Any experience with the Audio Research PH7?

The PH7 might not have enough gain for most low output MCs.

I am using the PH7 with a ARC Ref 3 preamp and a Dynavector XV1s and sufficient gain is not a problem. I love the PH7 in my system and it has worked exceedingly well for over 300 hours.

A lot of the new moving coils are higher output and will work well. However the Koetsu Platinums' the ZYX Universe and some other great catridges will not work well.

Boneman,

What other phono stages have you listened to?

Rich

Thanks for your responses. For those of you that have the PH7 can you provide any comparatives to say the Lamm LP2 Deluxe, IO, Groove Plus, Steelhead, etc.?

FYI, I use a Lyra Helikon (not SL or mono)which is around .35mv. I, too, had some concern about the PH7's gain of 57.5 db. The last phono stage I had (and did not like -- not enough air) was a BAT VK-P10 (non SE version)which I ran at about 61 - 63 db. I loaded it down to either 2k or 10k as I recall, as running it wide open at 47K had some top-end tininess. Currently happy with an ARC Ref 2, MK II pre. Wish also the PH7 had balanced outputs to run balanced into the Ref2 which I run balanced into my Pass XA200 monoblocks.