First impression: Herron VTPH-2A phono preamp

Almarg and George  I have the Herron phono and I tried it at length with a transformer paste passive. While it sounded good and very transparent I did go back to an active line stage due to feeling like there was a slight lack of bass impact and slight lack of dynamics. I used to be a believer in passive preamps but now after that experiment changed my mind. 
 It's good to see another individual discovered the benefits of Herron gear. Keith is great to deal with and I like that his products are not up in the rip off pricing category. I have heard many phonos costing more than twice as much but still would choose the Herron.  I constantly look at the gear for sale ads but never once think of changing out my phono anymore. 

beatlebum wrote
"Just to amplify what some of the others have said regarding the upgrade from the VTPH-2 to 2A, the improvements are easily heard in a more dynamic presentation (perhaps due to the quieter background), even sweeter treble and punchier bass."  

I've had the VTPH-2 for 11 years and upgraded to the 2A last March.  My findings agree completely with beatlebum.  Far and away though, the thing that most caught my attention was the punch factor,  everything is mow tight as a tick.  I can now follow any bass line, hear kick drums as distinct entities, and just in general I sit and marvel at the sound. 

 Just to clarify further about the passive preamp versus the active one, even with the passive I could easily get lots of volume. That wasn't the issue that made me go back to active.And one of the reasons why Scm  is having success with his passive configuration is because he added it to buffer. That changes everything. He said himself in his one post that now he runs the volume at a
I am of  The opposite mindset  of George, I wish amplifiers had less gain. It's easier for preamplifiers to not mess up the sound so I would rather establish the gain earlier on in the system and just have amplifiers providing the current when needed.

I am of  The opposite mindset  of George, I wish amplifiers had less gain. It's easier for preamplifiers to not mess up the sound so I would rather establish the gain earlier on in the system and just have amplifiers providing the current when needed.

I'll go one further than that, I wish also that there was no gain the amp just used for current, but all the gain needed being in the source (which it can be), with it's gain being adjustable for volume.
Which funnily is a direct source to amp connection or via a passive.

What ever the source has, use it all, and stop shunting it back to ground with the volume control, because you have too much gain down the line, eg: the preamp gain section and amp gain. 

Cheers George

I have posted this in another thread but is also relevant here:

I have now had a good listen to my dual mono version of the LSA.
To my ears (and friend's and family's) It has bettered the pre-amps i have had in this system so far, including ARC Ref5se (the Ref 5se was nice with the ARC amps i had previously, (perhaps at a disadvantage due to an impedance issue with ARC & Current SS amp ??). Among other great tube pres, I also compared an older SS Pass X2.5 and Bryston BP20.

George was extremely helpful; not just in confirming impedance compatibility with my current equipment, potential PSU upgrades, but also general audio advice and a friendly approach to my many questions.

My Current system is:
0.25mV MC Cart > Herron VTPH2 phono stage > LSA > Gryphon Antileon Signature > Wilson Sasha.

Herron is configured to lower gain 64dB.

Levels are fine, i am running at 12-2 o'clock, or just past half way for comfortable to strong levels. Although my room is not large, there is still plenty of gain available (not from the LSA of course).

I wont go into its sound too much other than to say it seems to have no sound, very neutral and balanced. When i placed other preamps back in to compare it became apparent what colourations those other pres contributed to the sound, some aspects of which were enjoyable of course but ultimately there was too much trade off. I prefer the clean, open, neutral, balanced sound I am getting with the LSA.

Perhaps eventually I will discover a Pre that betters the LSA in my current system, (I'm sure when i do it will be in excess of 20x the price) or i may change a component and find it an impedance mismatch with LSA. However at this stage, with my current setup it is very impressive and very good value sonically.

Thank you George