What is the best phono stage you have heard?

bottleneck said:
I have an Ear 834p.

A great phono stage for the 350 ish that you can pick them up for used.
Audio Innovations P1's and P2's likewise, great buys.

The cambridge by all accounts great for the money..

But!! despite me owning and loving my 834p, it hardly deserves a place amongst ''best phono stages'' unless you don't get round expensive audio equipment much.

Best I've heard to date - hard to tell when you hear stuff out of system context. One I'd blindly plump for would be Graham Trickers (Tron) own personal 4 box phono stage. He did it in an experiment of the extreme. It has two power supplies, and a box per channel for the main gubbins. Each box is about the size of a standard system component. If released, I feel sure you're talking about the price of a very flash car.

You can hear Tron phono stages and maybe this one too at GT Audio nr London.

Of course as already mentioned I heard it in an unfamiliar system in an unknown room. It impressed nevertheless.
Click to expand...

Bottle Hi, is that GT's LCR 'experimental' stage, he showed it to me once.
 
There are 14 of them in there, I know that much! As soon as I get a chance I shall take some internal photos!
 
coops said:
There are 14 of them in there, I know that much! As soon as I get a chance I shall take some internal photos!
Click to expand...

btw took a Sutherland in p/ex , not bad, quiet but a bit dull, the battery ASR was similiar , imho.
 
coops said:
Bottle Hi, is that GT's LCR 'experimental' stage, he showed it to me once.
Click to expand...

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?
 
Baudrillard said:
Has anyone tried running a cartridge fully balanced?
Click to expand...

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.

COLElcr600L.jpg
 
Baudrillard said:
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.

COLElcr600L.jpg
Click to expand...

David yes that would be interesting, we could also listen to various tube amplifiers of quite different design! regards Keith.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Latest posts

Back
Top