Ok, what would believe…. but I am in needs to get another phonostage. Te older I become the lazier I become and there is no way I would switch those cables form tonearms again. Also, each time I switch the cables the unused cables drops behind my rack. It sucks! Before I was able to stick myself behind the rack and pick them up but nowadays, since I becoming circumferentially challenged my fat body does not fit behind the rack anymore. So, I need another phonostage to drive my other tonearms.

I do not need a phonostage that would take medals, “push envelops” or send the Framer-like Morons into their multiple reviewing orgasm. I have two phonostage that I ma planning to continue to use with my reference stereo and reference mono tonearms (ET SU2 +2834PT for stereo and 7788-7721 with EAR’s feedback for mono). They deliver the quality that I need and they sit very permanently in the system. Since I was not able to make a switching multi-jack router at the SU2’s input (to little current form cartridges to switch them painlessly) then in order do not compromise the “reference” postages I need one more phonostages to drive “other” tonearms. It defiantly should not be bad sounding phonostage but I would be liberal with its sonic capacities.

I was thinking to build one but as lazy as I am I do not want to have those hassles to solder with one hand and with other hand trying to catch my Koshka who just stolen resistors from my table… So, I juts do not want to build anything if it is not necessary as I feel that the “second-type” phonostage should be bought and forgotten....

OK what I need:

1) Irrelevant look and appearance
2) Irrelevant topology (RC, RLC, feedback, SS, tubes, hybrid, ethanol, Da Vinci code… whatever)
3) >75dB gain
4) Small size
5) better then 80dB noise

Also, I would have two other off the wall requirements:

1) It should not be expansive. My rational is not to save money but reasonability. If it cost for instance more then $1000 then… Well what would be then? My wonderfully performing 7788-7721 has 64dB gains and it would take for me a day or two to assemble one more unit and add to it one more gain stage. So, the prospective phonostage should not cost more then I do per day-two or I just would build it myself form the parts that I do have and, being a Jew, would pay to myself.

2) It should have a space at input as I most likely would add 3-4 inputs there. Alternatively the prospective phonostage should have an agreeable manufacture who would take my extra payment and will add at least 3 input himself. I would supply all necessary tested materials to do the job.

The person who would provide me with a successful lead to the above described phonostage would receive a rewords. It will not be frantically tangible reword but rather audible reword. I assure a unique and extremely high musical value of the reword.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Ronnie wrote:

Not expensive, Small size...cheap and cheerful....

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?postID=957#957

Not only that. I spoke with many many many quite serious designers who confessed to me that they never ever were able to make absolutely transparent sounding no-gain buffer. So, if a SS solution can deliver an absolutely transparent buffers then why SS should not make a good phonostage? It looks like signal to noise ratio is also very much on the SS side….
 
Of course there are hundreds of cheap SS MM/MC phonostages, stand-alone and built-in  into the various consumer prodacts. I tried a few and they sounded garbage-like. However it indicates only that what I tired was bad but it does not suggest that any SS at phono-level should suck. The Guy Hammel’s  buffer is a clean vindication of that fact.

So, what happens at top-of-objectives SS phono market? Keith Herron’s VTPH-1 phono corrector has in it’s MC configuration a SS gain stage. I did not own this phonocorrector, but heard it a few times. Generally the Herron’s products sounds quite pleasant and his phono sounds promising.  Lloyd Walker has his purely SS 66dB phonostage with some kind of secretive NASSA- flying, Pentagon-confidential, Baghdad flea market selling SS chip. I heard it as well in a number of occasions. The phonostage was OK probably would require some in-house audition-evaluation in order to say something more defiantly. I never pursued this SS as I generally do not find that Lloyd Walker is worthy audio thinker or interesting audio designer. All Walker’s products are just the glorified tweaking, with brainless design philosophy and cheap marketing propaganda spread by ironically-accidentally… the idiots-users. Still, it is possible that Walker’s phonocorrector might sound fine if it would be made without participation of the Walker’s head . John Curl with his  ”fun club” has his Vendetta Research (Blowtorch), FET-based phonocorrector. It has 62-70dB gain, little low but also low noise. I heard the Blowtorch many times, it sounded OK but I never heard it driven by MC. Some people like this Vendetta phonocorrector some do not. I never pursued Vendetta because my high disrespect to John Curl and that entire consciousness that sits behind all those people of the John Curl’s club. They are culturally not equipped and intellectually corrupted to make any more or less serious audio. Still, it settles down my personal relation with Vendetta (Blowtorch) but dose not address the question about the SS applicability for phono-correctors. Jonathan Carr has his Connoisseur phonostage that reportedly is very good. I heard it twice in uncontrolled condition. I can’t say anything about it and it should be heard more properly (preferably with no Lyra cartridges)

Interesting that I looked for the top of the line, expansive, “big and flashy” phonocorrectors but it is very possible that some $299 cheap SS box would do better? Would it be?

So, why tubes in phonocorrector if the tubes can’t do make a sonically transparent buffer? Perhaps marketing-wise the guys who do analog want to see tube? I do not know. Screw the marketing and screw the prejudices. Let to see and hear the actual results. It would be very good if any small SS devise would do 80dB gain… Or perhaps it is necessary to add to my 7788-7721 phonocorrector another stage and forget about it? The answer is pending….

While Dima and I were thinking how to get out of our 7788-7721 80dB gain, a visitor in reply to my inquiry above about a “second-type” phonostage sent me a link that make me very much queries. He suggested looking at DACT CT-100 phono module. It is relatively inexpensive ($700), objectively made; build up SS unit with 80dB gain. The characteristics are impressive and the performance is unknown…

http://www.dact.com/html/phono_stages.html

The fan part with this solution might be that it cold be made very small and position it in a comfy location that would actual make to switching cables very comfortable. In addition it could be driver by DC… So who know perhaps it might e very interesting area to explore…. Well, it will be “second-type” phonostage, right? Who know, perhaps it would do. Is someone familiar?

The caT

Thanks, Gregm.

My primary concern with all those IC-based phonostages is that they are thin like hell. The audio freaks like it, I do not. I never heard the DACT CT-100 and can not speculate. I have seen this one:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/PDF/DACT_Phono.pdf

quite unpleasant observation as I can see. Although I would not let the article to stay in a way of my own perception but frankly speaking what Charles have found id very close to what I would expect. Also, the DACT reply was quite a moronic as well. Still, I do not know…..

Thanks for pointing out the ASR’s little IC phonostage. I have a strong dislike of ASR: their amps are horrible – the real nightmare of any amplification. This battery powered phonostage might be different – I do not know. I spoke with a local guy who sells it and he of course had passed very positive feedback. He is not far and I might hear it in person. There is something strange with that ASR phono: you say that it is 80dB gain maximum, the manual from two other people says 70dB and 76db. OK, you might not know but the manual from the damn company should be kind of more agreeable. The list praise for this unit is also not around ~800-900 but $7.000. Although the street price is much lower but still: how much a damn IC-based phonostage should cost? The entire TV of DVD played nowadays cost $100 and the IC-based phonostage has 1% complexity of that TV and built with the same technologies and parts. $7K is not what I am wiling to spend for the “Second-type” phonostage, not to mention that in that ASR phonocorrector is the most expansive part in battery that cost $19.88 in “You do it electronics”. Of course my fanatical beaching has nothing to do with the way in which that ASR’s phono might sound (I still do not have a lot of expectations)  but for $7K I am very strongly negatively predisposed.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Yes, I know, Antonio, thanks. There are a lot of IC-based phonostages out there. I have no technical reasons to say that they should be bad but unfortunately they sound kind of “identically bad”. You see no one make them to sound in a “tailored”, defined, objectionable way but people juts put together few op-amp and get “as is” sound. Not to mention that people who know something about op-amps and electronics mostly are clueless about Sound.

It is possible that someone does a well sounding, 80dB IC-base correctors, why not, I just do not know how can I learn about it. A few years ago I bout one of those correctors. I forgot the name; I think it was some kind of “Project”. All high-end stores sold it for near 300 but my local pro music shop sold it almost 8 times cheaper. Initially I was very impressed that actual for those $40 t did RIAA, have no noise and so on but eventually when I moved form a cheap MC to a reasonably good MC I learned that it had unacceptable sound of nothingness. Still, what disgust me in the IC-base RIAA correctors is not the way in witch they might sound but that way in wish they are marketer. Any IC-base RIAA corrector should cost $30, with no expiations. I have called to a local guy who it trying to sell the ASR correctors for $7K and he begging to sing me the songs that ASR do not use the regular ICs but the ICs that they removed form the demilitarized Russian nuclear missiles console and fallen Chinese satellites. I do not think that he passed any message to me beside unavailingly informing me that apparently any single customer who he deal with him was an incredible idiot.

The caT

Gregm wrote:

"ASR do not use the regular ICs but the ICs that they removed form the demilitarized Russian nuclear missiles console and fallen Chinese satellites" . ..which means that they use cheap, used ICs. So, the dealer has a better margin & can discount w/out going out of business... However, unlike your dealer, I was referring to the entry level asr: I checked & it's called "mini-basis". I know the one yr dealer is trying to push to you & it's most of what you don't want: apart from the price (which puts it outside the scope of what you're looking for anyway), it's a very large two boxes product; the riaa box has to be on a top shelf to allow access to loading & gain controls; and it's heavy... There's no point in my suggesting 15 products that look OK but I haven't heard (one ex: http://www.customanalogue.com/jlti_phono_stage.htm) -- but remembered that pass-labs publishes plans for a ~60dB phono called "pearl": http://www.passdiy.com/projects/pearlono1.htm which shouldn't cost much. I've heard the Xono but not this. At least they come from the same stable. The Pass uses jfets rather than denuclearised Russian military ICs...

- OK, how does it cost?
- Around $7K
- How came that a cheap and small IS-based unit could cost $7K
- It uses everything from military
- What “from military”?
- I do not know.

I really do not feel that it might be more idiotic then that and particularly knowing that whatever this dealer sells, able to sell, or even able to understand is completely primitive.

Thanks for pitching me the different options I will certainly give it consideration. One of the problems of mine that I can’t use the commonly accepted definition of “good sounding phonostage” for myself. People out there, form my perspective, looking for very specific sound in phonostages. I would characterize it as sharp, impressive, bold, shmaltz-like with excessive sentimentality and showy transacted harmonics. When they get this form a phonostage (99.9%) of them then they feel that they get “quality” or at least have a “conformation of quality”. I really really really hate this sound and I looking in phonostage (beside everything else) musical softness, tonal none-aggressiveness, space, elegance and grace. I do not need to get form phonostage the analog chic – I have the rest elements of my system to do the necessary thighs. A visitor of my suite suggested in private email that my “system matches best with a front-end that is overly warm and euphonic”. It is might be so in a way but I would not use warm but rather “soft”. Warmth describes tone but softness describes contrast. I would make a parallel with printing photographs during the “old” silver technologies. You may have negative of excessive contrast (Gamma >.065) and use a soft phonographic paper. You might get a reasonably normal final image but the problem is that a trained eye will detect that the negative with excessive contrast has “burned” detail on the max and minimum and minimum optical density. Also the stricture of the film’s grain will be “deferent” not to mention many other thighs…

In my past during my phonographic times I have invented a very interesting and very original developer that did many interesting thing with the stricture of negative, relationship between density and it’s shadow, geometry and border effect of the grain and many other thighs. In addition the developer had developed film to the quite low numbers of Gamma (contrast). The key to handling that contract was use very different type of the light in my enlargers with wish the negative was magnified. I did not use that defused light as usually but rather a super contrast light of the light source that was located in the optical infinity of my enlarger and had it’s geometry infinitely small for a given optical configuration of the enlarger. It produced very different result and demanded very deferent things from the optically system of enlargers but the final result was very gratifying. I feel that in audio I subconsciously do the same and I do tent to have “soft start and strong finish” instead of dealing with opposite. In away I feel that a “correctness” should be approached gradually by “adding” that thing that do not exists instead of “removing” the things that too much.

Gregm, retiring to your post: it would be fun if those JLTi people provide even some very minor specification for their phonostage.  The statements like “we used it with extremely low 0.22mV MC cartridge and it was fine” with mention the dB gain sound too foolish. What was the sensitively of their speakers, gain in this power amp, gain in the preamps if it was used, the size of the room and so on and so on. Not to mention that 0.22mV is not extremely low output for a cartridge but quote an average….

hagtech wrote:

Interesting.  I remember getting low contrast levels when using the asa 32 film (I think it was pan-x), but huge grey scales.  Sometimes I shot in tri-x just to add drama.  In the end though, my best prints were from the pan-x using nearly monochromatic enlarger illumination and then developing the paper for extraordinary long times.  The subtleties and nuances in the image lived on.  One thing I know is that narrow-banding the illumination gets you better contrast and sharpness through the enlarger lens.  Fewer ghost images, backscatter, and stray rays.

Actually it is not about the getting the low contrast but getting the lowest possible global contrast with maximum (or better to say optimum) frequency- contrast characteristic. Development of the print for a long time is fine, in fact as far as I concern it is absolutely mandatory. I developed prints in 3-4 time over-concentrated develop at height temperature and with excessive amount of antifogging Potassium Bromide.  The key was also in the cooking the negatives in a certain way. The developer that invented was like nothing else. It had 4 developing agents in quite high concentration (Metol, Phenidone, Hydroquinonee, Glycin), supported with large amount of Sodium sulfite and practically with no Sodium Carbonate (believe me or not it was only 2 grammas). The developing agents have own ways to be soluble in concentrated sulfurous acid and I find way to deal with it without the oxidation of the agents. As the result I had very strong primordial soup where the different type of the developing agents in the certain proportion contributed own developing qualities but it all happened at very low pH where nothing can catalyze the development process. The development was quite long: ~ 20 minutes for 50ASA and it was in context of no antifogging ingredients: no benzotriazole and no ionic salts. It leaded to very low contract negative but with a phenomenal inner details, and particularly in the dark. At that time, when I was in middle of my teens I was a creative, artistic minded photographer, did “pure Art”, had expositions… who did not do it in teens?! (The image in the “Knowledge Tree” section is from that time) I loved the “low keys” and was truing to get as lot as possible “information load” in the density that approached the Dmax. The paintings of some mid centuries paintings encourage me but do accomplish it in photography was very-very complex. My 4 developing agents  + some “different” printing method were the solution as I have seen it at that time. Here is one of my typical works from that time.

I was 15-16 at that time and this works is from my cycle about the Odessa’s unique living years. On the screed and via a digital camera it looks like crap bit on the original print there is a lot of “performance” in those dark, “almost black” regions…

hagtech wrote:

In terms of audio, I think a loss of microdetail results in higher contrast.  Sort of like a CD.  The grey scale is quantized and you can only get so small.  So any phonostage that smears or adds noise or grain tends to mask the subtle shades of music.  There is a loss of resolving power.

I do not think that it is juts about the present of the microdetail but rather how those microdetail related to everything else. I think sound is much more complex then image, although our vision is more perfect multi-angled compressor then our hearing.

hagtech wrote:

So perhaps your front end is not warm, but rather emphasizes resolution and shades of grey.

Hm, I would not say “emphasizes resolution” as the resolution is very corrupted word in audio lingo. I would say that I am after in my front end to get maximums identically for each atomic particle of presentation. A note should be very different from another note, as different as possible BUT at the same time it should be related to that “different” note. Everything works in there together: harmonistic, contrast, decays, compressions, phases randomanization and many things… The interesting is that whatever I do with phonocorrector and whatever I try… I in the end return to SU2 and 834PT and realize that it could not be bitten. Playing it is like returning home to a bed of a women you love after spending a weekend with a young and “effective” prostitute….

Romy the Cat wrote:

Metol, Phenidone, Hydroquinonee, Glycin

hagtech wrote:

Musta been a teenage thing.  I never got around to experimentation with my own chemical formulas.

Nope, it is nothing to do with teenage thing but rather a cultural thing. In Russia any more or less civilize photographer made own chemicals at that time because whatever was commercially available was garbage. In fact if one know what and how to do then it was possible to take the self-made results light-years further up then the “default” D76…. BTW, the image luck not only referent to black but also the referent to white. Usually shooting in fog it is necessary to add black and white artificially or the prints would look lie they “gray”.

Anyhow, returning back to phonostages, a visitor who observed my frustration with second-type phostage send a link suggesting something that I did not see:

http://www.aqvox.de/phono.html

Did anyone hear it or anyone could bitch regarding what they are saying in their web site? The undefeatable ramble filters look very ugly… Also, I do not get the they mean by self-matching input impedance and why they stopped at 100Ohm?...

The Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

Well, Gregm, obviously you should not take me too literally when I mention the “fallen Chinese satellites”, I slightly dramatized what was sod to me, making it more absurd, but did I? Rgs, Romy the Cat

Tm I ma glad that your “Manhattan project” is over as I was a little scared….

Well, I always thought that I have an open mind and I would not mind to try it. Unfortunately I do not do SS as I afraid of it electrically…

This phonostage of yours, is it available only as a schismatic or is it possible trying this thing? Also, it looks like the "Analogue Addicts Phono Stage" has 40dB gain. It is very insufficient and it should be 70dB at least to handle .2mV cartridges. (I would like to have more all the way up to 80dB ). I know, I know you would suggest getting extra 25dB out of a transformer but it would defeat the purpose of the “second phonostage”. The entire idea of the “second phonostage” is that it should not be real-estate demanding and relatively cheap. If I need to run the cables into a good transformer (that would cost much more and is much larger then the entire “second phonostage” then why do I need a “second phonostage”. I might use with the same sasses a second “first phonostage”.

In the end my comment that any IC-base RIAA corrector should cost $30 was more allegorical then actual. I feel that even $400 Retail is a reason price for a good IC-base RIAA corrector. ($400 Retail means the sub $50 of cost). What I was against in my comment “should cost $30, with no expiations” was that people should not try to sell the IC-base RIAA correctors for $7K-$8K….

The Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

Tm I ma glad that your “Manhattan project” is over as I was a little scared….

As you well know, it ain't over till the Fat Lady sings.

The "Manhatten Project" will be back.

Romy the Cat wrote:

This phonostage of yours, is it available only as a schismatic or is it possible trying this thing?

Romy the Cat wrote:

Also, it looks like the "Analogue Addicts Phono Stage" has 40dB gain. It is very insufficient and it should be 70dB at least to handle .2mV cartridges. (I would like to have more all the way up to 80dB ).

Romy the Cat wrote:

The entire idea of the “second phonostage” is that it should not be real-estate demanding and relatively cheap.