Riverside P2 phono stage - anyone heard of it?

heard it thanks

WAD is no more than 2 miles from my house.

Heard also Conrad Johnson premier phono stages, Audio Research, Tron, Audion.

All slightly different, nothing I would describe as better than the EAR.

Next on the audition lists will be the Graaf phono stage and Manley steelhead.

 

Bottleneck, not yet asked about the Horizon - what would be a fair price? Was thinking 300 squid if it's a straight Horizon, 350 if it's an SE. Maybe a little more. I'm happy paying a bit more than the going private sale rate for the benefit of dealing with him, as it's always good buying 2nd-hand from a local dealer who's fair and knows you well.

Dunc

 

I wouldnt go any higher. 450 would get you an interspace for example..

529 is the new price for a horizon i think..

 

I think it's 529 with RB250, less without (though not much less - like 480 or something). The SE is around 530 sans arm.

Any advice on the improvement that the SE makes over the straight Horizon? Is there a consensus?

And Interspace for 450 you say....? Might I ask where, or is that an average figure? TBH 350 would be quite a stretch (on top of the 200 for the phono stage....) so 450 is probably just too much. Bit I'm still intrigued.

Dunc

 

To be straight up I have to say I don't know for sure, but would have thought isolating the motor (as in the SE) would or should make useful improvements. However the motor on my Spacedeck - same motor I'm pretty sure - is pretty quiet and vibration free except when its not spinning (NAS motors are always "on"), so it mightn't make a huge difference. £300 sounds reasonable to me if it comes with an arm. If it comes with a cart as well then even better.

 

I'm happy with my arm ATM and don't particularly feel the need to start thinking about cartridges just yet so I'm hoping to get it sans arm or cart. Not sure if it's an SE or not - will find out more tomorrow.

Dunc

 

OTOH if you got it for a good price with the arm, you wouldn't have any problem selling a minty RB250 on eBay. They usually fetch 80 to 90 quid (which is a bit mad but then so is eBay sometimes). Might work out cheaper in the long run.

PS. Stick it on the old Planar 2 (or leave the existing one in place) and you might make even more. Old Regas fetch decent money second hand.

 

No I didn't say the WAD stage I said NickG's build of the WAD which is a completely different beast and miles better than the stock WAD.

 

nice

manley steelhead is so wicked but a lot of moolah.
not valve but good is the dynavector 75 stage.
densen drive thing is good too.
all tim dp's phono stages sound great.
dnm full pre always makes a nice sound.
old jdi pre amp was good.
roksan artaxerxes can sound great.
naim 52 good on phono.
audio innovations p2 excellent.
old exposure top pre used to sound good too.
the crofts sound good on phono.
klyne phono stages nice.
the big tom evans is great.
but the one i've got my eyes on is the royal device blu eyes stage looks really interesting for 249.00 euros.

 

Folks,

I have tried a number of Chinese Phono stages. They invariably are either Dynaco PAS or RCA Manual Circuit derived and invariably sound pretty average at best (at worst really bad), partly due to poor component choices and partly as result of the actual design.

While maybe I should not mention it, DIY HiFisupply has recently changed their Phonostage to a circuit derived from one of my designs (which has been build quite widely).

It can be purchased assembled where the worst case "landed cost", including duties, VAT, shipping and all comes to around £ 600 for the more or less basic design, a little more (up to less that £ 100) for the Audio Note Copper Foil & Silver Mica coupling capacitor equipped version, all silver wired.

http://www.diyhifisupply.com/diyhs_cole.htm

For that £ 600 - 700 you get a Phonostage with valve rectification, passive filtered supply, zero feedback passive equalised, MC capable with pretty good MC stepup transformers (at least a match for EAR's stand alone stepup) and due to the ECC88 in the output stage it actually offers low(ish) output impedance without cathode followers or NFB so it will work fine into any input impedance higher than 10K (read passive controllers like systhesis passion or transformer based volume controlls are fine).

If you get the maxed out option pack with S&B LCR RIAA EQ Modules and S&B TX-103 Stepup Transformers (also my design) you have something that is snapping hard at the heels of the £ 9,000 Wavac Phonostage (don't know if it's better, I build a copy of the Shishido circuit used in the Wavac phonostage - it is at least as good) but an arguably substantial £ 1,300 landed cost assembled. Yet for that you get something that "pushes the boat out".

Note, I placed the original design used in the Cole in the public domain a few years back (you can find a discussion of it at www.diyaudio.com - search the tubes section for "DC Phono" and look on the first page for a Post by my evil alter ego Kuei Yang Wang) and have placed all the key information for the LCR equalised circuit (but no fully drawn out circuit) in the public domain as well (check Audio Circles Bent Audio Forum and the DIYHFS Forum at audioasylum.com).

I did help to get the implementation worked out with BC from DIYHFS. I do not get any licence fee from DIY HiFiSupply or a sales commission or stuff like that, but Brian Cerry from DIYHFS & myself are friends and continue to work on other commercial ventures which may involve remuneration, that just for disclosure.

Ciao T

POST SCRIPTVM:

My current own Phonostage is a pretty crazy one using S&B TX-103 MKII MC Stepups [serial # 001/002], S&B LCR RIAA Modules [serial # 001/002] and German E810F & D3a Pentodes, with a rather overbuild powersupply, look here:

http://www.jogis-roehrenbude.de/Leserbriefe/TH-Loesch-Line/TOCCATA_RIAA.htm



A translation of sorts of the English text is here:

Google Tlansration to blitish engrish

 

looks really interesting! - dont fancy a trip up the M1 do you T?

 

I've heard some of them have some pretty awful txs in them and stuff like wires touching the chassis etc. on delivery. I can understand the txs but wires hanging out etc is just crazy.

 

Looks like a real nice job 3D, and thanks for the info on the Asian imports, the quality issues do not surprise me at all!
Interesting web link to the kits too,...might be an option for myself

 

Hi,

Yes, here is a real horror story for you.

I recently stripped down a very nice looking chassis from a Dared Tube EL34 PP Amp with an unfortunate tendency to eat output valves (the owner got tired of it after it took a quartett Siemens EL34 to an early grave within 3 Month!) to use it for a from scratch rebuild using a new interresting Chinese 300B derived Output Valve which promises around 18 - 24W SE Power (yummy!).

In there I found several chassis hexhead screwheads that had been touching high voltage PCB Parts, insulated by several layers of small swatches of paper superglued over the screwheads. Worse was that the safety earth was NOT CONNECTED AT ALL on the Mains input. On top of that part of the IEC inlet plastic casing had been shaved off to make space for another hex screwhead exposing in the IEC inlet metal parts belonging to the life (240V AC) connection and yes, as you rightly guessed, several small swatches as paper had been superglued inbetween the chassis screwhead and the life mains connections, with some layers already scratched through!!!

Can you say "deathtrap"!?

Component quality was about as low as possible and various capacitors that had not fitted their PCB positions had been glued to the chassis with hotmelt glue and used long wires to connect to the PCB.

The Amp had been bought of E-Bay and looked fine on the outside, nicely boxed too, sounded pretty okay too (with NOS Ken Rad 6SL7 & 6SN7 and Siemens EL34's, not stock) and all that. But the mains transformer was 220V primary, not 240V (despite the purchaser being assured the Amp would be shipped with a 240V transformer after having explicitly requesting one) and thus all valve heaters where running well above 7V (6.3V is nominal), Anode voltages way too high too and thus a complete valuable set of NOS Valves died an early horrible death.

I can only say "caveat emptor" when buying such gear off E-Bay without any local UK backup and no easy recourse in case you got a turkey, like my friends Amp (though he was more pissed about the dead valves, they where worth more than what he paid for the Amp!).

Ciao T

 

..although I have not inspected too closely, from digital images of some of the Far East imports it 'appears' that the CE marking they are using may not be genuine.
If what 3DSonics reports is typical of the construction of many of the cheap imports being offered on ebay then I suspect that none of these are CE approved at all.

 

Hi,

I noticed the same. Also on actual gear.

I do not neccessarily believe it isas bad as that on average, but it CAN get as bad.

On the other side, realhi-fi.com used to handlae Opera so I got see quite a bit of their stuff and build quality is okay and gear is certainly safe, at least the genuine UK imports, the same holds also true of Shanling and no doubt many other makers. Whatever is shipped overseas to official distributors tends to be at least comptently assembled without obvious problems.

What reaches the market in other ways, either directly from the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) domestic market via e-bay and/or grey import - well you take you chances. You do save a lot of money but Quality control may not allways be up to the standards applied to export batches, often componentry also differs.

Ciao T

 

Id reccomend anybody stay with importers that have a solid reputation, and products that they have heard of - like Ming Da, Consonance etc.

We can't rubbish the repuations of imports from the east on a single horror story of an amp we dont know the make of, or importer we dont know the name of.

What was the make/model of the product?

 

Hi,

I agree.

The Amplifier Manufacturer was stated (Dared Tube), my point was the Amp was bought directly from China via E-Bay, not through any sensible distribution channels.

BUT, for some more, when we started importing Shanling into the UK a well known dealership decided they would be better off buying directly from china. Not only did they end up paying more than what they would through the official UK distribution, once all cost where in, all 16 players failed with 1 mains transformer burned out, as they where mainland china spec (220V main transformers).

Other issues that Shanling Owners faced where with early batches of their SACD players, which had the same problem as the Sony Machines (the transport is the same). While even out of warranty Players that came through the UK distribution are being fixed FOC (sadly it does a lot of time as the drive electronics need to be shipped to Japan on a onbe by one basis), anyone who bought a direct import now has a dead player....

So, even if you buy a supposedly reputable brand directly from china make sure you get a true 240V Version and that you know where to go to if something breaks.

For another "horror story" on what can happen with direct imports, I suggest this:

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=set&n=37097

Agreed, BEZ is again not a company with particular reputation, but they do turn up often on e-bay....


Ciao T

 

Thanks Thorsten, that will give a few names to be avoided!

 

Well, this afternoon is when I'm due to return the Riverside. After some heavy-duty listening last night I'm not 100% certain it's the right sound for me. It's definitely better than the MF for the most part, the bass in particular is gorgeous, but it seems as if the top end is hyped a little to make it sound punchier and more open, which actually sometimes ends up obscuring midrange detail that the MF picks up.

The thing is, I'm thinking this is maybe a feature of my deck/cartridge and that the Riverside is just picking this up while the MF is smoothing it over...

So I reckon for 200 quid I better exercise a little caution. And since I'm hoping to go for the Horizon I reckon I should do that first before I settle on a phono stage.

I'd also like to hear the Riverside in the shop again plugged into the SME 20 and see if there's any hyped upper mid/treble - might give me a better idea of the culprit.

Anyway, I'll let y'all know... (I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats!)

Dunc