Phono Preamp Tube Rush

It’s unfortunately a fact of life for us lovers of vacuum tube phono stages. Worse if you listen loud, like I do, of course. I’ve had the Hagerman and currently own a Herron. Both are about as quiet as low-rush noise as you’re going to get, especially the Herron. The Hagerman is a really nice sounding stage with romantic beautiful sound; I see why you love it. Sometimes I miss it and wish I’d kept it, but I moved on to a VAC that is better, though for much (!!) more money. If you like the Hargeman you’d probably love VAC phono stages, even the ones built into their integrateds and preamps.

The ONE factor you can play with to combat rush noise is to get a cartridge with a higher output level - that allows you to lower the preamp volume, and audible tube rush will reduce proportionally. The other thing to note is that is you’re loading your cartridge very heavily, you will lose some signal and that will allow tube rush from your phono stage to creep back up in relative level.

If you're using a low output MC cartridge, using an outboard SUT with a higher gain (and phono stage in MM mode) will also allow you to combat tube rush noise. 

Between songs you hear LP groove noise.  Lift the tonearm and I bet it gets much quieter.  Then you will hear self-noise from input resistance and tubes.  

An good SUT can wonders, as they are mostly noiseless.  But not always.  If they use too thin of wire the resistance gets too high and becomes the main source of input noise.  The low-end Cinemag was like this (maybe they have since updated).

Mostly what you hear is noise from resistance, not tubes.  

I use a number of Deccas inc the SG and cannot recall this issue with my Croft 25R with Shuguang Black 12AX7LS. But then again, between vinyl roar, and tape hiss on older recordings, you’re making me second guess what I feel is a near silent amp. In my book, if there’s no trace of 60 or 120Hz anything, I’m golden!

It is difficult to build a high-gain phono stage for mc cartridges using tubes. A SUT or a SS head amp (like a Marcof) is the answer (feeding a tube mm stage).

I used a BD's Cinemag 3440-A through my EAR 834 P through the mm stage with a Dyna D3 and had no issues.

I still have the SUT if there's any interest.