A very excellent phono preamp in kit form for the money
For Muffsy Phono Preamp - Kit
I decided to not just buy a new phono preamp, but decided to build one and in my initial research, stumbled onto the Muffsy as well as some others, such as the Boozehound Labs unit, and 2 ready built units from eBay Hong Kong and most of the kits I found either looked hokey or inadequate, or left too much out of the kit, forcing the builder to not only buy the kit, but the majority of the parts to assemble it separately through their own sources, such as through Mouser or DigiKey or whatever.
the kits themselves come fully self contained as a preamp, a power supply unit, and a back panel with all the components needed to build each kit included, outside of the case and power adapter and good news there is Skrodahl even now has the sources for both the recommended enclosure (necessary if you buy the back panel kit) and the wall adapter, both for 120V and 220V countries, so even that is a no brainer to get, and yes, they do add to the cost, but when you add in the whole kit it's $110 US and the recommended enclosure cost me $9 US, excluding shipping, the recommended wall adapter $12 US, also excluding shipping for a total of $131 US, not bad when you consider the ready made Shitt Mani is abut the same price, as is other units of similar quality, and other kits aren't much less and are less complete as a kit, and you'd have to source a PSU from someone else if you wanted to go the AC route in many cases, and they may not be as easy to do as they may require torroidal transformers to step down the AC and then have the power supply board rectify and convert to DC, and you are at that point, dealing with full AC mains and ground loops, which may be over the heads and skills of the more novice kit builders out there.
I do have a smattering of electronics knowledge, in that I can kind of sort of read a schematic, and had basic soldering skills and a decent little soldering station so that helped, but the kit is designed for those with even less but want to build this kit anyway.
The circuit boards are small, but not difficult to work on, if you have what is called a third hand apparatus. It's essentially clamp that you can clip your board to and tilt it, flip it etc and will keep the board in place while you solder and the board is very easy to solder to, using even if regular ol' leaded rosin core solder like I used.
Since I've built the kits, there have been some changes to the instructions and one of them was with the power regulators on the PSU. In the instructions I had, there was no mention for those not in the know to ensure that not only do you get them in the correct spot, but oriented the right way. There is now those instructions as I've contributed that and several other suggestions where improvements were needed in the documentation and Skrodahl was quick to make those changes. Otherwise, I'd give his documentation a 5 star rating, but it is how one improves things. :-) Thankfully he is quick to making changes where necessary and that is a sign of good customer service, and something you don't always get with most kits.
Overall, the build experience was great even though I had to redo the power supply board due to the lack of the knowledge to get the power regulators oriented correctly and my wall adapter came DOA and had to RMA and thankfully, Jameco was quick to rectify that so now I can enjoy the preamp without worrying about the two 9V batteries dying every 3-4 days.
I bought the Burr Brown (OPA2134PA) OpAmps as I am familiar with Burr Brown and their sound and am glad I did it lends a warmth that you don't always get with solid state devices, and my SHURE cart is also warm sounding but with also a rolled off top end and I love how this kit has variable loading options along with variable gain options. Currently, I run the cart at 53K Ohms, gain at 36dB and that seems to be a good setting with my current, but crappy interconnects and the cart.
Overall the sound is much fuller than my stock Sherwood receiver's phono preamp, and while I got good bass with the SHURE M97xE cartridge with that preamp, the Muffsy brings out even more bass and I get great detail and clarity and a wide stereo separation/sound stage. There is also much greater dynamics and punch to the overall sound too, making music sound much more alive than it ever had before.
I'm using this as a personal preamp in my stereo and the turntable is a very humble and vintage Kenwood turntable, model KD 12-RB that my late parents originally bought new in 1985. As a table, it's nothing to write home about, but it performs more than adequately, and with the SHURE cart and the Muffsy preamp, it punches well above its weight class as a result.
Overall, I'd buy this kit again, and now that I know a little bit more, I'd probably mod it a little and hope he can in the future look into a mono switch, something that is woefully missing in so many preamps of this price point as there are lots of vintage mono recordings out there that benefit from being played in mono and not in stereo for a cleaner sound and imaging.
