Solid State Phono Stages

@jpan The following statement is valuable advice and one that has been experienced by myself today whilst visiting a friend whose designs for HiFi equipment has won much favour.    

"An alternative would be to get the XP-17 and put the rest of your dollars into a good/better interconnect and power cord. (And/or upgrade your phono cable.) Those improvements will yield a significant improvement as well".

My friend has adopted the use of cables using PC Triple C Wire since my introducing these to the system they own.

This friend has also assisted me in my request to have a Tonearm Produced using PC Triple C Internal wiring. There is now after a few attempts and some extended  trials a Tonearm produced into its final guise using PC Triple C Internal Wiring.

Today was about using my owned PC Triple C wire as a DIN>RCA Cable and as a RCA>RCA Cable and the system owners acquired cables with the same wire in the system with the new internal tonearm wire.

To add a curve ball, I also brought along a Power cord / lead made form the same wire and other RCA >RCA  Interconnects that are produced using D.U.C.C wire.

We both have the same TT's and Tonearms and a selection of Cart's attached to same material headshells.

My friend had a 'Old friend cartridge' that he has not owned or used the model for a very long time, but had recently acquired as a model with a sale description that it has close to a 1000 hours of usage on it,  and it was purchased as a Cart' to be a donor to go for a overhaul, to give more expensive owned Cart's a break from usage.

The Cart' in question is a Ortofon Kontrapunkt B (Kb), I own good condition spares of these Cart's,  as well as a model that has been completely rebuilt.

The idea was to work our way through trialling Cables and exchanging Cart's up to the Ortofon Windfeld.

The Plan did not quite go as organised, after a couple of cable configurations, the so called worn out Kb, was superb with a couple of Cable configurations and not quite the same match with other configurations.

The suggestion was made to add the Power Cord / Lead to the Phonostage, which when done was quite something, there was a noticeable change for the better and the Power Cord was agreed to be kept in place.

The Cable of the day in my view was a RCA > RCA SAEC SL-5000, when in use with the Internal Arm Wire and the Power Cord, the SL-5000 delivered in a way that was quite unimaginable, bearing in mind the Cart' in use was supposed to be a donor for a refurb, not one of the attendees wanted the Cart' to be changed, the want was strong to see what was on offer from it from all the LP's brought along .

I have a very little use Kb' that is un-mounted and stored, it has been agreed this Cart' will be brought along for the next session arranged for June and will be compared to the Cart' used today, if it still has wind in its sails, my suspicion is it has been a Lazarus today and has many hours of usage left to go.

Do I regret not trying out different Cartridges, not at all, and as far as I can tell no one else is feeling something was missed either.

The Cables selected allowed a Cart' that was expected to be underwhelming experience to shine and be a Cart' that generated a very positive impression.     

Dear @thiefoflight  : Congratulations.As with any audio item almost always exist a " but " and in your unit is that's weird that the RIAA deviation ( that's the main critical characteristic along gain for a phono stage. ) has a swing of 0.4db ! and even the manufacturer does not disclose rthe RIAA deviation at 20hz but from 40hz and up. It's normal that if has 0.4db at 40hz then at 20hz could be higher. Not a good thing for an item with its " pedigree " level. Yes, is high for a unit coming from that manufacturer. 

Anyway, enjoy it,

R.

Hey @rauliruegas - thanks for your thoughts and making me look into it. Are talking about the BMC unit? The Audionet claims +-.2db. While the BMC doesn’t list the spec, they publish the chart, which is almost completely flat (0db deviation) from 60hz on. They also explain their theory on why RIAA equalization in general can be inaccurate, and that additional adjustments can be made to compensate for low bass. I will not get this unit until late May likely. 
 

OTOH the Audionet PAM G2 with EPC power supply is well above and beyond the performance of the Modwright PH9.0X. There is an absolutely beautiful weight and bloom and tone, more so than the Modwright. The soundstage is wider and imaging outlines are more precise. The Audionet is above and beyond quieter. Bass control and amount is significantly better.

I’ll be putting the Modwright up for sale in the coming week or so. It is by far an incredible stage for the price, but I seem to have found a successor in the Audionet, and we’ll see how the BMC performs in a month or two. 

OK, kudos to the OP and contributors on this thread. Unlike some threads that get really “weird” this discussion has been conducted with politeness and constructive give and take.

Nice!!

@photomax,

Well said.  This has indeed been a very instructive and informative thread free of the destructive degeneration of most threads on Audiogon these days - kind of what it used to be like around 10 years ago.  

OP, keep us updated.