Sutherland PHD

I can only reinforce the many positive attributes of the Phd in the posts above. I had a Phd for over a year with a Michel Gyrodec and Rega RB 1000 and Lyra Helikon/Skala. The Phd was an upgrade from a Project Phono box and as you can imagine the improvement was awesome and this got me truly into the vinyl bug/upgraditis. I sold the Phd for no apparent shortcoming and moved on to a Nagra VPS. There is much to commend the battery driven Phd : inky dark backgrounds , an effortless, almost liquid quality to the music. If you want to nit pick, it lacks that extra bite in LFE and the dynamic contrasts are a wee bit muted compared to Phonos costing a great deal more.
If you want meaningful advice, what's the rest of your vinyl chain and what phono are currently using etc
If you are buying used its a no brainer. Strongly recommended.
Cheers
Pradeep

I have the Sutherland PHD. I also own the EAR 324, Lehmann Black Cube SE, and a Fosgate Signature (all are excellent, but different). It really is a split don the middle of the best that solid state and tubes have to offer. It is my favorite sounding phono stage, although I use the 324 due to ease of use. Any talk of softening of transients seems like something that somebody made that up in their head. Yes, i"m making that up in my head. If batteries hurt the sound, you probably wouldn't find it on high end gear designed by respected designers. Those guys have egos too.

I am probably one of the first overseas buyer of the PhD, and I bought it "blind" without listening to it first, and even way before Michael Fremer reviewed it

Anyway, it was one of the best audio components & hifi investment I have ever made.

The purity & honest presentation of the PhD has to be heard to be believed, and obviously, the batteries got a lot to do with it. I had 7 wonderful years with it, and upgraded to the AMR PH-77 two years ago.

The PhD is now residing in my friend's rig, and he is thoroughly enjoying it ;)

In a recent thread on akarma, it appears that one can do a minor upgrade to the PhD, by changing out 2 Op Amps on the output section of the motherboard.

Changing from OPA134PA, to OPA627AP at positions U7 and U10 on the motherboard. They are simple 8 pin plug an play, no soldering involved.

This upgrade has Ron Sutherland's blessings, and he said it's a worthy upgrade. The original factory installed op amp chip is about $3 each, the better OPA627AP replacement about $22 each at Digikey.

I;m going to be doing this upgrade myself soon. Mark

I'll have to try the upgrade and hear the difference.