MC phono stage without transformer?

Is it any surprise that Atmasphere dislikes MC phono step-up TRANSFORMERS!!!!

But the problems which plague power output transformers hardly exist for tiny signal transformers. Purists will dislike having an extra device in the signal path, but an extra gain stage is the same thing.

We can recite all the theoretical deficiencies of step-up transformers, but the darned things evidently aren't paying attention, and work very well.

Dear Eldartford: +++++ " But the problems which plague power output transformers hardly exist for tiny signal transformers. " +++++

How is that? could you explain about?, maybe I'm missing something and I want to tell you that I not only owned several ones but I was a SUT's fanatic/devotee till I " learn ".

There are two areas ( frequency extremes range ) where the SUT degradation are totally audible ( very special on bass. ) against a well active device design and I'm talking here of that " tiny signal ", at least that is my experiences about.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Dear Raul,

"There are two areas ( frequency extremes range ) where the SUT degradation are totally audible ( very special on bass. )"

I experienced this also in comparison with my Gryphon Phonostage which had a deeper bass than some transformers via the build in phono stage in my preamp. But for instance with the highly linear and extented Jensen JT-346 (also used in the Jeff Rowland Cadence SS phono stage) this was not noticeable.

What I noticed and this is also my personal taste, that the bass via SS phono stage (Gryphon, ASR or others) never had the "quality" and integrity of the tube/transformer combination. Which can also be said of the bass from my Gryphon SS power am section in general, compared to my VAC tube amp which replaced it.

But I'm using french Cabasse speakers. The "legend" says that they are sound best with tubes. From my experience I have to agree.

Dear Ron: I made some research about your audio system items to " figure " ( in some way. ) what are you hearing and why you prefer a SUT.

There are not too much info on your amp but other model where I read that its output impedance is around 4 Ohms, the reviewer write: +++++ " In any event, these values will have a significant audible effect on the amplifier's performance " ++++++

Certainly had an audible effect with almost any speaker and yours has a 4 Ohms nominal impedance that could mean ( I hope I have the real Iroise electrical impedance curve. ) that maybe goes lower than that.

Those facts ( amplifier impedance output and electrical speaker impedance ) tell me with out any doubt that the reproduced sound can/could be heavy " colored " ( for say the least ) due to that impedance mistmatch and in some way to intermodulation speaker distortions due that its crossover ( woofer ) is on the high ( very ) 1200hz range.

It is probably too that the real inverse RIAA eq. deviation on your Preamp ( that makes a paramount difference in the quality performance. ) is bigger than 0.5 db ( maybe around 1 db. ), this can/could tell me that here the reproduced sound is/comes highly full of colorations and we have to remember too that the signal pass through a SUT where exist additional signal degradation.

Now, I understand that those colorations ( any audio system have in high/low manner. ) are the best for you ( nothing wrong with that ) but that could does not means is " correct " against what is on the recording or to a live event.

I prefer like you that an audio system be " emotional " ( just like music is. )but I like at the same time that have at least to other " vitues " : neutrality ( not analytical ) and " credible " whole tonal balance from top to bottom.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Eldartford, of course no-one should be surprised that I don't like transformers :)

I did, however, outline some of the difficulties that one faces, bandwidth, ringing (distortion) and hysteresis losses (yet another kind of distortion).

You can dance through the parameters, trying to dodge the silver bullet and some good compromise is available. For example, by sacrificing a little LF bandwidth, you can reduce hysteresis losses, but they will still be there. Ultimately you are still dealing with a compromise.

This is not to say that a phono section with enough gain to start with does not represent some sort of compromise. For example, I prefer the sound of tubes, and tubes have a reputation of making more noise. What I found is that you have to treat the tubes the same way you treat transistors: fully-differential, with proper constant current sources, in order to make them be quiet. I found that making the proper constant current source was a huge part of that recipe.

So- we can get them to be quiet enough with the lowest output cartridges and at the same time the phono section is easily transparent enough to easily hear the insertion of the best SUTs we can lay our hands on. Now we all know that at the phono input, connections are very critical so for our evaluations we had to solder everything in. What seems to be coming out of this is that the more complexity, the less bandwidth and the less transparency.

So we endeavored to build a simple phono section. It has only two stages of gain and employs differential passive EQ. I don't know how much simpler it can get, in fact I've seen a lot of MM stages that have more complexity.

I guess the point is that my dislike of transformers is not **just** because I'm an OTL manufacturer, it really stems out of having worked with audio transformers a lot (and while they have always had some nice advantages, such as ground isolation): they always have an audible artifact. I really wish they did not, but there appears to be nothing that can be done to change that. You just have to avoid them if you can, that's all.