Need help with Sutherland Ph.D. phonoamp

Smokester what is the table and arm you are using?

Steve,
I am using an SME 20 with the IV.Vi arm.

As an update, I have found that the PHD kept turning off because the threshold of the "music detector" which controls this was set too high. There is a pot inside which can easily be adjusted by hand and I have it adjusted perfectly now.

I spent Saturday morning going through selected tracks on some reference (auditioning) records which included Holly Cole's "Temptation", Basie's "88 Street (45 rpm)", Billy Holidays "Songs for Distingue Lovers", No Doubt's "Rock Steady", Von Karajan's '63 Beethoven's 9th, Szerygn's Brahms' Violin Concerto (original Shaded Dog), Heifetz' Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (original White Dog, not the reissue) and a few others. Also played the new Mercury reissue of Respighi's "The Birds".

Concluded, still with some slight reservations having to do with a very slight bloom in the bass and some very, very slight harshness in solo violins compared to the best I have had in my system, that this is an excellent phono stage...I still might not have the cartridge loading quite right but just wanted to listen to some music for a while. Imaging was outstanding. It is very clear, undistorted, tuneful in the bass, uncongested with massed strings, and always musical.

What more could you ask for? I am very impressed with this phonoamp.

Regards,
John

Nice table and arm John. As the PHD breaks in and you nail the settings, I (and possible others here) will be interested in your further impressions of this unit. as I mentioned above I will probably go for the Steelhead even though, foolishly, I have no immediate means to evaluate it (haven't identified a local dealer yet) except for Fremer's observations. Enjoy! Steve

Followup: Eva Manley tells me that Music Lover's Audio in Berzerkely here on the east SF bay is a dealer. Will check it out and try to in-home audition and report/review via new thread.