Celebration vs Blackbird

Hi there, sounds like your pretty happy with your setup, congrats!
Here is the review on the Celebration:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0402/sumikocelebration.htm
I guess I'm kinda wondering whether it is worth the substantial investment over the Blackbird.
Thank you for your response

Oh yes, I did see that review, but didn't remember it talking about less than stellar tracking.

I never heard the blackbird, so I can't comment.

I do believe that sumiko will give you an allowance with trading in an older sumiko cart. Check it out - also Needle Doc seemed to offer good deals on the Celebration.

My mistake, the tracking was mentioned in Absolute Sound!

Dear Alun: I don't know nothing about your phonopreamp, so I can't tell you if it is true that the MM stage is better than the MC stage on it, other than if the MC stage use internal step up transformers then it is better if you go for the blackbird.

The Celebration is a better quality sound performer with the right gain ( with out external/internal SUT ) phonopreamp and I never had any tracking problem with it in any record.

Now, in my opinion, the phonopreamp is the most important link on an analog rig, if you want to take out the best of your analog rig you have to put your money in the best phonopreamp that you can buy on your budget. You will be rewarded if you do so.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

I don't believe that the sfp-1 uses transformers. I think it adds a FET stage to apply gain.
I've used this pre for a couple of years now in MC mode with my Benz Gold and I don't really notice any tube noise or distortion so it could be that the signature version (which I have) is a much better performer than the standard version.
Thank you for your response Raul, always a pleasure to hear your opinion, but I am having trouble believing that the phono stage is the MOST important piece in phono playback. I can't say however if there is a most important piece in the phono chain as they all seem to support each other. An excellent phono stage will not help a poor cartridge IMO.
Cheers!