Carver C-11 Preamp rework

WOPL Sniffer

Veteran and General Yakker
Joined
Aug 10, 2015
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11,223
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Minnie-Soda
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Screw it
#1
Just finishing up on a C-11 preamp I picked up to replace the 4000t in my system. I have been listening to it as I did the upgrades and it really sounds great. I upgraded the capacitors and replaced all the old opamps with fresh RC4136 opamps. Except for the Phono section. They got the Brown-Dog upgrade. This is a portion of the BillD upgrade procedure from the C-1. Not all could be done as the C-1 had carbon comp resistors and the upgrade changed them to Metal Film but the C-11 already had the Metal Film resistors albeit not the 1% ones the upgrade list had. I think the 5% ones in the C-11 were close enough for government work. It's heading to the livingroom this morning and into the home system. It looks really good paired to a Black WOPL. That was part of the difference between a C1 and a C11. The C11 was black whereas the 1 was either the silver finish or came with the anthracite finish like the 4000T. I have messed with the C1/C11 a few times before and it is a great preamp. Very quiet. Some guys take the upgrades farther with The Brow-Dog's all the way around but I foud when doing this, it can cause issues if the power supply is not DEAD QUIET. Just a little noise on the + and - 12v and if causes issues with the OPA-2134's. The datasheet recommends putting caps on each chip (for the + and - 12v) or as close as possible to alleviate thos noise issue. Maybe I'll dork with that down the road but putting the 2134 BD's in there willy nilly causes some intermittent issues and can cause loss of left or right channel at any ol time.... I found that out the hard way but HEY, that's why we do this. it's all about learning.


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