Forgive me, Mike, if I missed something here or in some other thread, but why are you playing with SUTs now?
Have you concluded that one of your phono stages does not generate sufficient gain for one of your cartridges? Or is this purely a curiosity thing to compare the sound of gain from an SUT to the sound of a portion of the gain coming from your phono stage?
i have 4 arms, and 3 phono channels. 2 channels in my dart pre, and one in my CS Port phono. the CS Port phono's single 63db input worked fine with all my cartridges, but i was one channel short.
but my CS Port phono, in addition to it's 63db internal SUT input, has 2 more channels with 40db/47k ohm MM inputs that can each accept an SUT. so i thought about it and figured i could add one or two SUT's and maybe improve my performance along with accommodating all my arms.
https://www.csport.audio/products/products-c3eqm2-en.html
and my Etsuro Gold cartridge, the best cartridge by far that i have heard, deserves the very best phono stage i can afford.
looking at available SUT's, after doing some research, the EMIA SUT's looked like the best performing and i like their overall approach. i'd met Jeffrey and Dave and really respect their products and vibe. my only problem is lack of SUT understanding and lack of brain power to digest all the math. but i forged ahead anyway and finally am at the finish line and loving it.
i did briefly try the SUT approach with Allnic back in 2010-2011 but could not eliminate the noise and hum.
this time with the CS Port and the EMIA they are even quieter than a head amp. super quiet. and super dynamic.
so i did this as a necessity to find another phono channel and not have to add another source to my preamp or box on a shelf. i just added a wall shelf behind my rack where the SUT's sit. so my system complexity has not really changed.
does an SUT approach perform better than a fully active phono stage? not sure my experience really speaks to that. there are lots of really great phono stages i have not tried. so i can't even begin to answer that.
my guess is that the CS Port phono (i think $17k list price) + the $4500 silver EMIA SUT likely betters any $25k or under list price phono stage. certainly any that i have heard. and.......i'll guess that that combo play in the $50k league. i know Mik felt like the CS Port phono performance by itself was in that general range, if maybe different but not worse than others. and i can say that the EMIA Silver SUT just blows the doors off the standard CS Port phono performance (but also likely betters most all phono head amps with the right cartridge match.....so no knock on the CS Port standard input).
we will see if anyone else decides to try this combo......the CS Port phono is amazing, and very flexible. 3 inputs, tubes, battery powered, great 'zen' build quality, modest form factor.
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