Can a phono stage really do this?

09-05-14: Stevecham
It's the stylus/cartridge/arm/turntable combination that is rejecting the tics and
pops, not the phono stage.

That's where I was starting from too, but I posed the question because the before
and after signal chains had the same turntable, same arm, same cartridge, same
tracking force, same VTA, same anti-skate setting. The only difference was
swapping out an op-amp/tube buffered phono preamp for an all-tube hand-
wired MAGI Phonomenal preamp.

Through the MAGI the mungy pressing noise was gone. In the link provided by
Almarg, Ralph of Atma-Sphere explains why this could be so. I could see where
passive EQ would be quieter than active. And the MAGI has an all-tube gain stage
vs <$1 op-amps in the previous phono stage.

I have noticed that tics and pops are reduced in amplitude and don't make me jump out of my seat. But the sound I was talking about is more like a low level crackling groove noise that's much longer in duration than a tic--more like a second--and lower in amplitude through my previous phono stages. With the MAGI this mungy periodic crackle (corresponding to a point in the record's revolution) simply doesn't manifest itself and distract me from the music as it did before with the other phono stage.

09-05-14: Viridian
...
It's a very complex, and dynamic problem. I am glad that the OP has found a combo that works for him.

I feel like the cat that caught the canary. Here's a discussion on VinylEngine from 4 yrs ago (price of the unit has gone up since then) where the MAGI is compared to the 10x as expensive Manley Steelhead. I go to my local high end store's annual vendors' open house. I have heard several seriously good and expensive phono stages including expensive monsters from Audio Research, Ayre, and VTL. This MAGI Phonomenal definitely has the you-are-there 3D resolution, subterranean noise floor, wide dynamics, and sweet smooth musicality of the high priced spread.

There are probably no more than 30 or so of these units out there.

my understanding is the wider the bandwidth the quieter the preamp. My Bugle has opamps but is very quiet regarding pops and tics.

Is the magi still available for sale?