Conrad-Johnson Premier 350 discussion

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by turntable

Looked what turned up locally today at a price that I could not refuse and close enough to pick up after work.

Awesome! Looks like new; How's it sound?

[lotus340r]

Originally Posted by Coppy

Sweet. Now you have summer and winter amps.

Ha ha

[Littlebunny]

Originally Posted by Coppy

I too have always used cheater plugs on all the c-j amps, LP140Ms and the P350, to eliminate the 60 cycle hum. Not the best solution due to the shock hazard, especially for tube amps. The hum is a result, not of the c-j equipment but of another bit of kit someplace in the interconnected chain (CD Player, etc) with a differential ground potential relative to the c-j amp. In other words something else is leaking power to it's grounds. Then I read, here someplace i think, that the solution is to figure out which other piece of kit in your equipment chain is the problem and put the cheater plug on that item, not your amps. Amps plugged in without cheaters and nothing connected to the amps... no hum. Preamp only, no hum. I kept adding equipment back in until the hum came back. It turned out to be the Magnum Dynalab tuner... which now has the cheater plug on it and I'm hum free and without a shock hazard. Maybe this process will work for you. And, it's nice to know the problem is not with the c-j gear.

Bob

My ET3 was buzzing/humming and it stopped when I unplugged an NAD amp from the system.

What is the new amp, Puma?

[Coppy]

Originally Posted by Littlebunny

My ET3 was buzzing/humming and it stopped when I unplugged an NAD amp from the system.

What is the new amp, Puma?

Okay, now just put the cheater on the NAD amp when you use it. Congratulations, getting rid of that noise and knowing it's not your c-j gear has got to be a great relief.
Bob

[Littlebunny]

Thanks, Bob.

[Jerome W]

Originally Posted by turntable

Looked what turned up locally today at a price that I could not refuse and close enough to pick up after work.

Big congrats Shane ! Looks wonderful near the big monoblocks ! !

Sent from my iPad using A.Aficionado

[Joe Appierto]

Mighty purty, Shane. Lots of luck with it and enjoy!

[ronenash]

Beautiful setup. I am sure you will enjoy it immensely.

[JohnA]

Originally Posted by turntable

Looked what turned up locally today at a price that I could not refuse and close enough to pick up after work.

Hey Shane

looks great mate...Just cant help yourself can you

got to give us a write up on how it sounds compared to the valve amps

[turntable]

Thanks for the kind words gentleman. Very happy I stumbled across this. It sounds a lot better 2nd time round. That said, everything is different in my system.

First the quirks of the prem350.
Is it just me, or is there a secret handshake spot to turn this on. Huge power button but only a small position on the top just left of centre switches on the amp. Then a couple of internal clunks to switch on. I vaguely remember this first time round.

Man,is this thing HIGH gain. This I do not understand as all cj pre amps are also high gain. With high gain comes a bit more noise/tube rush through the tweeters. More than my tube amps. I would not like to be running CD as you would send your life between 1 and 10 of the vol control.

How does it sound? Really nice. Sounds effortless, composed, less overall bloom than my tubes, tighter lower bass, up loud can turn a little two dimentional. Mids are nice and open, treble sweet but not dark. Sounds more toe tapping at lower volumes, the tubes come into their own at higher volumes.

Overall, a great amplier and very happy I now have a ss amp that I can live with and did not cost me an arm and a leg and arguably would not sound much better.