Recommendations for MM Phono ~ Tube or Solid State

Dear @lewm : All SUT's have more or less the same " problems " and all degrades de cartridge signal including the EMIA because all needs those additional IC cables, input/output connectors, solder joints and the like.

Your Supex cartridge in those old time was designed by today MSL Matshudira.

@dogberry   active high gain phono stages/phonolinepreamps have a price tag range from 3K to 90K+ ..That's is a wide price range for you or any one else. Btw, our ears are the worst tool to make precise comparisons, that " your ears will tell you " is full of subjective with no objective single parameters it's only: " I like it " and that's all.

First you have to have the best cartridge signal reproduction you can and the you will listen it and to achieve that " best " signal reproduction you need objectivity a bout and common sense if not then you have the " I like it ".

Many of us are in the analog/digital audio world because we truly love MUSIC and achieving the best reproduction not only gives us a very high MUSIC enjoyment but a lot of added fun. In the other side there are the gentlemans that mainly does not cares of quality reproduction of MUSIC but mainly only just for fun even if that you ask to them they will tell you that are " music lovers ".

R.

dogberry, "I'm just a gal [guy] who can't say no", so I will acquiesce. I was going strictly on my musical memory of that show. Actually, this morning in the twilight of wakening, I wondered whether the lyric was "cowhand", rather than "cowman".  Cowhand is more likely correct. Curly had issues. Anyway, the corn here is as high as an elephant's eye.

Raul, I never owned a Supex. I heard it at my neighbor’s house when he first bought it, probably in 1974-5. I was not impressed, and it was a few more decades before I ever bought an LOMC cartridge, after having experimented unhappily with HOMCs. By the time you initiated your thread on MM cartridges, I was operating in the belief that LOMC cartridges were tops. Thanks for stimulating me to re-think the cartridge issue.

In fact, the bipolar transistor that Raul et al use in the MC gain stage is out of production and was not replaced by anything as good or better for the purpose, probably because transistor evolution is not motivated by the design and build of phono stages.

@lewm to be clear, Raul had nothing to do with the engineering.

IMO, the one thing that SUTs bring to the table is immunity to the RFI that LOMC cartridges otherwise generate. SUTs simply don't have the bandwidth so they block the RFI. If your phono section has troubles with RFI being injected directly into its inputs (and many do, judging by all the phono sections out there with 'cartridge loading' switches on their front panels) The SUT seems really nice.

But I've found that if the phono section is immune to the RFI and otherwise has the gain needed, it will simply be more transparent. Transformers inherently introduce distortion and bandwidth limitations, usually having less bandwidth than the LP itself.

Btw, our ears are the worst tool to make precise comparisons, that " your ears will tell you " is full of subjective with no objective single parameters it's only: " I like it " and that's all.

We shall have to agree to disagree. For what shall I have gained if I have a system that is "perfect" in theory and I don't like it? I listen to music for pleasure, and any equipment I use is in the service of the music. If that makes me a music lover rather than an audiophile to you, so be it. I still appreciate your contributions here.