Budget phono stage- advice appreciated

i found the phonomena a bit dry for my taste, but mebbe it was my linn kairn pro? i had an earlier kairn (w/o slimline-version of the brilliant power-supply) - its built-in fono-stage was nicer than the phonomena, even tho the slimline p/s in my later kairn had better sound on cd & tuner. (btw, carl, you can get *excellent* sound from a good tuner, if the station is uncompressed, & you have a decent signal). in defence of the phonomena, tho - it had *no* problem w/noise, being used w/a 0.18mv mc cartridge. i replaced the phonomena w/a pentagon p-3 which is a *lot* nicer, imho. but, it is ~3 times the price. fortunately for me, no one in the usa knows this product, so it dint cost me much more than the phonomena.

I concur with Mjm and Slawney. The 834P is in an entirely different league and a steal even at retail. I've owned many phono stages over the years, most recently a Sonic Frontiers SFP1 and a Joule Electra OPS1 which the EAR beats. Harry Pearson was quite impressed with it. Yes, it's a bit over your budget, but can be had used with a volume control for around $500-550. So if you don't need a preamp for anything else in your office system it is a very reasonable way to go and so much better than the other offerings here. Unfortunately, you may have to wait a bit to find a used one, but it will be worth the wait for a guy who actually has a turntable in his office! Good luck and enjoy.

Slawney -- about the cube's dynamic limitations, you're right, it's very noticeable. I never really came to grips with what the cube was doing wrong, as while dynamic compression was audible, in my listening sessions the compression seemed to affect different pieces unequally. Nothing so gross to permit saying it can't do a particular frequency range; strangely, it squashed different pieces, different types of music, differently, if that makes sense. Maybe someone here has heard that too and can explain it?

Hey Mjm, It's a fine thing to find someone who agrees with me on this problem of the Black Cube squashing the dynamics of different recordings. It says somewhere in the Lehmann Audio promotional literature that Lehmann designed phono preamps for recording studios before he turned his attention to the home market and the design of the Black Cube. Studio engineers regularly use limiters and compressors during mastering for certain tracks (usually the vocal track and the drum tracks in a rock or pop recording) to smooth them out in the mix. I have a feeling that there is some of this philosophy in the Black Cube. Also, there are points in playback when the Black Cube suddenly seems to change the balance of the instruments all at once. Usually this is exciting, like hearing a new recording all at once in the middle of a piece. It is usually well-placed, musically speaking, on the very first beat of the first bar of a new section in the piece. But it also sounds like a recording studio console that has its different EQ and volume settings for the different tracks stored on computer--an auto-pilot mixer. As far as frequency linearity, it is incredibly difficult for me to EQ bad vinyl recordings through the Black Cube. (I sometimes use a Z-systems rdq-1 digital equalizer to correct imperfections on vinyl recordings that I want to archive on CD.) Yes, the Black Cube sometimes makes a grand appearance on particular occasions (with MFSL and high-quality vinyl); but it can also crush and squash and bend recordings, and then it sounds like the cheap stuff. In general, it sounds better late-night--like all analog.

I own the Black Cube and have been VERY pleased with it. I bought mine used for $450 and think it's a superb buy at that price. I find the comments about "compression" of the audio signal by the Cube interesting, since I have NOT experienced such a phenomenon. To the contrary, I think the dynamics of this preamp are excellent. I am using a Shure V15VxMR cartridge, which has sufficient voltage output that I use the lower gain setting on the Cube. Are the people who think the Cube compresses the signal using low-output MC cartridges?