SUT Advice - Which Ones Are The Best?

I also bought a Silk Audio SUT from Thailand.  They were very easy to work with in assembling a unit for me.  (They also sell the transformers separately.)  Mine looks and sounds great!

Dear @snackeyp  : In good shape: why do you want to degrade the valuable and sensitive cartridge signal  ?

There is no way that your Kleos can in any way sounds with better quality level through a SUT in your system when you own a very good phono preamp that handled any LOMC cartridge.

When you add a SUT to your specific system you are adding an additional stage with severe limitations in frequency range against your KTE unit and other issues down there but additional you need to use an IC cable with additional connectors at both ends of the cable from where the cartridge signal must travel through and in all that " travel "  the signal is degrading and developing additional ( every kind. ) distortions: you are contaminating that beloved MUSIC signal.

Yes, through the SUT will sounds different and probably you can like it but what you like it is a true inferior quality level.

The SUT " party " of other gentlemans here is with all respect a party where you don't need to participate, their system specific needs are different from yours.

Anyway you can try and can participate too in the " party ". Is your call.


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

@rauliruegas,

On this one I respectfully disagree:

I run a Zyx Universe through a Zyx Artisan stage. When inserting an Altec TBB-103 based SUT that Bob made it gives a substantial leap in performance: faster, more soundstage and definition of instruments. Ruling out SUTs as a way of improving vinyl playback contradicts what many cartridge designers are saying.

There is no way that your Kleos can in any way sounds with better quality level through a SUT in your system when you own a very good phono preamp that handled any LOMC cartridge.

When you add a SUT to your specific system you are adding an additional stage with severe limitations in frequency range against your KTE unit and other issues down there but additional you need to use an IC cable with additional connectors at both ends of the cable from where the cartridge signal must travel through and in all that " travel " the signal is degrading and developing additional ( every kind. ) distortions: you are contaminating that beloved MUSIC signal.

Well, since I’m in the middle of refining a MC/MM (jumper it to your liking) RIAA gain stage design I’ll bite. You think a gain stage, amplifying a 0.05-0.5mV signal by another 10-20X has no distortion? Do you realize how lower the power supply noise must be? Or how high the PSRR must be to make that irrelevant (which takes some doing)?

I will take two wires and a rally, really good transformer any day. Now you may ask "so why are you designing a low noise gain stage?" - answer: simplicity and cost. A good SUT (hate that acronym) is quite costly and heavy and somewhat complicated for many reasons that are peppered throughout this discussion.

I’m no necessarily arguing for a SUT, but i’m also not convinced that the active stage is a no brainer. Mitch Cotter agreed, and he was no mathematical slouch.
G

I think in a perfect world @rauliruegas is correct...the goal is to simplify the signal path and not add a SUT if at all possible. The problem is that unless you're using a top-tier SUT there is a good chance that a quality SUT combined with the MM-stage may outperform the onboard MC stage.  I have seen this in many of my phono stages but I've never owned a truly high-end phono.  A/B comparisons in my gear history shows improvements to SQ when using a SUT.