Recommendations for MM Phono ~ Tube or Solid State

@lalitk the SUT I experimented with is a modestly priced vintage Japanese unit, Fidelity Research FRT-4, it's been mentioned here quite a few times. Not saying it's the best or anything but I'm impressed with how it plays with my cartridges and I'd like to hear a few more SUT's in the future.

@lewm this is a newly formed bias so it's not etched in stone, I'm always open to learning and being impressed by other ideas.

@rauliruegas impressed that you knew my King/Cello phono is a Colangelo-Levinson design, kudos! I'm actually experimenting with the MM stage of a Manley Chinook at the moment and not the King/Cello. Amongst the high-gain phono stages I've had here are Tom Evans the Groove, Pass Labs XP-15, Linn Linto, King/Cello, Manley Chinook and a few lower priced ones.  

@lalitk try several tube base phono and end up with old Air Tight ATE-2 phono MM with their SUT ATH-1. Been several years now and happy with it. Pair nice with koetsu and Lyra. Check their new Air Tight phono ATE-3011

Dear @scar972 : Levinson founded Cello in the mid 80's ( I think ). I had the opportunity to listen his amp Duet and the Audio Suite with its integrated phono stage board ( the AS was a modular design for the customers choice what they need.) and I listened too his equalizer Pallete. Cello made it too speakers but I never listen too and obviously he designed what was and maybe is one of the 3 best ever open reel machines the :  ML-5a ( half inch.Well in its times was considered the ONE the BEST ).

However when he was/still working at Levinson company the " brain designer ", with out dimishining Mark in any way was J.Curl. I still own the 20.6 monobloks based in J.Curl design and I think that some Agon audiophiles remember the Vendetta Research phono stage that JC designed when he left Levinson/Madrigal

company and latter on his Blowtorch pohono stage too.

In the electronics today Parasound the JC models were and are J.Curl designs.

R.

What Raul says is correct to the best of my knowledge. The first Levinson product was a pre-preamplifier, a small active gain box to boost the output of any newly arrived LOMC cartridge in order to drive a phono stage, at a time when all phono stages were designed for MM or high output MI cartridges, and there may have been a SUT on the market, probably in Japan, but they were rare in the US. I think JC designed that unit, and Mark Levinson marketed it. This was around 1975. The advent of the ML JC1 (I think that was the designation) was timed to coincide with the introduction of Supex cartridges in the US, an early LOMC.

John Curl is highly regarded because of the Vendetta phono stage and for a part in developing the CTC Blowtorch phono stage, neither of which I have ever heard. Both of them are rare and very costly if you can find one. I have heard some of his other stuff. The amplifiers are great. The small signal stuff is meh, in my opinion.