Phono Preamps with "balls" ?

"balls" in this case means gusto, drive, dynamics and power.  these are definitely qualites that can be associated with phono preamps.  having owned many that were somewhat weak or anemic sounding I wanted to put a list together of some that are the contrary.  

With many phono sections the trick is to **not** use a cartridge that is at the lower limits of the phono section's gain limitations. Then almost any phono section will have what you are looking for.

Bonus: if the phono section is stable and has good overload margin, you will hear a significant reduction of ticks and pops, as many of those are caused by oscillation and RF overload caused by the inductance of the cartridge and the capacitance of the cable acting as a tuned RF circuit.

A way to tell that the phono section has stability problems is if you have to load your LOMC cartridge to get it to sound right (IOW the stock 47Kohms should be fine). The loading detunes the RF circuit and prevents it from injecting RFI into the preamp. But this comes at a price- the cantilever is stiffer, meaning that it will not track as easily. So a stable preamp is important!

Have you tried something like the Manley Steelhead? Hugely dynamic, and with great bass, IMO .

I own both a Manley Steelhead and the Atma-sphere MP1.  They both have "balls", but the MP1 has the bigger cojones, IMO.  As Ralph suggests, I am not only able to load my LOMCs at 47K into the MP1, but they really do sound best that way or certainly with a load R no lower than 1000 ohms.  Below that value, and there's a drop off in dynamics and open-ness of the sound and a slight increase in noise.  Sadly, the Steelhead does not permit running LOMCs at 47K load, unless you connect the LOMC through the MM input. Since the MM inputs can develop up to 65db gain, that's actually feasible.  Don't get me wrong; I do like the Steelhead very much.

Dear @avanti1960 : Power is ( for me ) the main characteristic of live MUSIC that obviously an audio system just can’t match it. Other main live MUSIC characteristic is it the transiente response " velocity " on each single note and harmonics these and other characteristics gives that outstandingn dynamics.

Analog can’t match digital and both are away from live MUSIC .

On any analog system ( a decent one. ) almost everything depends on: cartridge tracking habilities and accurate and well matched TT/tonearm/cartridge set up. With out that we will more away of the " target " .

What to look for a phono pream?, first that the phono-preamp has enough gain for the cartridge output level and be by preference a SS ( bipolars. ) design with no single tube inside, second that be an active high gain design or if need it a SUT that this device comes internally as part of the phono design and try to avoid external SUT that degrades always the cartridge signal due to the additional connectors, solder joints, frequency extremes limitations response and cable to connect it, third that the phono-preamp be designed with gain stages at minimum ( 2 gain stages is better than 4. Only an example. ), that the phono stage not only comes with a low RIAA eq. deviation as could be 0.1 db or lower but that that deviation looking through a chart of it does not happens at both frequency extremes, that comes with the Neumann RIAA pole, that the phono-preamp comes with not only a flat response in both channels ( matched ) but widely from 0 to at least 500 khz or even better 1 Mhz ( if any of us have a dude on why that so wider frequency range please email to Proffesor Johnson of Spectral/Reference Recordings designer. ) that the output impedance of that phono unit stay really lower at both frequency extremes ( we have to ask for. ) and that both phono.preamp channels shows the same: gain, output impedance, IMD, THD, RIAA response etc. levels

If we take care about ( obviously a decent amp/speaker/room. ) we can have that power you are looking for. Well not exactly that power because it’s imposible to achieve it not even by the digital alternative that’s the one that its approaching is nearest to than analog but analog sounds good too.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Btw, bass is not synonymous of power. When we attend to a solo violin live event we can " feel " the power's violin or a cello or any instrument. Bass is only one characteristic of MUSIC.

R.