I would appreciate some advice on a good phonostage as I have a well tempered turntable with an Ortofon cadenza black cartridge. some additional comments on adjusting load impedance as I understand that is important. Budget is $5000
I have a Michael Fidler MC phonostage, multiple inputs would be nice but realistically not in budget for foreseeable future. No rack, not room for multiple boxes
When I had a Cadenza Black after a lot of experimentation I settled load impedance at 200 ohms. If you are happy with that cartridge you might want to rethink your budget for a new phono stage though. There is nothing wrong with what you suggest it seems to be over kill is all. With that said the MoFi would work well and would certainly be suitable if you later wanted to upgrade your cartridge to something like a Per Windfeld or even higher in the Ortofon range. Another option might be a Little Loco from Sutherland, not quite as expensive and very good sound. A word of caution, check compatibility with your cartridge this one is not a universal fit. Finally a favorite of mine is the PS Audio Stellar, a very flexible and neutral sounding phono stage. The company often offers refurb units at substantial discounts.
Transistor or tube phono stage ? That's the first question.
Sutherland phono stages are usually very good but they might have very high output impedance and will not be electrically compatible with some line stage preamplifiers. I had this kind of fun with Sutherland designed Acoustech phono.
There are many excellent phono stages for $5k, both new and used, it is hard to advise.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
