Your Ultimate Phono Preamp: Which One Would You Choose?


Imagine you’re in the market for a high-end phono preamp (your ultimate, at least for the moment) and have the budget to splurge.

Which one would you get?

Perhaps you've already got it, which one?

go4vinyl

I would pick something quite long out of production: Lyra Connoisseur.  I would then have comparably priced tube and solid state phono stages which might be interesting.

Interesting that the notion is that to achieve a High End Phohostage, there is a need to spend excessively.

This might be the case if the Phonostage is to be sourced from a Brand.

There are other options to achieve a Phonostage that can thoroughly impress, as a result of the design and BOM.

The type of BOM one might just be lucky enough to find is attached to a Branded Phonostage purchased costing between $20K - ,$+++

Mine is the BMC MCCI Signature ULN current injection phono stage. In the end I preferred it over a Simaudio Moon 810LP, Audionet PAM G2 w/ EPS, and ModWright PH9.0X. I don't ever forsee myself wanting a different unit. Current Injection stages work best with very low impedance moving coil cartridges, and I'm using mine with a My Sonic Lab Signature Gold which only has a 1 Ohm internal impedance.

If you have interest in reading on my journey to this stage, here's the thread where I documented it.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/solid-state-phono-stages