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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
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
rlawry
484 posts
 
I agree with the others that your problem probably lies elsewhere.  I have used the phono stage in my previous CAT preamp, a Michael Yee (designer of the Musical Surroundings Phenomena) Audio solid-state phono stage, an Aesthetix Rhea (very important to use low-noise tubes since they use tubes for all of the gain), and my current Manley Steelhead.  Only when using noisy tubes have they been a problem.  In fact, the surface noise on many LP's completely overwhelms any phono stage noise.  I use a Lyra Titan i cartridge with 0.45mV output.
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
Hello Raul,
I appreciate your  reply. You did not directly compare the Klyne and the Herron phono stages ( or hear the Herron in your system).  It is clear that you hold the Klyne in very high regard. These two units very likely have different sonic characteristics and choice will be determined by taste and system synergy concerns.
Charles,
don_c55
1,025 posts
 
"Quiet sound" is a result of the complete system amplification, not just the phono stage.
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