Timestep T-01MC

The T-01MC moving coil phonostage has been designed to work with every moving coil cartridge from a DL-103 to a Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement. We know that because we have tried them all and many, many others. The design comes from Dave Cawley who designed and built his first MC phonostage in 1981 and recently manufactured the award wining A.N.T. Kora phonostage. Dave also had a £9.5K phonostage re-engineered and used it as a reference, the results were amazing and somewhat surprising.

Building on his experience Dave has now produced a dual-mono phonostage with not a single integrated circuit or bipolar transistor in sight! No less than 16 FET's are used including a FET discrete power supply. The input FET's are laboriously hand tested and categorised before being inserted in blocks of 8 into the PCB.

The dual mono design is very evident just from looking at the PCB, indeed with a small saw you could make it completely mono, although we don't recommend this! Great attention to detail was applied both in the design and later in listening tests. The very expensive Dale input matching resistor coupled with the PTFE input sockets were probably the most influential, followed by the Wima polypropylene RIAA capacitors.

The biggest sound improvement is by using only FET's and no overall negative feedback. The T-01MC has been directly A-B compared with several phonostages costing up to £9,500. How did it sound? as good but with less hum! How could this be we hear you ask? Well the circuit and components are very similar, but we don't put it into a huge, two-box enclosure weighing 30kg. Instead we use a simple but well made case and a very, very expensive hum-free transformer. Truly a case of less is more!

The EU price including 20% VAT sales tax is £1,250.00

● Click here to read the Hi Fi World review

● Click here to read the Hi-Fi Choice review

● Click here to read the HiFi+ review

● Click here to read the HiFi Pig Black Magic

Nominal specification

  • Gain : 67dB

  • Gain ratio : 2239

  • Input range :  0.150 - 0.600mV

  • Input sensitivity for 0dBV output : 0.350mV

  • Input impedance : 100 ohm 1nF

  • Output impedance : 600 ohm

  • Signal to noise IEC A weighted 0.5mV input ave weighted : 75dB

  • EIN IEC A weighted average weighted : 0.085uV

  • Hum/buzz 50/60 100/120 150/180Hz WRT 0.5mV input : -87dB

  • Separation :  >80dB

  • Frequency response 20Hz - 20KHz  : -1.5 - +0.5dB

  • Frequency response -1dB  : 24Hz - 200KHz

  • Frequency response -3dB  : 15Hz - 400KHz

  • Warp response 6Hz :  -7dB

  • Channel matching : +/- 0.1dB

  • Distortion 0.5mV input : 0.025%

  • Maximum output at 1% distortion 10K load : 10.0V RMS

  • Headroom relative 0.5mV 1KHz : 20dB

  • Headroom relative 0.5mV 20KHz : 20dB

  • On/off : Front panel rotary knob with click/spike suppressor

  • Ground management : fixed and floating switchable

  • 100/120/220/230/240V 50/60Hz input

  • Size: W 445mm D 285mm H 50mm

Topology

  • Input : 4 x 2 hand matched parallel J FET's

  • Input match : Dale CMF55 0.1% 100R, any value to order

  • Input & output sockets : gold plated PTFE dielectric

  • Total : 16 FET's

  • Class : A

  • Capacitors in signal path : Wima polypropylene and Starget or Panasonic FM

  • Overall negative feedback : none

  • Power supply :   discrete FET regulators

  • Transformer : 200% oversize cored toroidal, custom wound, inter-winding screen, silicon-steel magnetic band screen and additional screening can

  • Power supply capacitors : Panasonic FC

  • Shottkey diodes : x 4 Vishay

  • PNP - NPN transistors : none

  • Op-amps : none

  • Integrated circuits : none

  • Integrated regulators : none

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    Timestep Distribution
    Tel: 01803 833366  email     dave@timestep-distribution.co.uk