Speakers: the one resistor that's directly in the signalpath in the crossovers was changed from Mills to Duelund Cast yesterday. I can't tell a difference.
Preamp: I changed the grid stopper resistor (1 kOhm) from Shinkoh to a Charcroft Z-foil. The most expensive resistor available at the moment apart from specialities like oil-damped Vishay bulk-foils in the Megaohm range. Absolut breakthrough and absolutely worth the money. I ordered two more per channel for the RIAA network. More life, more detail especially noticeable in cymbals and basses.
Next step were selected and matched oilcapacitors to replace the silvermicas in the RIAA equalization. One value was a direct replacement, for the other the oilcap was paralleled with a styroflex. To reduce burn-in time i put them into the powersupply of my poweramp for a week. Cooking them with 480V isn't a bad idea as they sound BIG. I can't wait for the Charcrofts.
Turntable: I got a Koetsu Black Cartridge. Very very nice sound. Detailed but still full of life! I built a 1:8 step-up using Lundahl LL1633s. I put a 50k stereo potentiometer parallel to the outputs to test various loads. There was a certain spot where the sound changed from great to thin and quiet. Luckily zero resistance was part of the nice region, so i didn't have to get extra resistors and input of the preamp could stay at 47kOhm.
