Arthur Loesch FET Phono Preamplifier Custom made by the late Dr. Loesch, battery powered

Hand made by the late Arthur Loesch, this is a custom-made solid-state (FET) dual mono phono preamplifier with a passive linestage for two additional line sources (e.g., disc player and tuner) using 2 custom made stepped attenuators. What's more, this one-of-a-kind preamp is powered by rechargeable batteries, so only pure DC powers the phono section. The preamp consists of two units, the preamp itself, and the power supply which accepts 115VAC  and charges 4 x 12V batteries. An umbilical sends DC to the preamplifier unit which has only 4 controls, the 2 attenuators and two switches, a two way switch which chooses between phono (green light/battery discharge) and linestage (red light/battery recharge); and a 3-way switch which chooses between line 1, mute and line 2. The red and green lights are LEDs powere by relay from the umbilical. The rear panel of the unit accepts the power umbilical and 4 pairs of Vampire direct-plate copper RCA jacks for phono in, line 1 in, line 2 in, and preamp out. There is also a ground lug for phono. Phono loading is by plug-in resistors on the circuit board. I am including a pair of 47K Caddock and a pair of 1K Vishay resistors, but you can plug in any load you like (no soldering necessary). The unit has between 40 and 50dB gain and can be used for practically any cartridge, although it was designed for a .5mV moving coil. I have used it successfully with .3 and .4mV MC cartridges. The ouput impedance is 10K so it works very well without an active linestage into a tube amp. I also used it with a solid state (Pass) power amp with a buffer stage between (I have a buffer for sale separately); or you could just use it with an active linestage too.

This is one of two very famous phono preamp designs by Arthur Loesch. The first was a tube design that Arthur made available to the high-end DIY community and was manufactured by several builders, most recently by Tempo Electric in Saratoga NY. This is the second, solid-state (FET) version that was known as the TAG Model One, manufactured briefly by Harry Paller in Chicago and favorably reviewed by Harry Pearson in The Absolute Sound. It is mentioned here: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/roadtour12/roadtour12.html

This is the unit mentioned in the 6moons article: it was built and used by Arthur and he sold it to me with the design for a battery charger system which was executed by the Schenectady-based electronics wizard Steve Short, who also built in the passive linestage and switches, and the relay circuit for the LEDs.  The batteries used are of current manufacture and widely available. All caps are either Black Gate or film-in-foil and will never need replacement. All signal wire is Kimber pure silver. The resistor network is made of Roderstein 1% resistors. Parts quality is the best available: every component was matched on a curve tracer. The powder-coated aluminum casework was also made in New York State. There is no damage to the unit whatsoever. When used with compatible equipment, it will outperform any phono section anywhere in terms of natural sound and dynamics. It has no tube glare (naturally, since there are no tubes) no noise of any kind, because of the battery supply. Price is firm and a small fraction of its worth when compared to similar equipment. The only reason I am selling is that I am aging and simplifying my system in anticipation of a move. Please feel free to ask questions about this and compatible equipment.