VAC Owners:Outboard Phono Stage?

I vote that we honor Bill (Wrm57) with an Audiophile Eloquence Award for perfectly and concisely describing what we all love about our VAC gear. It just doesn't get better than "illuminating music from within." I'm going to send that over to Kevin and suggest he uses it as a tagline!

So, Bill... thanks for the explanation about what "direct to amps" really means. It seems clear and obvious (well, now) that "direct" is not possible because with any outboard or built in phono stage, one would need a volume control and additional circuitry to control the downstream amp, in essence, you need a line stage for this to work – whether it's part of the Steelhead or VAC is irrelevant. Did I understand you correctly (please correct me if I haven't)?

So, I'll risk continuing (if I misunderstood, my foot's already in my mouth, a little deeper won't be too bad): Since this would be exactly like getting ANY outboard phono stage and utilizing my current line stage, I can go back to my original focus on simple phono stages like the Zesto, Herron and Chinook, hook the winner up to my beloved VAC's line stage, and I'm good to go!

03-25-12: Alonski
It seems clear and obvious (well, now) that "direct" is not possible because with any outboard or built in phono stage, one would need a volume control and additional circuitry to control the downstream amp, in essence, you need a line stage for this to work – whether it's part of the Steelhead or VAC is irrelevant.

FWIW, and I have no familiarity with the Steelhead, my take on this is that it is not irrelevant. The functionality of a line stage is needed, somewhere, but if that functionality is implemented to a high standard within the same component that provides the phono stage functionality, investment of a given number of $ can potentially provide better results, since those $ are only paying for one component instead of two (plus an extra pair of interconnect cables).

Also, while a pure phono stage (lacking line stage functionality) will not incorporate a volume control mechanism, it still has to include circuitry to drive the line stage and the interconnect cable between the two components. The requirements for that circuitry will not differ greatly, if at all, from the circuitry that would be required to drive the power amp, and the corresponding interconnect cable. So the two-box approach means having an additional buffer/driver stage in the signal path, compared to the one-box approach.

Obviously, those potential advantages of the one-box approach may or may not be realized depending on the specific components that are involved, system synergy, listener preferences, etc. In your particular case, my feeling is that what you previously proposed is likely to be well worth exploring:

Replacing an amazing preamp that has a really good built-in phono stage, with an OUTSTANDING phono stage that allows me to go direct to my VAC amp for best LP sound (which is what I care about most) and would accommodate my CD player with what would probably be a very decent line stage input. So in essence, it's a preamp with its main focus on vinyl.

One more benefit to this is that I could sell my VAC pre to offset some of the cost of the new phono stage.

Best regards,
-- Al

Alon,

Thanks for the compliment. I was mainly just talking about the differences between running the Steelhead as a preamp vs. through my preamp. The latter sounds better, and my post tried to speculate as to why. I didn't mean to generalize beyond the two components. It may well be that some other phono stage (e.g. an IO Signature, as Jwm recommends) with a volume control would be much better than the Steelhead direct, or the Steelhead through VAC preamp, for that matter. No reason why it couldn't be, as Al says.

Bill

Bill,
No worries, your post was very helpful to me, even if I extrapolated your explanation a bit beyond your intention. Of course, a 5-figure phono stage could very well be better, but it would still need a line stage, volume control etc. for it to work. So going direct is not really so direct. Either way, whether I consider a pure phono stage or one that has volume control, it's going to be the quality of the design and circuitry and its interaction with my system that will make the difference. That's what clicked when I read your post, so thank you for that.

Al,
Thank you as well for reinforcing that I'm at least asking the right questions in my exploration. I have thought much on the 2 Box vs. 1 Box issue (especially since room on my rack is limited), and if I could do it without the need for a very high WAF, I'd probably just upgrade my VAC Standard LE preamp to the Signature Mk IIa, which I'm sure sports a much better phono stage! But, as crazy as we are in this hobby, I love my wife more than I love new gear.

Cheers,
Alon

OK, I'm intrigued. I took Jfrech's advice and did some research on SUTs. I read about the EAR, Audionote, Ortofon, Bob's Devices, and K&K. This is a whole new animal.

There's some intimation that SUTs work best with tube MM phono stages, which leads me to the question:

Do any VAC preamp owners on this thread have experience replacing the built-in MC phono stage with an SUT?

Great, I just added another month to my research timeline... glad I love this stuff.