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
Dear @mattmiller : Re-reading again it's really " funny " what is happening in your system with 3 different PS. It's almost imposible that the 3 PS were " damaged "/out of specs.

I know that for every one of us is to difficult to stay in " focus "(right with your system sympthoms and only can " figure " it.

If you can try to bring to your place ( from a friend or an audio distributor. ) a line preamp and make tests with looking how things goes.
I give you this advise because for an unknow reason the Manley line preamp could ahs a problem with the signal coming from the Chinnok. Sounds ridiculous but you have to try it. It sounds ridiculous too but you have to test connecting the PS signal to the CD input and through the AUX one too.

Other thing that could happen is that in all those PS ( almost imposible it can happen in the 3 units. ) exist extremely high/low frequency oscilations that can produce different kind of anomalies. These kind of oscilations are not easy to detect even for manufacturers.

Btw, """  noise,noise,noise even terrible clipped signals! """.

which kind of noise and how do you know are " clipped signals "?


Regards and enjoy the music,
R.




Hello everyone, After much snarling and growling and talking to different people I was able to place two 3to2 adapters on all components EXCEPT the main amplifier, I think by doing this the system is now funneling the grounds down to the one outlet, and now its quiet as a mouse!! So, I take back what I said earlier in this post about the phono preamps being noisy, it was a problem in my system. Thanks to all for posting! Really... there are too many of you too list, all of you made great points!! :-)

Matt M
Hello Matt,
I'm glad you were able to solve your noise issue not only thoroughly but also inexpensively as well 😊. 
Charles, 
mattmiller
I was able to place two 3to2 adapters on all components EXCEPT the main amplifier, I think by doing this the system is now funneling the grounds down to the one outlet, and now its quiet as a mouse!!
Do you mean that you've used adapters on all of your components other than one amplifier to defeat their AC safety grounds? If so, how do you think those disconnected grounds get "funneled" to one outlet?