azog-audio V33 Owner's Manual

V33 Fully-Balanced Phono Preamplifier
OWNER'S MANUAL
OWNER'S MANUAL

Introduction

Thank you for buying the azog-audio V33 fully-balanced phono preamplifier. This product has been
carefully engineered and extensively auditioned to allow rare insight into vinyl recordings, offering
true listener engagement. Please read this manual carefully before operating your preamplifier to
ensure that you get the best out of it and avoid installation and setup problems or loss of warranty.
We at azog-audio are certain that you will enjoy many hours of listening pleasure through it.

Placement

As with all phono preamplifiers, due to the very small input signal level, to get the best possible
sound reproduction the installation location is especially important. Strong magnetic fields
emanating from mains cables, motors and mains transformers found in other equipment can induce
considerable hum onto the audio signal. This is true of all phono preamplifiers, not just your new
unit, and although V33 has been engineered specifically to offer the highest levels of immunity to
common-mode noise such as mains frequency artifacts, it can still be affected by poor placement.
Physical separation is the best way to reduce as much as possible or eliminate any hum problems
that such undesired coupling can create. It is usually both the radial distance and the azimuth of the
sensitive phono cartridge, cabling and preamplifier input circuits in relation to the aggressor device
that affects the coupling level. Experiment with off-axis placement and distancing of the aggressor
to your turntable and preamplifier. This includes the preamplifier's own external power supply,
which should not be placed nearer than half a meter on any axis from the sensitive preamplifier
input circuitry.
Keep your preamplifier away from sources of heat and allow natural air circulation around it to
prolong its life. It is not recommended to leave the unit permanently powered on, as this will reduce
its useful life. This is because V33 contains highly-biased circuits, which as such get warm. Azog-
audio recommends utilizing the standby switch, located at the bottom side of the preamplifier
enclosure, below the front-face logo. About half and hour of warm-up time in the switched on
position will bring the unit close to its maximum sound quality potential.

Connections

The V33 phono preamplifier is compatible only with so-called "low output" moving coil phono
cartridges. This type of cartridge produces no more than 1mV of output voltage at 1KHz, 5cm/sec,
and requires a resistive termination ranging from tens of ohms up to ~1KOhm, depending on make
and model. The reason MM cartridges are not supported by V33 is that within its cost budget
corners would have to be cut in the design of the unit to support both cartridge types, resulting in
suboptimal performance.
MC cartridges are inherently balanced transducers, that is they produce an electrical signal of equal
amplitude on a pair of terminals in antiphase. No ground reference exists, nor is it necessary when a
balanced, low differential and high common-mode impedance connection from the cartridge coils to
your V33 phono preamplifier is maintained. In fact, maintaining an electrically `clean' ground
connection between different units is very difficult to achieve in practice, and ground loops can be
easily formed. Hence the best approach is to design interconnections and equipment such that signal