Trinity SILVER REFERENCE User manual

SILVER REFERENCE LINE
PHONO PREAMP
MANUAL

THANK YOU
for purchasing a product from RINI Y Electronic Design.
he RINI Y PHONO sets new standards so that discerning music aficionados can finally enjoy their most
beautiful recordings as if it were the true to life original.
he PHONO PREAMP supports RIAA, FFRR, COLUMBIA and EMI equalization.
Enjoy pure sound reproduction with our product.
Sincerely Yours
RINI Y eam

CONTENTS
Safety Instructions ................................................................................................. 5
Scope of Supply .........................................................................................................................................6
ransportation and Cleaning .......................................................................................................................6
Selecting the Power Voltage .......................................................................................................................7
Connecting and Starting ..............................................................................................................................7
Wiring Up.....................................................................................................................................................8
echnical descriptions ............................................................................................................................... .9
HE FINAL MEASUREMEN S.............................................................................................................. .20
Warranty...................................................................................................................................................... 27
Support.........................................................................................................................................................28

SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS
1. Please read this operating manual carefully and observe all the instructions affixed to the appliance or written in this
manual.
2. Install this product on a stable surface and make sure that nobody can trip over the cables.
3. his product should only be connected to a power source indicated on the product. If you are unsure what power source
you have in your region, please contact your local power utility.
4. Never operate this product near water or with wet hands. If the product comes in contact with liquids, immediately
disconnect it from the power source.
5. o exclude the risk of an electric shock, please never expose the product to the rain or other source of liquid.
6. In thunderstorms, do not install the product or put it into operation.
7. Never attempt to open the appliance or repair it yourself. If you open or remove the enclosure, you may expose parts that
are subjected to dangerous levels of voltage. Any unauthorized opening of the appliance will cause the warranty claim to
become null and void.
8. Do not allow children to play with electrical appliances without adult supervision. Children do not always recognize the
possible risks and consequences.

SCOPE OF SUPPLY
he scope of supply comprises:
•RINI Y PHONO PREAMP
•RINI Y PHONO Load connectors (4pcs.)
•RINI Y PHONO one arm cable (optional)
•Dimension 400mm x 300mm x 96mm plus 15mm feet, weight 32kg
•1 x Flight Case, weight: 35kg, dimension: 65cm, 55cm, 30cm
TRANSPORTATION AND CLEANING
Please only transport the parts listed in the scope of supply in the supplied flight case and use the supplied cotton gloves
when unpacking and installing the appliances to avoid scratching the enclosures.
Clean the surfaces using the supplied microfiber cloth: immerse the cloth in lukewarm water containing no detergents and
then carefully wipe the surface when the cloth is almost dry.
Never use chemical or a ressive deter ents.

SELECTING THE POWER VOLTAGE
he implemented wide-range switched mode power supply modules allow an operation from 100Vac to 240Vac. he two
fuses on the primary side are placed inside of the power entry module and filter.
CONNECTING AND STARTING
o install the PHONO PREAMP, select a stable, level surface directly next to the turn table so that the connecting cable to the
tone arm is as short as possible. Avoid placing the appliance in direct sunlight and never place the modules directly next to
radiators or fan heaters.
Protect all supplied parts from humidity and moisture.
Only wire up the components when the device is switched off.

WIRING UP
1. Disconnect the PHONO PREAMP from the power source. Never disconnect any wires unless the device is switched off.
2. Connect the PHONO PREAMP to the tone arm.
3. Connect the PHONO PREAMP to the LINE PREAMP.
4. Connect the PHONO Load Connectors to the load connector XLR inputs.
5. he precision rotary switch can be operated by a coin.
6. Select the matching load for the used MC pick-up.
7. Additional connectors with any values can be ordered as an option.

THE LOW NOISE INPUT STAGE
Even a low noise amplifier contains different noise sources and all resistive sources create thermal noise depending on the
temperature.
As Mr. James Bryant from Analog Devices mentioned:
“So anywhere at all that there is resistance in a circuit, whether it is carrying current or not, there is a noise generator with
an output voltage noise spectral density of
4
kTBR
We can reduce the noise by reducing the resistance R (this may increase current and/or power consumption), but reducing
the temperature k is not usually practicable (if we cool a resistor from room temperature (298K) to liquid nitrogen
temperature (77K), its noise voltage is still more than half its room temperature value). And, of course, we can't chan e
Boltzmann's Constant because Professor Boltzmann is dead.”

he B stands for band width and will be discussed later.
When a source like a MC pickup with it matching resistor is connected to a phono preamplifier`s input the output noise
includes contributions from both the amplifier and the source resistance. here exists an optimum source resistance for any
given amplifier, which will provide the lowest noise factor, or in other words the highest signal-to-noise ratio for any specific
input signal.
Since the source resistance is determined by the pick-up manufacturer, there is only one way left to optimize the overall
noise performance of a phono preamplifier.
he amplifier has to be designed in that way that it matches with these source resistances of the MC pick-ups or at least
come close to this value.
After solving some partial differential equations, it can be shown that the optimum source resistance is
n
n
e
R
i
=
hat means for a given amplifier the optimum source resistance can be calculated. Beside the low noise performance, the
amplifier has to match to other requirements as well. For instance the amplifier has to be linear and should not add any
distortion or the bandwidth should be well above the audio bandwidth and so on.

Often step-up transformers are used to match low source resistances with the optimum source resistance of the active
electronic. For the noise consideration this is a pretty good solution, but all transformers are limited in the band width, since
they cannot transfer DC voltage. Depending on the construction and the transfer ratio of the transformer the lower cut-off
frequency can be in the range of 20Hz. hat means a transformer acts always like a high pass filter.
A 1st order high pass with 20Hz cut-off frequency has the following amplitude and phase response:

he purple trace shows the group delay, which is easier to understand, since it is the time a signal needs to pass the
electronic.
If we consider a complex signal with 20Hz as the fundamental, then the fundamental of the signal needs 4ms from the input
to the output. he second harmonic needs only 1.5ms. hat means you will hear the harmonics before you hear the
fundamental!
It is said, that the gifted people with “Golden Ears” can hear differences of 50µs.
his deviation is reached with a 20Hz high pass at 250Hz. From there on the system is time coherent for the ears.
A few millisecond group delay variation is therefore not time coherent and the reason why the DC servo in the RINI Y
PHONO PREAMP starts at 0.5Hz.
o avoid such a step-up transformer the RINI Y PHONO PREAMP uses 12 gain stages in parallel to reduce the input noise
voltage and thereby the optimum source resistance by a factor of
12 3.5 10.8
dB
= ≡
Of course you can write just anything down on paper, but what about the reality.
he next figure shows the inverse RIAA used as an input signal for the PHONO PREAMP.
he amplitude simulates a pickup with 150µV at 1kHz.

Input Signal Amplitude of 350uV, Input Signal Frequency 20Hz
Ideal distortion free output signal
Input Signal Amplitude of 350uV, Input Signal Frequency 1kHz
Ideal distortion free output signal,
Caused by the frequency response of the RIAA equalization the worst case frequency is the lower audio band at 20Hz. Even
at this extreme low level of 16µV at 20Hz the noise level of the RINI Y PHONO is below 80dB! And the linearity is ideal, since
no harmonics are measurable.
he noise level is further attenuated by the equalizing network, which is placed after the first gain stages and works like a low
pass filter. hat is the B (band width) part in this formula

THE GAIN
Each of the 24 gain stages has a fixed gain of 40dB. Caused by the double balanced architecture the overall gain is 6dB higher
for each gain block consisting of 12 gain stages. he complete gain without equalizer is therefore 92dB. Depending on the
different attenuation caused by the equalizing network the gain related to 1kHz is between 72dB for the RIAA und roughly
78dB for the other equalizer settings. Each gain stage has its own DC servo, to avoid that the DC servo affects the accuracy of
the equalizing network. hat means each channel consist of 48 low noise amplifier plus 8 additional extreme low noise
voltage regulators, which are arrange in a point of load regulation architecture.
THE EQUALIZATION
he very high accurate equalization curves are calculated with the help of the Laplace operator and the results are
transferred as a look-up table to the audio analyser to measure each device in the correct way. he following graphs show
the inverse response of the respective equalizer.
Important note:
The equalization FFRR, Columbia and EMI are only for MONO micro roove recordin s done before 1957.
All stereo recordin s have to be played with the RIAA equalizer.

Inverse RIAA
Frequencies
50.05Hz
500
.5Hz
2122Hz
ime Constants
3179.9us
317.99us
75.002us
Laplace Operator
(1+3180µs) (1+75µs)
(1+318µs)
∗
Frequency
/
Hertz
20
50
100
200
500
1
k
2
k
5
k
10
k
20
k
Inverse RIAA / dB
-
15
-
10
-
5
0
5
10
15
20

Inverse FRRR
Frequencies
100 Hz
500Hz
3000Hz
ime Constants
1591.5us
318us
53us
Laplace Operator
(1+ µs) (1+53µs)
(1+
1591.5
318µs)
∗
Frequency
/
Hertz
20
50
100
200
500
1
k
2
k
5
k
10
k
20
k
Inverse FFRR (London/Decca) / dB
-
15
-
10
-
5
0
5
10
15
20

Inverse COLUMBIA
Frequencies
100Hz
500Hz
1590Hz
ime Constants
1591.5us
318us
100us
Laplace Operator
(1+1591.5µs) (1+100µs)
(1+318µs)
∗
Frequency
/
Hertz
20
50
100
200
500
1
k
2
k
5
k
10
k
Inverse COLUMBIA / dB
-
15
-
10
-
5
0
5
10
15
20

Inverse EMI
Frequencies
70Hz
500Hz
2500Hz
ime Constants
2273.6us
318us
63.6us
Laplace
Operator
2273.6 63.6
(1+ µs) (1+ µs)
(1+318µs)
∗
Frequency
/
Hertz
20
50
100
200
500
1
k
2
k
5
k
10
k
Inverse EMI / dB
-
15
-
10
-
5
0
5
10
15
20

THE FINAL MEASUREMENTS
All RINI Y devices are shipped with a complete measurement protocol and not with some “typical” value published on the
web page or in the data sheet.
What you see (in the measurement results) is what you get.
he measurements are done after a burn-in of 48hours and with a calibrated input voltage of 350µV at 1kHz.