EAR 834P + Bent Audio Stepups = greatness?

Mgreene,

NO offense meant, but I think you should back off on Raul's full function preamp. I have heard it, seen it, felt it, over a year an a half ago and I understand that there have been some improvements made as Raul and Jose keep working on it. It is an extremely viable product and I have no hesitation to say that it is probably one of the best, if not the best, SS units available today. I don't blame Raul one bit for not wanting to give you or anyone else what he and Jose have been working hard on for many years. There are many other areas in this hobby that I disagree with Raul on, but this is not one of them.

And I agree with Raul's and Audiofeil's assessments of the 834P. I owned one, did all the mods, rolled in some tubes, etc. I did sound better, but still kind of warm and fuzzy. But let's be fair, the 834P is at best an entry level phono stage. So I would say no, putting a set of Bent Mu stepups in front of it is not going to change how the EAR sounds. But these are some of the best stepups around so they can be used with many phono stages.

Where is there more information on Raul's phono stage? I'm pretty happy with my modded GCPH but I'm always on the lookout for a great phono stage at a reasonable (under $5000) price.

$5 grand? Forget it, it is out of your league. :-)

Ok, I'll give this one more shot, because I not doing anything else at the moment :)

I have no doubt that Raul's phono is the greatest thing since sliced bread - I never said it wasn’t. In fact some of Raul’s technical claims sounded interesting enough that I asked about them out of curiosity. As I remember it, his initial post sounded as though he was interested in discussing technical information, as many people do on these forums. Again, IIRC, he invited people to correspond with him and then didn’t answer my initial query.

I can respect that he is withholding his intellectual property, but to ask someone to buy an expensive phono stage, unheard, from someone who is unknown outside of a few posts on Audiogon is worse than facetious, its practically an insult. "I'll tell you where this fabulous bridge is located in Brooklyn - if you promise to buy it from me", LOL.

Now I am called a big liar and bad guy because I did not remember the entire exchange from two years ago - and of course, because I have disagreed with Emperor Raul, King of the MM about the 839. My feelings, they are hurting (ieee).

Dan-ed, I am interested, for my own edification: You said you did ALL of the mods to the 839. Does this mean that you completely rebuilt the PS, changed all or most of the power, signal and bypass caps as well as most of the resistors? BTW, such a mod will not fit in the original box. Did you try the recommended circuit changes, including the removal of the horrible MM/MC switch and volume pot? Did you try the tuning caps in the RIAA? – they are a very interesting addition. I am interested to know if you did all of this and still think that the 839 is “entry level”?

Just so everyone is on the same page here: Adding used stepups to an 839 that someone already owns will generally cost less than $1000. The original poster asks if adding better step ups will make the EAR competitive with "higher end units"? He did not ask if it would make the EAR as good as $10K+ state-of the art units like Bolder or Walker's Reference or even the RAULOTRON. (There Raul, I have patented your name – what will you do now??? HAHAHAHAH!!!)

I agree to disagree - some people think the modified 839 is great - I say above that it is not my #1 phono and I decided not to modify it further. What is there to argue about? I do greatly disagree with the pose that it is not worth bothering with because it is not state of the art – which seems to be the point that some are making above.

Mike

Dan'ed,
Your post above confuses me. Are you saying that $5000 won't come close to buying Raul's phono stage? What would the price be? Do you know? What do you mean by "out of your league"? I'm just curious about what he's come up with. I don't consider myself worthy of owning one or anything.