Battery power, QUICKIE-esque, phono pre????

[Wanderer]

Do I recall some mention at some point of work on a battery powered phono-pre along the lines of the QUICKIE?...or was I hallucinating?

I was just thinking about how cool that would be.     

[Paul Joppa]

It WOULD be cool! But I can't yet make it work out with less than six tubes and two or three times as many batteries as Quickie. It just doesn't work out to be nearly as cost-effective.

I'll keep looking though - perhaps some hearing-aid tubes can be used. Some of them have really tiny filament power requirements.

[denti alligator]

No tubes, but the Hagerman Bugle works pretty well. Costs around $60-70 once you get all the parts. Runs on two 9V batteries. It's in place in my system till I can afford a Seduction.

[cpaul]

You might also try Steve Bench's battery phono stage, which I hope to try soon (I have an order at Mouser just waiting to pull the trigger).  http://greygum.net/sbench/sbench/6088pre2.html.  It uses two 6088 pencil tubes per channel and 8 9V batteries and two D cells.  Lasts on the order of 200 hours, not unlike Quickie, which is partly why I've looked at it for a while now.

Steve also has a ton of other interesting work on his website, including no R and C amps, an RIAA preamp with no capacitors, and "inverted" triode operation.  The latter uses the plate as the grid and the grid as the plate, resulting in some interesting tube characteristics, including very low "plate" resistance.  Check it out at http://greygum.net/sbench/sbench101/.  The page isn't especially well organized, but scroll down for some interesting reading.