New Gold Note PH 10


I had posted a question a while ago about hearing from anyone with experience comparing the Gold Note PH 10 vs. the Bryston BP2 or Clear Audio Smart V2 phono preamps.  I never heard anything back about this subject, so I decided to just simply purchase a new PH 10 and compare it against my Clear Audio preamp.  

First impressions:  As much as I love my Clear Audio Smart V2 and in particular its sound stage and imaging qualities, I have to say that the PH 10 was considerably better at detail and picking out the instruments, especially the low and mid range ones.   The Clear Audio seemed to be a little better at the upper end imaging and the sound stage.  But keep in mind this was with the PH 10 new right out of the box.

I was told the PH 10 needs at least 50 hours of run in time to open up, so I used it for two nights and left it on for several days.  After allowing it to settle in and enjoying a lot of music, I still thought the Clear Audio had a leg up on it in the sound stage/imaging department.   So I decided to listen to a well known record to me with excellent recording and a lot of dynamic range on the PH 10, then switch the wires over to the Clear Audio (which I had not heard in several days by this time), and replay the record.   YIKES!!!  it was like a blanket was draped over my speakers.  I had become so gradually accustomed to the new PH 10 that I had not noticed the slight changes going on with the break in.  When the Clear Audio was swapped back into the system (it took me about a minute to do this), it was night and day the differences.

The PH 10 was by far a much more detailed, pronounced signature with a superior sound stage and the imaging was hands down better.  I am using it with the Audio Technica AT20ss vintage MM cartridge which has an extraordinary frequency range of 5-50K hz, so I was able to take advantage of the Enhanced RIAA curve the PH 10 has.  It is pretty outstanding.   Make sure you break things in!   I love this phono preamp.
slimpikins5
BTW Clakster, the AT20ss is really superb, I am not sure anything can touch it. :)


Makes very good sense not to run the audio at the same time you run radio transmitters.  You know what I was getting at. 
Or perhaps I could use one of the loading resistors on the input RCA's which might do the same thing.

No, you can't. But it depends. The reason i asked Joe to modify my JLTi phono stage with 500k Ohm internal resistor, so i can add any lover value in the dedicated pair of RCA plugs on the back. This is how it works if i want 100k Ohm:

The formula for parallel resistors is simple if you have a calculator.

R=(R1*R2)/(R1+R2)

If R1 is 500K and R2 is 100K, then multiply the two. You will get a large value.

Next step, add R1 and R2. You will get a much smaller value.

Now divide the larger value with the smaller value and you will get the final value.

In the above example, it is 500K x 100K = 50,000

And 500K + 100K = 600

Now divide 50,000 by 600 = 83K333 or 83.333K if you prefer.

If the value of the loading is way under 500K or 1M, then the value in the
loading plug will completely dominate.

I would not be surprised if my transmitters cause interference with the audio system and vice versa, if I were to play my music as loud as I usually do, I know it would interfere with my transmitted signal :)  And it's illegal to transmit any music over amateur radio frequencies as they are not broadcast bands.   
I will send an inquiry off to Gold Note to ask about the idea of increasing the loading to 100K for MM and see if there is a simple solution to trying it without getting into the guts of the unit.