Current “Best Bet” SOTA Phono
- Thread starter Uwiik
- Start date
Recommended Retail Prices are for Germany, incl 19% German VAT:
EMT 128: 11500,00 eur
Phasemation EA 1200: 12500,00 eur
EMT 128: 11500,00 eur
Phasemation EA 1200: 12500,00 eur
I first heard current drive at a friends house where he was using a discontinued Dynavector head amp. I didn't know it was current drive at the time just that it blew my Silvercore, Koetsu and MYSonic SUTs out of the water. So quiet and so limitless in dynamics by comparison. There are a few current drive phono preamps outs now. I use CH P1, formerly BAT VK10 SPack, Lamm LP2, EMT JP-66, Custom Soulphono. I will be on the list for the CH P10 when it becomes a reality. As you can see I was very much a tube person. Well, I still am just not on my main system these days.
Sound absolutely crazy, ordered 9m of Goebel IC. Kagura still 6 months away, nobody have on stock.
Yes. The loading has no effect at all in the audio band. When you do the math, this makes sense- non of the loads suggested are any less than about 10X the source impedance of the cartridge! When you decrease the load below that point, eventually you reach a point where the output of the cartridge starts to fall off. As a general rule of thumb for those who don't realize this bit: any time the load is 10x or more that of the source impedance, its not considered to have any effect on the output of the source. And when you do the actual measurement, you see that regardless of what the source is, this rule holds true.
I may have put me prior comments in a way that garnered a false impression. I am not saying that such phono sections don't sound good- far from it! What I am saying is that if the implications of the inductance of the cartridge are not recognized by the designer, there may be performance left on the table. That's different from saying the unit isn't designed well- it takes a bit of work (at the very least) to design a phono section that sounds like music and in any design there are always details and compromises that are part of the design- put another way- nothing in this world is perfect. This point to me is very similar to that of the compact disc and people telling me how great a particular recording is that is CD only. The question I always have is 'yes. its a great recording; how much better would it be if it were analog with its greater bandwidth and resolution?' So yes, they are great sounding phono sections, how much better would they sound if the design didn't require the loading?
FWIW we offer phono loading on our preamps too (very handy of the customer has a high output cartridge, where the loading serves a very different purpose, see the link below). Are you saying that I'm implying our phono section isn't designed well? Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I suspect not
This issue of cartridge loading is widely misunderstood by consumers and apparently designers alike. I was one of them- I tried to make a box that would determine the proper load for a cartridge about 30 years ago. Just connect the cartridge and the box would tell you the loading value. Embarking on that project taught me things about this topic I was not expecting, for example the square wave test I mentioned earlier.
Here is a simple fact: If you have to load the LOMC cartridge to get it to sound right, this is caused by the phono section being sensitive to the RFI generated by the LOMC cartridge and phono cable. So given this fact, what would you conclude? I can tell you that I'm by no means the only one that knows about this topic- there is an excellent thread on this site regarding cartridge loading in which JCarr of Lyra is involved and does point out the implications of the electrical resonance that is always present. He and I had a conversation on this issue at the Munich show a few years ago- at which he mentioned that the loading was going to reduce the compliance of the cartridge. Now as a designer of a phono section, would you want to affect a phono cartridge in that manner?
You might want to take a look at this link on Jim Hagerman's website:
Here you can see, using the calculator supplied, how the loading is affecting the resonance and what the resonant frequency is. All I'm maintaining is that the ultimate sound quality (no matter how good it is otherwise) does benefit if the input section of the phono section is designed to prevent the RFI from messing with it.
Very interested to hear your impression, especially in comparison with the RCM..
Have you heard the 'Big Phono' (2 box all out RCM) by any chance Shakti?
Holy smokes! What a gorgeous piece of Audiophile jewelry. I hope it sounds as pretty as it looks. Nice!
What an absolutely beautiful piece of gear! If you looked in the Webster Dictionary under "Audio Jewelry", I'm willing to bet you would see this picture next to it. I've never come across this one before either... would love to hear it some day
Best wishes,
Don
I have the RCM BIG PHONO in front of me, playing wonderful music,
as the German RCM distributor likes to sell the Big Phono to me.
Performance is great, but as I switch very often cartridges and do have turntables with more than 2 tonearms,
the RCM Big Phono does not meet my criteria in the "ease of use" .
on the picture the Big Phono is connected to a Kuzma Stabi R wood (Sorane tonearm, Phasemation carts)
Yes. The loading has no effect at all in the audio band. When you do the math, this makes sense- non of the loads suggested are any less than about 10X the source impedance of the cartridge! When you decrease the load below that point, eventually you reach a point where the output of the cartridge starts to fall off. As a general rule of thumb for those who don't realize this bit: any time the load is 10x or more that of the source impedance, its not considered to have any effect on the output of the source. And when you do the actual measurement, you see that regardless of what the source is, this rule holds true.
I may have put me prior comments in a way that garnered a false impression. I am not saying that such phono sections don't sound good- far from it! What I am saying is that if the implications of the inductance of the cartridge are not recognized by the designer, there may be performance left on the table. That's different from saying the unit isn't designed well- it takes a bit of work (at the very least) to design a phono section that sounds like music and in any design there are always details and compromises that are part of the design- put another way- nothing in this world is perfect. This point to me is very similar to that of the compact disc and people telling me how great a particular recording is that is CD only. The question I always have is 'yes. its a great recording; how much better would it be if it were analog with its greater bandwidth and resolution?' So yes, they are great sounding phono sections, how much better would they sound if the design didn't require the loading?
FWIW we offer phono loading on our preamps too (very handy of the customer has a high output cartridge, where the loading serves a very different purpose, see the link below). Are you saying that I'm implying our phono section isn't designed well? Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I suspect not
This issue of cartridge loading is widely misunderstood by consumers and apparently designers alike. I was one of them- I tried to make a box that would determine the proper load for a cartridge about 30 years ago. Just connect the cartridge and the box would tell you the loading value. Embarking on that project taught me things about this topic I was not expecting, for example the square wave test I mentioned earlier.
Here is a simple fact: If you have to load the LOMC cartridge to get it to sound right, this is caused by the phono section being sensitive to the RFI generated by the LOMC cartridge and phono cable. So given this fact, what would you conclude? I can tell you that I'm by no means the only one
You might want to take a look at this link on Jim Hagerman's website:
Here you can see, using the calculator supplied, how the loading is affecting the resonance and what the resonant frequency is. All I'm maintaining is that the ultimate sound quality (no matter how good it is otherwise) does benefit if the input section of the phono section is designed to prevent the RFI from messing with it.
thats why EMT TSD 15 have cap installed on this cartridge, with that ruler flat from 20hz-20khz kills the stylustip and cantilever resonance at 10khz.Yes. The loading has no effect at all in the audio band. When you do the math, this makes sense- non of the loads suggested are any less than about 10X the source impedance of the cartridge! When you decrease the load below that point, eventually you reach a point where the output of the cartridge starts to fall off. As a general rule of thumb for those who don't realize this bit: any time the load is 10x or more that of the source impedance, its not considered to have any effect on the output of the source. And when you do the actual measurement, you see that regardless of what the source is, this rule holds true.
I may have put me prior comments in a way that garnered a false impression. I am not saying that such phono sections don't sound good- far from it! What I am saying is that if the implications of the inductance of the cartridge are not recognized by the designer, there may be performance left on the table. That's different from saying the unit isn't designed well- it takes a bit of work (at the very least) to design a phono section that sounds like music and in any design there are always details and compromises that are part of the design- put another way- nothing in this world is perfect. This point to me is very similar to that of the compact disc and people telling me how great a particular recording is that is CD only. The question I always have is 'yes. its a great recording; how much better would it be if it were analog with its greater bandwidth and resolution?' So yes, they are great sounding phono sections, how much better would they sound if the design didn't require the loading?
FWIW we offer phono loading on our preamps too (very handy of the customer has a high output cartridge, where the loading serves a very different purpose, see the link below). Are you saying that I'm implying our phono section isn't designed well? Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I suspect not
This issue of cartridge loading is widely misunderstood by consumers and apparently designers alike. I was one of them- I tried to make a box that would determine the proper load for a cartridge about 30 years ago. Just connect the cartridge and the box would tell you the loading value. Embarking on that project taught me things about this topic I was not expecting, for example the square wave test I mentioned earlier.
Here is a simple fact: If you have to load the LOMC cartridge to get it to sound right, this is caused by the phono section being sensitive to the RFI generated by the LOMC cartridge and phono cable. So given this fact, what would you conclude? I can tell you that I'm by no means the only one that knows about this topic- there is an excellent thread on this site regarding cartridge loading in which JCarr of Lyra is involved and does point out the implications of the electrical resonance that is always present. He and I had a conversation on this issue at the Munich show a few years ago- at which he mentioned that the loading was going to reduce the compliance of the cartridge. Now as a designer of a phono section, would you want to affect a phono cartridge in that manner?
You might want to take a look at this link on Jim Hagerman's website:
Here you can see, using the calculator supplied, how the loading is affecting the resonance and what the resonant frequency is. All I'm maintaining is that the ultimate sound quality (no matter how good it is otherwise) does benefit if the input section of the phono section is designed to prevent the RFI from messing with it.
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Westerex did something similar in their model 3D cutter heads (used by both RCA and Mercury during their golden age) to reduce resonance in the audio band. Cutter heads tend to have a high frequency resonance, which is why they have feedback windings on the head, used to control that resonance, in addition to the cap. Tthe feedback is also used to improve channel seperation.thats why EMT TSD 15 have cap installed on this cartridge, with that ruler flat from 20hz-20khz kills the stylustip and cantilever resonance at 10khz.
View attachment 85724
But the resonance of any LOMC cartridge and tonearm cable I'm talking about might be anywhere from 100KHz to 2MHz and not affected by that capacitor.
For example if the inductance of the cartridge is 16mH and the tonearm cable has 20pF/foot and is a meter long, the resonant frequency is about 140KHz. Even though the cartridge won't get anywhere near that, its energy can nevertheless set that resonance into excitation- imagine a 140KHz signal that is about 30dB higher in level than the output of the cartridge! That can really mess with an audio circuit designed for high gain high sensitivity unless steps are taken to prevent it! If that signal overloads the input of the phono circuit, it can result in a tick or a pop until the circuit recovers.
Audio Jewelry - I like it. I am incorporating it into my own dictionary!What an absolutely beautiful piece of gear! If you looked in the Webster Dictionary under "Audio Jewelry", I'm willing to bet you would see this picture next to it. I've never come across this one before either... would love to hear it some day
Best wishes,
Don
Nice Room, 120 DB in a untreated room will create allot of Relfected Energy bouncing back into the room.
120db is equivilent to standing next to a Jet engine taking off.
How was this meassured?
One of these days RRV right room volume will be appreciated and adopted. Clearly today is not that day.
Standing next to a Jet taking off is somewhere between 120dB and 150 dB, but is does not really matter, because 120 dB is already extremely loud. It marks the limit from which sounds become painful and very dangerous to the human ear. 120 dB is 32 times as loud as 70 dB (vacuum cleaner).
Here are some examples of maximum recommended exposure times:
| DECIBEL LEVEL | EXPOSURE TIME |
| 85 dB | 8 hours |
| 90 dB | 2 hours |
| 100 dB | 15 minutes |
| 110 dB | 1 minute |
| 120 dB | 0 min |
I would have great concern for anyone who is listening to music, whether it be live or reproduced in the home, at sustained 120dB levels that they may be damaging their hearing - which could be permanent... even if it may be exhilarating in the moment.
If hearing damage were to happen, not only will it affect your quality of life moving forward, but also I question whether it will even make sense to pay the fortunes on money on high-end audio gear if your damaged hearing won't be able to fully appreciate what that gear is bringing to the session?
Wishing you all the very best,
Don
If hearing damage were to happen, not only will it affect your quality of life moving forward, but also I question whether it will even make sense to pay the fortunes on money on high-end audio gear if your damaged hearing won't be able to fully appreciate what that gear is bringing to the session?
Wishing you all the very best,
Don
This is a photo of my Wavestream Kinetics Deluxe Reference Level 5.1 phono. The external power supply is on the floor, connected by a six foot umbilical cord not shown in the photo. Not only do I love how it sounds, it is very solidly built.
Best wishes to all,
Don
Best wishes to all,
Don
Plus, it is said that hearing loss isolates you from the society even more than the loss of vision.
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