PCTI tonearm by rauliruegas

@dover 
¨The turntables he uses as a reference are midfi in my view. ( The Micro Seikis and Direct Drives ¨
     When I have  heard Raul,s system he has mostly used  two Acoustic signature belt drives. Only once I think I heard his Micro seiki 5000 which last time i was at his place he mentioned me he had sold it.  I did not notice any particular fault with his tables, pitch was spot on.
@rauliruegas 
¨Other than the 26/27 IM cartridge if I remember you listened in one of those prototypes tonearms the Madrigal Carnegie 2 that I time to time still enjoy it.´
    Yes, If i remember correctly was on a different ocassion but also with your own arm that we heard Madrigal carnegie 2. 

@chakster ¨ Review without any single image of the product is a bit strange.¨
    I dont think there is a review of the tonearm, if you interpret my comment as a review all i can say it is not all, i have only heard his tonearm a couple of times and all i said is that the  tonearm does do exists and  what i heard was on par with any other top ones which i,ve heard at his place. 

Dear @soundcheck6 :  As the tonearm ( more on this latter-on. ) this Phonolinepreamp was a unit for our personal use ( José and I. ).

I was who had the inquisitiveness to design and build a Phonolinepreamp due that the best units in the market as: FM Acoustics, Krell, Gryphon, ML, etc, etc. ( including top tube electronics that I owned or listened. ) and that I already listened in my system and other systems in reality did not satisfied totally my  high demanding needs and of course the cartridge needs.

I talk with José and shared what I was thinking about and I writed  the main characteristics that we analized and that he enhanced too. Voicing was made by both of us but mainly for me that owns a very good system and with several audio friends to listen our unit there that was what I did it.

Btw, @lewm appreciated your posts in reference to this phonolinepreamp and its quality level even that the unit you own, the Essential 3160, has not the up-grades made for me in my sample that I name it: Essential 3180 that it's even better quality performance level than your excellent unit.

How is that over the years Lewm owns the 3160 when was a unit designed and builded by us for our personal use?

Well, that gentleman in the link you posted knew that I was with Jose making that phonolinepreamp and with out been in touch with him ( as a fact I even did not know him or " hear " nothing about him any where. ) I received his first email asking if we can make a unit for him and I answered that we can't do it because we are not an audio comercial company but only two music lovers trying to improve our listening LP sessions at home.
He insisted and after 3 in a row emails José and I decided to accept build a unit for him and I told him that we will take around 6-8 months to delivery his unit and that needs to pay 60% of the total unit price in advance and he did it/accepted and that's how started to build some units. Btw, we took more than those 8 months to made it and delivery his unit even than he paid the total price in advance with out " knowing " really whom we are. He lives in England.

Through the time we made some changes that some way or other we already tested before during the voicing of the unit.

I live in México city and I had the opportunity to show the Essential units in USA to over 20 gentlemans at their places that some way or the other were a voicing tests for our unit. From those 20+ gentlemans only one of them owned SS electronics all the other gentlemans were tube lovers.

By coincidence the seven Essential owners only one used SS electronics the other ones tubes and by coincidence with the first customers the other owners were who put in touch with me with out I knew of their " existence ". All paid a % in advance  and all satisfied with the unit as Lewm.

We stopped to accept orders due that that was not our way of living and the unit manufacture is way way demanding on time for us and care of it to achieve the quality levels we knew the design can meet.

My own unit can competes and it's a real challenge for any unit in the today market at any price.

Can we start/begin again with? I don't think so. Is very expensive to do it in every way. To do it we will need it a whealthy investor that really like this hobby and a gentleman where we can share with him and in between our high demanding targets of quality.

R.

@rauliruegas

what the topology of the phono preamp? 

Outboard PS
Dual mono everything
Fully balanced
Two completely discrete phono circuits, one MM, one MC.
mono and mute switches.
separate ps for display LEDs.
3 pairs of high level inputs + 2 pairs for the phono stages 
RCA and XLR inputs for each of the 5 inputs per channel.

To adjust phono load you have to open the chassis and solder the chosen resistance ( or capacitor) which I don’t mind doing.

Dear @anthonya : @lewm was spot on, thank’s for that.

Now, our phonolinepreamp today is out of production. It’s a full SS design the unit that Lewm owns came with two MC phono stages instead that one MM/MC ( this characteristic was and option for the customers when ordered ).

It has 3 independent and discrete four layers circuit boards: one for the dual mono line level preamp, one for the two independent stages and a third one that is the logic control board.

Each unit was builded with strictly hand selected/tested parts. Has a very wide frequency range that goes over 1Mhz.
it comes with a truly high headroom where is almost imposible to overload it.

Its specs are nothing but accurated as no other unit I know and only as an example its inverse RIAA eq. deviation is : 0.012 db. in both channels.

When we started and decided to do it the first target was not designed as: more of the same, even today has some unique characteristics.

I don’t know what Lewm could think but when you listen through the Essential phonolinepreamp you just can’t know it’s a SS neither tube because almost has not a " signature " other that preserve that natural tone, color, dynamics and rythm we can find out in MUSIC.

The Lewm unit as the other 3160 can compete with the top today phonolinepreamp that like the CH that its tag price is over 60K+ or Vitus, you just name it.

Thank’s for ask and thank’s again to Lewm.

R.