Phono preamp advice.

If you have a low to medium powered MC cartridge, you should snap up a used Sonic Frontiers Phono One. One showed up on the net in the past few days. They were $2000 list, class A rated in Stereophile, powerful and very clean and lovely sounding tube/ss hybrid. The EAR 834p units are also excellent if you have the parts upgraded, otherwise they are still very nice. Either of these should stomp the Phonomena (which is well regarded at it's price and no doubt a great value, but below the minimial standards of some fussy people like yours truly.)

(TIA: I've owned SF Phono One for several years - loving it! - and am now deciding whether to downgrade to the rather smallish modified EAR in order to reduce the footprint of my stereo. I've already gone from pre with monoblocks to a tube integrated amp. Trying to restore my living room to civilian use!)

Art

Art, thanks for the response. I have the Goldring Eroica cartridge which is a high output MC (it came with MMF7). How would the SF do with it?
Natalia

You should look into the Hagerman Trumpet. Check out Jim's website www.hagtech.com (I think). I own one and it is simply unbelievable.

I'm not sure, but you might be considering spending more than you should for your TT and cartridge. I'm not sure if it makes too much sense to upgrade the phono stage, when the money might be better spent on upgrading the TT, arm, and cartridge instead? Maybe others can chime in on that subject??

There is, or was, on Audiogon, an EAR 834P with extra tubes for a very good price--under $800. I have one and prefer it to an AHT DM-P phono preamp that cost more than three times as much retail. IMHO you couldn't go wrong with this choice, and could easily resell it for more if necessary.