Best cost no object tube phono

@reimarc

I’m surprised / impressed you able to balance the 16g LPS on a ProJect arm, but this is probably a case of too much cartridge for your deck.

I have an LPS in my collection and felt it wasn’t a great match for a SUT - I’ve tried several, all ratios. My phono stage is a VAC Renaissance (internal SUT), which makes all my OTHER cartridges sound by far their best (especially with a better matched outboard SUT), but the LPS is the odd man out here. I would indeed be looking at an ARC Reference if I were tying to optimally match the LPS. I can hear many things the LPS does well on my Graham Phantom and Hagerman Trumpet MC, and it’s great, but not quite up to the levels I can reach with other cartridges (including lower Benzes) on my VAC phono.

The lower Benz Ebony L and Zebrawood L (not the Ruby) models are far, far easier to work with because of their normal body weight and low impedance coils with a good output level. And they sound wonderful! They’re stellar with a SUT in the range of 15x (Zebra) - 30x (Ebony). In my system the Ebony and Zebra get lots of play, while the LPS simply rests waiting for a better phono match - which quite honestly may not be happening anytime soon (I don’t have any room for both an ARC and the VAC lol).

TLDR; you should have got a Zebrawood L with 0.4mV output and 12 ohm coils (not the ruby-plate Zebra, the iron-cross one)

Problem with an LPS into a 1:15 SUT is you end up with the cartridge seeing a 209ohm impedance. That could audibly attenuate treble, assuming a 47K ohm load resistance across the phono inputs, but Reimac was not complaining about that. The mismatch would not cause excessive hum or noise.

@lewm 

Yeah, no ideas on those 2 weird issues he's having. Just pointing out that his pairing of the LPS with other gear made me think "woah, I wouldn't do that".

@reimarc 

Since the hum has been in two phono sections so far, I am suspicious they are not the problem. It might be that there is a problem with the tonearm cable and/or wiring. Or it could be an issue where the phono section is too close to a hum source like a power transformer from an associated component. I would certainly test these possibilities before proceeding with any other equipment!

https://ariesceratespana.com/pages/talos-mk2-ref-phono-stage/