Solid State Phono Stages

Kind of late to the thread, but I will just say I have an ARC Ref 2 SE Phono and demoed a Boulder 508.

It took less than five minutes of listening to the 508 before I had it unplugged and ready to go back to the dealer because though it was very good for a solid state phono stage, it clearly (to me) came nowhere near the ARC in a variety of different ways.

The best summary is it sounded rather “solid state.”

I’ve been trying to audition a Boulder 1108 for a few years now but my dealer could never get Boulder’s demo sent to them, even during COVID.

From my experience of having listened to New Devices be it a Home Built Design or a New Off the Shelf design, the ones regularly encountered usually takes about 100+ Hours to deliver close to their best.

Additionally, with a Phonostage, especially a valve, but I do know this extends to some degree to Valve Hybrid and Solid State a period of pre warm up, is without doubt beneficial to the SQ that is to become available.   

To allow a minimum pre use time for an assessment on a Phonostage, is limiting to the experience that can be encountered.

A Valve Hybrid, I have as an alternate design of Phon', was quite ungathered in the lower registers for a few weeks before I got a hint of what was to come, later down the line the Bass is as enjoyable as the other owned Phon' even if a little different in the overall presentation.    

Kucharsk, I have no opinion as to your ARC vs the Boulder phono, but if you truly gave it only a 5 minute listen, you never really heard it in your system. As Pindac notes , solid state gear needs to warm up (literally) to sound its best. In my experience with a different SS phono section, this can take as much as an hour and might take longer after being transported to your home from a dealer. My particular SS phono can take longer to warm up than my all tube phono.

I guess I have updates as well, which fit with @lewm's statement above. I used some funds from selling the BMC MCCI Signature ULN to acquire a Simaudio Moon 810LP. It is a very different beast from the Audionet PAM G2 / EPS which I documented through this thread, but also different from the BMC. In some ways, it falls between these two units, and part of me is still longing for just a little bit more. This is where I need to ride it out with break in.

I previously described the Audionet as balancing soul, body, and detail, but it surely does not have the snap and immediacy of the BMC. The BMC, on the other hand, I found to have unparalleled clarity and separation, but at times at the expense of the music gelling and flowing, and I found myself listening more analytically vs enjoying the music as a whole.

The Simaudio Moon 810LP definitely has more clarity and separation than that of the Audionet, but it is not as pronounced as my experiences with the BMC. The 810LPs tone is very natural, and the pacing and presentation is just wonderful and holographic. It is still just a tad bit dry for my tastes, but I would probably think differently if the bass and midbass filled in a little bit more. And here's where I hit the snag. For some reason, the bass and midbass is just weak, and it makes the unit sound thinner and more dry. I bought the unit as a distributor demo, but it never really had any use. What I've heard is that it takes up to 500 hours to fully break in and settle, and I'm only on about 60-75 of those hours. I may also need to play with the loading, which is a bit frustrating because it is under the unit and requires me to disconnect cables to adjust. What's worse, as Lew mentions above, it takes about 203 hours after powering the unit on before it fully warms up and sounds great again, so many have advised me to leave the unit on at all times.

The unit has only 40,000uF of capacitance reservoir, which is still quite high, but nowhere near the 100,000uF of the BMC or the 250,000uF of the Audionet. Perhaps the 820s power supply could help me achieve what I feel is missing, but overall the 810LP is a very admirable unit, and I'm betting the break in period will be revelatory.

If anyone else has an 810LP (hint @rauliruegas), I would appreciate if you weigh in on your break in experience if you had to endure it!

Capacitance alone doesn’t tell you much. Depends also on the B+ voltage developed in the supply. Tube devices develop high voltages, e.g., 250V and higher and require less filter capacitor. SS devices usually operate at or below 100V, but 100V would need less filtering than say 25V. Also Class A devices place different demands on the PS, compared to Class AB or B. That can be ignored since preamplifiers are nearly all Class A.

But manufacturers commonly tout massive capacitance as an unalloyed virtue and offer “upgrades” where adequate filter capacitance is replaced by even more than adequate capacitance. This can help in a Class AB amplifier but I’m skeptical how much it helps SQ of a preamp, providing the original filtering was adequate.

Bliss, I assume 203 hours means 2-3 hours. I keep the PS of my SS amplifier on standby at all times. Then when in active use it takes 30 to 45 minutes to bloom. (This is not about the BMC, which I keep on at all times.)