Doshi Audio V3.0 Tape Preamplifier

[MylesBAstor]

True to his word, Nick Doshi drove up from Virginia today to drop by and set-up his latest tape preamplifier in my system. Make no mistake. This is one serious tape preamplifier!

Here are some pictures of his unit.

Nick with the circuitry section of his tape preamplifier. It is kind of nice to have meters back in the system. On the front of the unit on the left side is a very nice headphone jack (not throwaway by any stretch of the imagination; IIRC, one can also chose between a Class A or A/B mode for head amplifier) and a muting switch that comes in handy when rewinding tape and preventing blown tweeters. To the right of the meters is a switch for selecting either AES/IEC/NAB EQs. Which EQ was selected is indicated by a blue LED. To their right--and normally hidden behind a panel when in use--are controls for adjusting levels and HF EQ. HF EQing is adjustable for 15 ips NAB and IEC as well as 30 ips AES. On the back of the unit are controls for head loading (the same concept as for cartridges), gain and LF EQ as well as outputs, inputs and connections to the power supply.










Some better pictures tomorrow!

[MylesBAstor]

Tube complement for those who are interested. Eight tubes including;

V1/V2: ECC99 (12BH7) Line driver output, one per channel
V3/V4: ECC81/12AT7 Phase splitter, one per channel
V5/V6: ECC81/12AT7 IEC EQ amplifier and driver, one per channel
V7/V8: ECC81/12AT7 NAB EQ amplifier and driver, one per channel

V1-V2 JJ
V3-V8 RFT

[JCOConnell]

Looks like a damn nice setup. Enjoy.

[Ki Choi]

It will be a tapehead classic.

[Rob]

Myles, whats your initial a/b take between the Doshi and King Cello?

[astrotoy]

Myles, could you post a picture of the rear of the Doshi? Thanks, Larry

[MylesBAstor]

Some more hopefully better pics.

With cover in place.





Without cover showing some of the adjustments for setting up the tape preamplifier.





Back of preamplifier for Larry. Kind of a pain to pull out but if want more will do tomorrow.



Ahh yes, how could I forget the muscle behind the beast?

[MylesBAstor]

Myles, could you post a picture of the rear of the Doshi? Thanks, Larry

From Nick's website.

[Bruce B]

This is what mine looks like with the balanced in/out. Best tape pre available!!!
One balanced output w/ transformer... the other w/o

[MylesBAstor]

Since I'm a single ended type guy, Nick had to modify the deck for me. Know that you are all balanced in the studio and it's a different situation.

[astrotoy]

Thanks, Myles. Larry

[grad]

Congrats Myles,

Please post your impressions!

Nick's components are first class & represent his passion for the hobby.

Enjoy!

[MylesBAstor]

Myles, whats your initial a/b take between the Doshi and King Cello?

Let me say this. Both are great tape preamplifiers and you can't go wrong with either unit. Remember also that Nick's tape preamplifier is around 4X the price of the King-Cello.That said, I'm going to defer on any definitive statements because Nick still has some fine tuning to do. It turns out the Nortronics head is high inductance and his loading value (set more for a Studer head) isn't low enough to get the best FR possible just yet. (one thing that should be further improved upon the unit's return is the sense of space.) I'll be sending it back later this week so Nick can make the appropriate modifications to can get the flattest FR.

Non-definitive impressions so far. The very first thing you'll hear playing the first tape--or especially early gen tape--is the Doshi's quietness and resolution. Eerily quiet and transparent. Especially if you've got a really transparent system. That quietness changes the "feeling" of the recording. With the Doshi, you're not just listening to The Doors "Riders on the Storm" in your listening room. No. Instead the Doshi magically transports you back to the recording studio.

Along with that is the Doshi's articulation of notes--something that Al (AlRainbow) who is a member here and dropped today to hear--commented upon. That was really evident on Grisman's wonderful mandolin solos on the "Arabia" track from that wonderful Grisman-Garcia tape. Notes just start and stop on a dime. Even the tone is slightly better here with Grisman's mandolin still having that ringing resonance without a metallic quality. By the way, the mandolin has appeared on more rock songs that we appreciate: a short list includes Rod Stewart, Led Zep, Jethro Tull, Seals and Croft, Styx, The Band, etc.

Another tape that I put on the Yarlung recording of Frederic Rosellet playing Johann Sebastian Bach's Suite No. 3 for solo 'cello in C Major, BWV 1009 along with György Ligeti's Sonata for solo 'cello. I recently picked this tape up and just can't recommend it highly enough. A definite must-have for tapeheads into classical music. The first thing that I noticed here with the Doshi in the system was less image wander with the cello. Two, the strings were simply cleaner sounding. Gone was a slight smearing that while adding some warm to the recording, just wasn't real. Lastly was just the lovely tone of Rosellet's cello. And it's this type of music and this area in particular that the Magicos eat up. There's just an amazing sense of linearity with no particular region drawing attention to itself.

[MylesBAstor]

Funny thing. Although the unit was broken-in, I swore it was sounding better each day. Then I realized Nick had changed the connectors so I could run the tape preamp in single-ended mode. There just seemed more depth to the notes and more information coming through.

[Gusf]

Ahh the beauty of a system settling in😍

[Rob]

Funny thing. Although the unit was broken-in, I swore it was sounding better each day. Then I realized Nick had changed the connectors so I could run the tape preamp in single-ended mode. There just seemed more depth to the notes and more information coming through.

hows the noise floor in comparison to the king Cello?

[MylesBAstor]

hows the noise floor in comparison to the king Cello?

Much lower.

Let me give you an example. For years, I had the Opus 3 Guitar Quartets recording on LP. Know it was a longtime resident of HP's list but could never get it to sound right on my system. The four guitars always seemed blurred (and blurred together) to me making it hard to actually pinpoint their location. Then Jan-Eric released one of the tracks from the album on the Opus 3 Sampler tape II. Far better sounding than the LP. (In fact in one of our conversations Jan-Eric mentioned he wasn't always happy with the tape transfers back then and in the end, ended up doing the mastering process himself.) Enter the King-Cello. Overall much better sound and feeling and body to the guitar. Then move to the Doshi today. Another world. Much more transparent. Finally, there's that delicacy to the guitars that's missing on many recordings (that was demonstrated to me years ago when Brian Cheney did a live vs. recorded digital copy of a guitar being played at CES. The digital copy was plunk, plunk, plunk. the liver guitar just floated in the air amidst a cloud of sound). On top of that, one can far more easily discern and separate each of the guitars now. Plus there's there's the bloom of the guitar. The tonality of the different guitar is so distinct now that its amazing.

[JCOConnell]

Myles, when you play back a silent portion of a tape, is it quieter, the same , or noisier than a silent groove played back on your LP system?