with the Mose is a gold plated audiophile grade item, Mober has put in much thought to his products!

Inside the Mose box is an added AC board for LED indicator at face plate, and rerouting all Hercules II Gold cabling requirements to the multi pin socket.

The Mose box with the Hercules II Gold power supply board fitted.

The completed Mose box, with a blue indicator at front face plate, when powered up.

Fitting of Mober bearing commence! The Mober bearing is first collar mounted on to the Linn Kore sub-chassis. This is followed by the motor & 33 & 45 rpm switch on the top plate.

M for Mober!

The wire hold down clamp as seen here in white is much easier to work with, compared to Linn's P-clip design. Just lift the clamp high enough to slip the cables through, then tighten that hex key.

The finished project, with Mober's L shaped power supply board to accommodate the much bigger bearing. the multi pin cable from Mose box shown earlier is attached to this L-shaped PS board. Also seen here with tone arm cable & multi pin cable being clamped down respectively. 

An older picture for comparison, with Linn's Vahalla board in place with Circkus bearing. The Hercules II Gold board is basically a 2 speed version of the Vahalla!

And lastly the whole turn table assembly sits on the Linn Trampolin II

The finished project, with the newly Oak finished plinth. This project is like a total rebuild, and since I am at it, I also swapped the Koetsu Black cartridge to serve on the Linn LP12 turn table. 

The Linn LP12(top tier) with the Mose kit & Marantz PH-1 phono stage below deck, sitting on my Spyder rack.

The sound of the finished project is excellent from the first needle drop! The initial sound was fast and exciting, with little to no back ground noise. LP surface noise is largely reduced as well. The bass is now truly powerful and tight! The Linn finally has the bass power to rival my Kuzma turn table. No more  Linn's flabby, "mong cha-cha" bass of the old. The Mober bearing package, with it's sub platter really brings the Linn LP12 detail retrieval ability & clarity to a whole new level. The good part is Linn's much fabled mid-bass is now clean, and doesn't intrude and cloud the male vocals anymore. Treble is much extended, airy and clear like a breath of fresh air! The noise level after the Mober bearing & Mose kit installed is near zero or un-audible now. After a few days, as the 3 springs that suspends the Linn settles down, the treble begins to soften a touch, and some semblance of the Linn LP12 sound character re-emerges, but just enough to remind you that this is still a Linn LP 12 after all.

I feel the Mober kits offer very high value for money in each & every way one looks at it. The Mober kits are well made, with good materials, high quality finishing and much design details that only someone with an intimate knowledge of the Linn LP12 can think of. Best of all, the Mober kits are much, much more affordable than the Scotland made stuff, yet suffers no sound penalty or build quality. I think the Mober kits may somewhat sound a little different if compared to using all Linn parts catalog, but on the whole, Edmund Chan is a person who understands the Linn's engineering philosophy well, and doesn't stray too far from where the apple tree is. I now have much respect and high regards for the Mober kits. If you have a Linn LP12 turn table at whatever vintage, do give the Mober kits a go!

Given today's Linn aftermarket diversity, and Linn's endless catalog of up grade parts, I can tell you there no 2 Linn LP12 in the world that is exactly same anymore, after leaving the showroom! A celebration of diversity I guess.....