No, the Clearaudio hasn't been mentioned up until now. Good reputation? |
Chashmal,
I wasn't thinking of anything that esoteric, just that Chashmal in modern Hebrew means "electricity." Oh well... :-) |
Hmmm... the plot thickens. I wrote to Unison's US distributor and asked if the Unico could be retrofitted with the phono section PCB. He said "yes, but" it's a matter of getting the part. Unsion's on vacation now but somebody's supposed to be getting back to me to let me know what would be involved in getting the phono board installed. May or may not be worth the trouble, we'll see. |
Grinnell,
Haven't heard of that one... I'll have to keep an eye out for it. |
Chadnliz,
Wow, another model I've never heard of. Thanks! :-) |
Ncarv,
Yes, I think I'd like a tube phono-stage if I can get one in my price range. The only other one I'm really considering, because the reviews are so good, is the Cambridge 640, as Elevick suggests.
Chashmal... great nick name (kol tuv)! ;-) |
Neway317,
I've seen the Phonomena for around $300, used (the one with the original power supply).
What about the Jolida JD 9 phono stage? It's a little pricey for my budget (I've seen it for around $375). |
Chashmal,
It sounds very nice and the build quality is unbelievably beautiful. (And it's amazingly HEAVY!) It'll clearly drive the Arro much louder than I'd ever listen to music, too.
This is my first tubed gear and I really know nothing about the ins and outs of tubes. But the seller was kind enough to include two sets of "alternative" tubes to try.
Any know of a good online tutorial on tube gear? |
Chatnitz,
Yeah, I'd be interested, for sure. There's another Phenomena on sale on A'gon right now for $300, but the power cord got cut and had to be spliced back together, so if you're really going to put it up at $250, give me fair warning! :-) (Still waiting to hear back from SOTA...) |
|
Somebody's got an Antique Sound Labs phono mini up for grabs here for $250 obo... a 2-tube unit. Anybody familiar with it? |
Knownothing,
Thanks for the list! :-)
HCM has a limited supply of those Creek units on sale for $320. I need to do some research on those. |
Knownothing,
Check that... it's the OBH-15 that HCM has on sale. |
Neway317,
I asked that question already! According to Walter of Underwood HiFi (who sells a lot here on Audiogon and carries Unison stuff) the Unicos without the phono card cannot be retrofitted with one. Doesn't quite make sense to me, but that's what he said. |
Hey!
It turns out that I can order the phono preamp plugin (it comes on a single circuit board) from the US distributor for $250, which is certainly reasonable. Question is, does anybody know how good the Unico phono stage is? |
I was wondering about that, but since this unit would be feeding through the Unico's tubed front end, anyway, I thought it might be okay.
Hmmmmm.... |
Christopher_h,
That cool to know... I'm a tube noob, myself, so the information is valuable.
You don't happen to be using the Unico phono stage, do you? |
Mingles,
Well,the consensus here seems to be, "Get your hands on a good tube preamp and don't even mess with the Unico board."
The bottlehead seduction looks cool, but I've never soldered anything in my life, so I'm a little intimidated. |
Mingles,
Yes, I've seen that option. Thing is, opinion on the JD-9 here on Audiogon seems to a little mixed. |
Mingles,
Hmmm..... there's a Jolida JD-9A with Underwood Level 1 mods for sale right now on A'Gon for an asking price of $495. I wonder how that compares to the Seduction (given the fact that the Jolida will accommodate a a wider range of cartridges? |
Mingles,
I contacted the folks at Bottlehead. I was very impressed by their friendly, helpful attitude. I'm thinking more and more that I may get the Seduction and just take my time building it. It seems I'd be well rewarded for the effort. |
Thought I'd report back here...
I just finished building the Bottlehead Seduction phono preamp! I haven't even had the chance to try it out yet (need to buy some interconnects) but I had a lot of fun putting it together. I'll report back with a fuller account when I've had the chance to test it out in the system. |
Sure, I'm happy to oblige, and thanks for the reminder!
First of all, let me say that there is a particular kind of satisfaction in building something like this yourself. I have to add that I, myself, had not even held a soldering iron since I was a teenager, so I approached the project with not a little bit of trepidation. The manufacturer has a rating system of 1, 2, and 3, 1 being a beginner level kit, and 3 being a kit that requires more experience/expertise. The Seduction phono preamp kit is rated "2." Working on the kit sporadically, due to my work schedule, it took me a week or so to assemble the kit, not counting the wooden case. I like doing things like this, and my own manual dexterity is pretty good (although my aging eyes necessitated my taking my glasses off quite a bit, even with bifocals, to do some of the finer soldering work). All that said, the assembly instructions are excellent, and the Bottlehead support bulletin board is full of extremely helpful folks, including the president of the company, so there are plenty of people in easy reach to hold your hand if you run into trouble. Actually, there is only one part of this particular kit that's especially challenging, and that's attaching and soldering a series of tiny little capacitors to some tube socket terminals. Challenging... but hardly impossible, and a source of real satisfaction once you get it right. I think I also should add that in addition to the $275 cost of the kit, you have to factor in (if you don't already have these things) the cost of buying a soldering iron, solder, needle nose pliers, wood glue, wood stained and varnish, and so on. Depending on how crazy you go with these things, you're probably looking at close to another $100, give or take.
Of course, what you want to hear about is the sound of the finished kit. I think it sounds terrific, but I have to insert the caveat that I haven't had a lot of other phono stages to compare this with. The only other phono stage I've ever spent extensive time with was the one that came built into my ancient, PS Audio solid-state integrated amp from the mid-1980s, and I haven't listened to that one in years. That being said, the Seduction sounds to me like you would expect a high quality tube phono stage to sound: round and dimensional, lush, beautiful midrange and so on. I like it so much that I have already ordered a $75 upgrade kit, which is supposed to be a pretty easy add-on project. It is supposed to tighten up the bass response, make the kit somewhat quieter than it already is (which is pretty quiet) and it also adds several decibels of additional gain, giving you a little more wiggle room in terms of the output of your photo cartridge. (I am using an Ortofon 2M "Blue" moving magnet cartridge.)
I'd be happy to answer any other questions that anyone has. Let me also say that the kit is pretty sharp looking once you put it together! :-) |
