Phono Stage upgrade to complement Dohmann Helix One Mk 2

Dear @pani : Never had the opportunity not even to see it. I know very well the Kondo design estrategy and japanese unique way of thinking and I know very well the Kondo silver caps.

Yes, for an all tube designs it’s not only very expensive but with excellent performance inside the tube limitations.

I was for almost 10 years a tube lover and have first hand experiences with almost all the best of the best tube electronics and I learned very carefully of its true limitations against the fully advanced designs in all solid state designs that is an almost not limited design alternative.

Look, it’s not fair for tube alternative to try and make comparisons against a way different electronics alternative that for me is a superior one and especially when we are talking of phonolinepreamps.

Everytime I make listening item comparisons, been analog or digital medium, I compare what the room/system gives against my several first hand experiences with live MUSIC seated at near field position ( that’s the way recording microphones are " seated ". ) and listening the same recording tracks that I know even how performs its click and pops.

I’m not married/biased with what I like but with what should be.

I respect other gentleman opinions and especially yours but we have different targets and due that I’m not a rich man I have to learn and learned by my self and with the advise of gentlemans with higher knowledge levels than me how with out all that money need it to be " there " I can be " there " modifiying, up-grading, building and fine tunning my room/system. As a fact from some time now I’m in the fine tunning stage.

R.

@rauliruegas , I am as neurotic as you are and do my best to choose the best performing equipment I can given the information I can obtain. Channel D lists the Seta L's A weighted SNR at 71 dB down but 67 is still better than the Boulder's 64. However, look at that Seta L20!  But the sad fact of the matter is that vinyl is inherently imperfect and generally much worse than the equipment we use to "read" it. So, I would not be so harsh on lewm. It is just a different way of viewing the same problem. Ours is also perfectly valid, neurotic but valid. 

“Harsh”?

Harsh would be if I were actually “imagining “ the RIAA issue, and by the way I said nothing about S/N ratio. I suggest to Raul that he read up on the history of the RIAA correction. Do you think RCA and Columbia LPs adhered to the exact same spec and with the same accuracy, once they both finally adopted RIAA? That level of perfection was not even required by the NAB, which is the reason I quoted the +/-2db spec. Plus, I was not arguing that it is not a good idea for a modern phono stage to be very accurate, only that at some point quibbling over hundredths of a db becomes mental masturbation.

Dear @drbond  : Whatever be your phono stage decision you have to think that with stand alone phono stage units as the FMA the next stage where the signal must goes is a line preamps and you need at least the same quality design levels for that signal been quality preserved.

In the other side and is only an opinion and knowing very well your speakers it's a must to change your amplifiers for those Soundlabs great speakers really shines as never before.

You don't need to buy a boutique amplifiers, my recomendation is to go for the JC1+ monobloks. I listened Soundlabs/JC1s and are outstanding mate and the JC1+ set you back almost ten times lower price that your today monoblocks:

https://parasound.com/jc1+.php

R.