cartridge output level

There are some high quality cartridges out there with a higher output than the Colibre, but, if you like its sound, it is going to be hard to find a suitable alternative (the Colibre is a very dynamic, lively cartridge). A Decca London comes to mind, but it is a very touchy beast (difficult to get it to track correctly).

Since you like the sound, you probably should stick with your set up. Keep in mind that, the tubes that come with the unit are currenly manufactured tubes and pretty mediocre. A friend of mine replaced the tubes in his HP 200 with Amperex Bugleboys for a pretty dramatic improvement in sound.

Also, you might want to have your unit checked out by the dealer or Hovland. That same friend had issues with noise, particularly with LP playback, that turned out to be damage caused by some kind of power surge. I don't know if the Hovland is particularly sensitive, but this does raise an issue.

Hi Larryi, I agree it's not going to be easy to find a suitable alternative to the Colibri, i read something about Decca London and I don't think it's for me, at this time I'm curious to hear about the Clearaudio Titanium (0.8 mv), suggestions are welcome. The tube rolling suggestion is indeed interesting, also Rlawry said something about that, he named Mullards, you Amperex, looks like my options are widening thanks to you guys. I know the stock tubes are mediocre, Hovland don't encourage rolling though, they say the unit has been optimized around those tubes. To their credit, I have to say that I tried putting some telefunken NOS, but i went back to stock tubes because, even though there was a very slight improvement in noise, I felt I lost some depth in soundstage. After that first experiment, I gave up tube rolling, but after your reports maybe I should try harder. I will also make sure the unit is not defective, thank you.

Hi Cptaz,

While I don't think VDH can increase the output of your particular Colibri, they offer a H.O. version of the Colibri with over 0.65mv of output. This is the one (copper) I have. So, if you really like the sound of the Colibri, you may consider this option.

I have a CAT tubed preamp and the owner also discourages the use of NOS tubes, and it certainly is not sonics as NOS tubes are way superior in that piece. My take is that the builder cannot guarantee a supply of NOS tubes, only current production versions. I am not buying the statement that the preamp was optimized for current production tubes. NOS tubes are almost always superior sonically, and remember that it sometimes takes time for them to reach their optimal sonics. The reason for the particular volume control taper where the steps are small initially and increase after 12:00 is to give smaller volume steps for line-level inputs. Clearly you need a faster taper, but again, your problem sounds like one of noise. The gain of any piece of equipment can be increased or decreased through the use of different resistors and/or power supply, but it may degrade sonics due to overload, noise, or other factors. So it appears as if your choices are a higher-output cartridge like that mentioned by Thekong, a phono stage with more gain, another preamp with more gain, a power amp with more voltage gain (the power may or may not be affected depending on how the current amplification is affected), or perhaps some higher sensitivity speakers.

I would boil it down to getting quieter tubes. It's your cheapest and possibly best option considering you're not disliking the current situation that much.