Phono pre-amp for Shelter 501 MK

Daemon, you should simply be able to have your tonearm leads reterminted with balanced connectors (XLR's) which is what I did to take advantage of the Aqvox's balanced input. There are very few tonearms which are not compatible with the Aqvox's balanced in, the Rega arms being the major ones. The info is on the Aqvox website. Also (I'm not sure where you are-possibly in Europe?), if you can arrange an audition of the Aqvox it comes with RCA to XLR adapters allowing you to use the balanced input.

The 834P is very neutral top to bottom, fantastic and clear bass. The mids are excellent but there is no on area where this units excels, just great all around.

I bought a Nottingham SpaceDeck w/ Spacearm, heavy kit, and Shelter 501.2 cartridge as a combo last week. In a separate deal, I also acquired an EAR 834P w/ stock JJ tubes. I placed these in my secondary system with a Cary SLI-80, Sonus Faber Concertino Home monitors (on SF stands), and Audience Maestro cabling all around (except PC, which are BPT on the amp and Cardas Cross to the phono).

At first, the sound I got was thin and soundstage very small. I got rid of the Boston mat sitting on the platter and the sound filled out some and soundstage increased. Perhaps it was assembled to track without the Boston mat.

Now, I still feel the sound is quite thin, especially as compared to the way I heard a similar Nottingham rig sound with a Benz Glider L2 and the same EAR phono.

Do you think it could be the rest of my system causing this thinness? I'm running the EAR in MC mode. The phono cables are proprietary Nottingham.

Any comments anyone has I would appreciate hearing.