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Do they make a quiet great sounding phono pre amp??

Hi, I have purchased and listened to 3 phono preamps which are: A musical surroundings phonomena, musical surroundings Nova II, and a Manley labs Chinook. The Manely labs Chinook is by far bettter sounding then the first two (double the cost too). But, All three have given me nothing but trouble (noise,noise,noise even terrible clipped signals!), and 2 of them basically failed on me. So before I go DIGITAL, can someone please tell me who makes a phono preamp in the $2,000-$3,000 range (tube or solid state) that I can rely on, and sounds as good or better than the Chinook?? Thanks.


Matt M                                             
128x128mattmiller
mechans
3,048 posts
 
I am sure that a low output MC has specific advantages over HOMC. Nonetheless I really like my Dynevector HO cart, it has too many positive attributes andeffects  to mention here.  It has put the MM carts I used previously to shame.  To be blunt it makes beautiful  sound that no MM has ever given m\e. 
lak's avatar
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lak
4,669 posts
 
+1 jmcgrogan2

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rauliruegas
13,103 posts
 
Dear @charles1dad : I owned Klyne products and are excelent with very good design, it’s almost nothing to ask for in the Klyne. I heard the Herron but not in my system and certainly not " face to face " to the Klyne.

In the other suide the price differences in between is really high.

The real issue is that overall where each one of us want to " arrive " to which quality level performance. Phono stage is part of that but only a link in the system audio chain. Maybe the Klyne is to much for the @mattmiller cartridge and system, Klyne is in a different " league ".

regards and enjoy the music,
R.
lewm
13,194 posts
 
Raul, You've stimulated me to take my Klyne 6LX out of mothballs and give it a listen on my Beveridge speakers.  I built a mega-oversize outboard PS for it, and Stan Klyne massaged the phono section only a few years ago.  The only difference between a 6LX and a 7 is the balanced output option on the latter, which I would prefer if it were available.  However, the 6LX is indeed dead quiet. When last I did listen to its phono section, I found it just a little "dry" sounding, compared, of course, to tubes. After that, I ran a Silvaweld SWH550 tube phono stage into the Klyne, feeding the Bevs. That was a great combo.
smrex13
645 posts
 
Just thinking out loud here, but you have used a solid state, a tubed, and a battery-powered phono stage and had noise and clipped signals with all of them?  It is likely that the problem is somewhere else in your set-up.  All three of those phono stages are well respected and should perform reasonably well in most rigs.  You might consider things like an EMI/RFI issue, some type of impedance mismatch problem somewhere in the system, noisy power line, etc.

Just my two cents - good luck!
Scott
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