What is the best phono stage you have heard?

Bottle Hi, is that GT's LCR 'experimental' stage, he showed it to me once.

 

The Battery powered Sutherland PHD, quite simply stunning

 

What valves are in the Allnic Keith? I'm wondering if its a re-made Pultech PC10. (no bad thing btw)

 

There are 14 of them in there, I know that much! As soon as I get a chance I shall take some internal photos!

 

btw took a Sutherland in p/ex , not bad, quiet but a bit dull, the battery ASR was similiar , imho.

 

Loads of Valves. here is the list.

6 X 5842
2 x E282F
2 x A2293
2 x 6BH6 Voltage regulator
1 x 5AR4 Rectifier

 

Sounds like great value! Will it be played at the London show at the end of March?

 

hopefully

 

So will you be selling this stage you rate so highly then HFA?

 

hopefully. would you like to try one? I'm over to Richard's on Friday

 

Best I've ever heard was the Ayre p-5xe running balanced

 

Hi

I think so - or at least it sounds similar. It takes up an entire hifi rack it's that big!

Not remotely sensible, but our hobby isn't and never will be!!

 

I think that flexibility can also be an important consideration. Have never heard the Ayre p-5xe but it looks amazingly useful with balanced and s/ended outputs and inputs, selectable gain etc. Probably very quiet too.

If you do much transferring of vinyl to digital, then something like the Ayre might end up more satisfying than the better tubed designs (especially if there wasn't much of a sonic penalty).

Has anyone tried running a cartridge fully balanced?

 

Yes - I run fully balanced up to the outputs of my preamp. Cartidge is a VPI modded Dynavector MC on a JMW 9 signtr - that runs from balanced outputs into the balanced ins on my Ayre phono and from there out to balanced ins on a Music First passive preamp.

I've heard that some people think balanced operation has less sparkle, but I've never heard it - sounds great to me. I have compared with running single ended and the benefits in my system are primarily in increased resolution. Out of interest I also my CD balanced - I still preferred it to single ended, but the benefits were not as marked as with vinyl. I think the noise rejection of balanced operation probably has a more obvious benefit with a low level source such as MC cart - makes sense to me anyway.

 

LCR phono stages seem to be the way to go. I here there may be a Music First LCR phonostage in the pipeline, I know Johnathan has spoken about building one one day.

 

Who else uses the LCR eq, David's 'Cole' from Hi Fi supply, Tango used to make the modules for Kondo I believe do Kondo use an LCR circuit, what about valve regulated power supplies ? Presumably the M7 phono has a seperate power supply?

 

Yep,the Cole has a SQ LCR and step up in it. It would be interesting to do a head to head between my Cole and your Allnic. It only has two 6922s and an EZ80.

 

In the Jewellery and Diamond trade, we say something that's "Fine" means pure and cannot be bettered.
Coops, I guess that's not what you mean here?

 

What do you call 'squawky' in the diamond biz? Keith.

 

David yes that would be interesting, we could also listen to various tube amplifiers of quite different design! regards Keith.