Tube Preamp Paired with Tube Phono Stage?

Hello. Thanks for the message. Yes, I'm very happy with the Chinook. I'm amazed it sounds as good as it does using the stock Russian tubes. Prior to this purchase, I really ran the gambit - I tried the Nova Phonomena II, Cambridge Audio Azur 640p, Clearaudio Smartphono, and Ray Samuels Audio Nighthawk. Both the Phonomena II and RSA Nighthawk leaked DC and were returned. It's true what they say - you get a huge improvement in sound quality when you go beyond the $1,000 threshold (when it comes to phono stages, at least). I really think Manley Labs has a solid hit with the Chinook. It's well built, looks good, and performs flawlessly out of the box. I couldn't be happier!

Glad to hear that. I"m looking pretty hard at the Chinook. A friend of mine just got a Zesto Andros....now I'm wondering if I should really stretch. Yikes!

I'm also looking at the Chinook as a potential upgrade to my current phono stage. It's got everything I'm looking for, except one thing: a relatively low gain of 60 dB for MC. This would suggest that it's not adequate for MC cartridges with an output below 0.5 mV, which eliminates a lot of great cartridges. This is almost as frustrating as John Curl's JC-3 phono preamp offering only one impedance setting of 100 Ohms for MC. That one I'll never understand.

Dear Actusreus, If what you say is true about the JC3 load resistor for MC, I share your chagrin, but one might always open the chassis, find said 100R load resistor, remove it, and replace it with a resistor of the desired value. I do agree that the task is tedious, if one wants to play with a variety of cartridges and/or experiment with different load values.

This is almost as frustrating as John Curl's JC-3 phono preamp offering only one impedance setting of 100 Ohms for MC. That one I'll never understand.

The reason is if the preamp is resistant to RF at its input, the load on the LOMC is not critical. Its only there to reduce RF caused by the inductance of the cartridge interacting with the capacitance of the interconnect cable, which can form a tuned RF circuit. The resistor destroys the 'Q' of the circuit. IOW if the preamp works right, the value of the resistor is not important since it only works at RF frequencies.

This says to me that Mr. Curl's preamp must be pretty resistant to RF issues.