Next Phonostage

A couple of years ago I decided to buy an "end of life" phonostage. I was predisposed to purchase a unit with variable EQ curves because of a large collection of mono LPs and a hankering to get into 78's.

I have heard the ARC Ref 2 in my system. Not my personal taste. The Tron Ref was definitely better in my system. I have heard the Allnic in familiar systems but didn't consider purchase. I have heard the Thoress in a very familiar system and am very impressed but haven't heard it in my system. Would have loved to hear the Zanden with variable EQ in my system but could arrange a demo.

I ended up the an Experience Music LCR phono stage and am very happy with my decision.

Have you thought about FM Acoustics 122 phonostage ?

I have the original Thoress & a Pass XP25. Both excellent. Pass is amazing fr extremely low gain cartridges with exceptional bass (probably the best there is) and detailed natural mids. The highs are warm but maybe lacking the tube magic. A great match for .20mV cartridges that need 72db of gain. The Thoress is something else. An exceptional match for my Titan I. Great detailed bass, just not Solid State bass and not the Pass. But there are no better highs IME. Something magical. Pure, detailed, I wouldn't say holographic as it sounds like music and not musical. There is no phono stage. Just excellent. Tron make several phono stages and I owned the original which didn't match my higher gain art ridge at the time. Cartridge matching is important. Gain especially.

TW uses quite a few phono stages. He tries everything and even solid state and Allnic before anyone in the US heard of it. He also tries many cartridges so finding different pairings is part of bein a designer.

I have had my Thoress for years. I want to sell it to try something else but know it will be a mistake as the cost of anything better will be three times the amount. And will it do the mids and highs as well? So I stay put. The biggest compliment I can give is for equipment to get me off of the merry go round. And I have been with the Thoress for at least five years if I remember right. No problems. Just music. I just need 0.3mV or up cartridges. Deciding what is next for the extra inputs but nothing yet has caught my attention. And I have tried a ton of cartridges with it. I love being able to compare cartridges on the fly and not worry about transformer matching which means you would need a different transformer depending on the cartridges impedance for optimal performance.

I wanted to respond to Wrm57 who said he had a hum problem with his Allnic H-3000. I had the same problem, but I solved it by plugging my preamp into the same zone on my power conditioner that has the H-3000 and my turntable. Before, when I had the hum, I had the preamp plugged into a separate zone.

I am another very satisfied Allnic H-3000 owner. Mine has a bit of tube rush, but you have to listen very close to the speakers to hear it. In my experience, a minor bit of tube rush is typical and not unusual for tubed components and is not a concern to me. I would like to hear the opinions of the esteemed posters here on whether the typical amount of tube rush that is found in many tubed components would compromise Philb7777's priority of a "really" black background, especially given the fact that he has ultra quiet Rowland components in his system.