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 |
I already have a world-beater preamp with phono stage: the RGR 4 from 1980. Designed by Roger Grodinski of RG Dynamics. Mr. Grodinski claims that most phono stages suffer from poor dynamic headroom so he designed his to have superior overload margins. His earlier version was the RG Dynamics Dimension 3. It received a stellar review in Audio in 1979 where it was praised for its outstanding ability to unveil an expansive sense of 3-D space from recordings. I bought mine on eBay seven years ago for $199 - list price new was $650 in 1980. It has been in daily use with no problems. |
Maybe, for fun, ones that allow use of other equalization curves. I don't care if RIAA was completely adopted a long while ago, I've heard use of other equalization curves, and there are some records that happen to sound better in a specific setup with a different curve. Zanden makes a nice tube unit with built in SUT that sounds pretty good. For solid state, the FM Acoustic phono stage is really interesting because it allows an infinite variety of equalizations. One uses two controls, one selects the turnover frequency, the other selects the slope of the curve. I only briefly heard this thing at a show, but, it looks like it could be fun to try some unique equalization curves. |
