I visited my friend’s home few days ago. We planned to tweak his #26 Pre-Amp (with Parafeed design).

His Pre-Amp was a high quality pre-amp, in terms of parts and design. As you can see below, the high voltage section has Black Gate SKZ capacitor.

He just finished tweaking the high voltage section by adding 3 huge Russian Teflon capacitors (FT-3) and got significant improvement on the sound staging. He was poisoned by the VCap Power Supply trick as I did on my pre-amp, so he tried the cheap Teflon solution first, the Russian FT-3 before going down deeper with VCap 😉

26-jensen

At first, his #26 used Jensen Capacitor Aluminum Foil. The overall sound is live, fast rhythm, and dynamic. A little bit less sexy on the vocal side for my taste and the top end detail was a little bit “flat”. Then we changed to Jensen Copper Foil Paper Tube. How did it sound? Keep reading.

After changing the capacitor to the Paper Tube, we could felt the different on the vocal side. It became more sexier, too sexier for both of us, but with disappointed top end detail. Why? I rechecked again the connection. Well, I think we put the capacitor direction to the wrong way. The outer foil of the capacitor was connected to the positive side! After tracking the wiring, I switched the connection. Now the outer foil of the Jensen Copper Foil Paper Tube is connected to the ground side 😉

We did some listening test again. It was a total different. The vocal was still so sexy, but the top end details came to live and also an excellent low end register.

We changed back to the original capacitor again, the Jensen Aluminium Foil. Well, we have to admit, the live ambience was better with this Aluminium capacitor, although with less detail and less sexier vocal. We think it was its natural sound of the Aluminium.

Final test, we combined the Jensen Aluminium Foil Capacitor with Jensen Copper Foil Paper Tube Capacitor. This unusual combination eventually rocked! The live sensation was there, but with the sweet vocal and also maintaining the details. The bass also very depth, punch, and perfectly controlled. If you noticed on the photo, the orientation was different for both capacitor. Don’t ask me why 😉

We used Norah Jones – Come Away with Me (limited edition Clear Vinyl), track was Come Away with Me and Shoot the Moon. The source is VPI Scout with Super Platter and Van den Hul Grasshopper IV GLA cartridge and finally fed to RS241-12E1-6J5 (Duelund CAST PIO inside!) and Fostex full range speaker (with extra Super Tweeter).

This was the combination that could make us really enjoy listening the system. The Duelund made the RS241 really showed its performance (superb staging, separation, and naturality), while the both Jensen made the #26 Pre-Amp became even more sweet without losing its detail.

And now I’m thinking to get the Clear Vinyl version of that Norah Jones’ album… >.<

26-jensen-r