MC TRANSFORMERS VS TUBE PRE PRE

Dear Mepearson: I agree with you and with the music lovers that think that the step-up transformers are not the right way to go. This what I already posted about some where:

+++++ " The SUT is an old patch for bad SS phonopreamps designs and for the inherent limitations on tube phonopreamps for handle low output MC cartridges. It is a " chip solution to a complex problem ".

Any SUT has many inherent disadvantages like: distortions generated at the core ( it does not matters if is: air core ), heavy phase discharge ( landslide ), high apt to take hum, the wide zone ( band ) can't go down to DC, severe roll-off at high and low frecuencies, the reactive impedance on the SUT is incompatible with the cartridge impedance: this cause that we never could have flat frecuency response when we are using SUT, this mismatch between the impedances promote that the signal that pass through any SUT will be equalized ( yes, exactly like the problems between tube amplifier and loudspeakers because of those impedances ).
Any time with any of you we can make the tests and prove all those disadvantages and others like the additional cables that you have to use, additional connectors, the SUT is an additional ( filter ) link in the analog audio chain: How can you love it? !!!!!!!!!!!

I want to let clear that there is no single advantage, in any way, using SUT's, any of them: it does not matters their design or price.

The SUT always be a : wrong PATCH. " +++++

+++++ " Dear friends: I'm not against the SUT " per se ", I'm against what the SUT makes to the cartridge signal: heavy degradation.

I like many of you used the SUT for many years till I discovery that the best SUT is NO SUT. I already try severals SUT's and all of them do a severe degradation to the cartridge signal.

Maybe some of you can think that an Audio NOte Kondo or Expressive Technologies SUT's don't have any problem: wrong, all SUT's have the same problems and all of them degraded the cartridge signal.

We have to understand that the low output MC cartridges was not build " thinking " in a low gain phonopreamps ( tube or SS ). The low gain phonopreamps like yours is only for CD, high output MC and MM cartridges ( btw: Music Maker, Sumiko and Audio Technica have great cartridges too ).
Tha's why I can tell you that if you have a low gain phono stage with a low output MC cartridge: you choose the wrong cartridge to go. For any one can enjoy and discover ( really enjoy ) the " magic " quality sound reproduction of a low output MC cartridge any one needs a high-gain phono preamp, with out any PATCH ( external/internal SUT/Autoformer. With out any mis-match between cartridge impedance and SUT that equalized the cartridge signal, always. ) ) no question about. " +++++

+++++ " Dear friends: Here are some facts about why exist the SUTs for LO cartridges ( at least is my point of view ):

- In the fifthies appear the MC LO cartridges ( As a fact: Ortofon invented in 1948. ). In that time all the phonopreamps were designed for HO cartridges MM/MI/etc. No one was in the design of high gain PP because no body need it.

- Ortofon and latter other MC LO cartridges never ask to the PP designers/builders to manufacture a high gain PP for their MC LO cartridges. What I mean is that never exist a cooperation job between the MC LO builders and the PP manufacturers.

- What was the comercial attitude of almost all MC LO cartridges builders?: to put on sale their MC LO cartridges along with a SUTs ( designed for it self ) for those MC LO cartridges.

- I can remember from Ortofon when they design the MC10, MC 20, Mc 30, Mc 2000, Mc 3000 and MC 5000, cartridges at the same time they offer the respective SUT: T 10, T 20, T 30, T 5000.

- Like Ortofon everybody do the same: Denon, Audiocraft, Fidelity Research, Koetsu, Micro Seiki, Accuphase, Dynavector, Highphonic, Audio Technica, Entre, etc, etc.

- In the mid-time what does the PP designers ( SS or tube ) for the development of a high gain PP?: almost nothing, almost all take the easy " cheap road " ( wrong/worst one ): that the customers buy SUTs along with their PP if they want to handle a LO cartridge. Some of the PP designers/builders incorporate in their " high gain " PP internal SUTs, exactly like today ones.

- No body take the challenge to design a HG PP with out SUTs.

- So we all are suffering the " easy road/ wrong road " that almost all designers/builders take it more than 55 years ago.

- All those comercial attitude never take into account us: the audio customers and never take into account the QUALITY MUSIC/SOUND REPRODUCTION. They don't care about in those times and many of them don't care about today. " +++++

IMHO the SUT can't compete with a well designed high-gain integrated Phonolinepreamp ( with out any additional cables/connectors between the phono and line stages. Those additional cables/connectors always make a signal degradation: adding veils to de sound reproduction. )

Your SA-2 was a benchmark on those times.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

A discussion on xformers vs preamps would not be right without Rauls's input. It is a discussion that should have been made moot by the existence higher output MC's and higher gain preamps. Yet there remains many vintage preamps and new carts that seem to go lower and lower in terms of output level. Suffice it to say Raul can't abide anything but ruler flat frequency response. I can't abide noise. Morevoer ther is simply so much magnification of anything you can do by conventional means before you begin to distort.

This makes xformers for those low output mc's with vintage preamps,not only a good choice but sometimes the only choice.

It is often the case that hich output MCs just don't sound as good as the lower output versions.

SUT's can have a characteristic sound or influence on cartridges. Shopping for one that works well with your setup can be tedious. If you have one that has a character that you don't like, then it will irritate you and eventually you will not live with it. However, if you find one that is a good match with your cartridge, system and setup, you won't want to listen to anything else and you probably won't find any tube or SS stage you like better. Aficiandos find that SUT's give "flow" to the sound and a spectral character that matches well with MC's, it's not just a matter of flat response or noise. Once you have found a good sounding SUT, you might find an active stage a little obtunded and unnatural by comparison, whether it be tube or transistor. Tone control? Maybe, but it is the difference between something that works well sonically in practice vs. something that just works in theory.

Cjfrbw-I don't agree with your defense of transformers, but then that is why we have this forum. I find the exact opposite to be true of your last two sentences. I find the SA-2 to be very natural by comparision to the Sowter 8055 transformers and it works very well "sonically" vs. the transformers that work "in theory." The SA-2 absolutely passes more information in a way that sounds like live music is being played in your room than the Sowter 8055s could dream of. In addition to soundstage abberations induced by the tranformers, the overall loss of information they cause homogenizes the sound of all recordings that pass through them. Mediocre recordings still sound mediocre, but unfortunately, really good sounding recordings also sound mediocre (in comparision to how they really are capable of sounding). Tranformers are a cheap method of stepping up the voltage of a low output mc (and when I say cheap, I mean they SHOULD be much cheaper than well made active gain stages-specially a tube gain stage with a tube power supply, but I know there are absurdly priced transformers just as there are absurdly priced wire and cables which is another discussion), but they don't sound like their active stage brethren. You may have less noise with transformers, but you also have less information and less music. I will trade a little more noise for a lot more music any day. Nothing is perfect in this wacky hobby of ours, but I will vote for more information from the grooves that is true to the source every time.