CJ PV 10A vs musical fidel. a3 cr


Am considering switching to the MF A3cr from my CJPV10a mostly to gain remote.Any one familiar with both of these? I love the cj, but Im looking for something with remote AND a decent phono stage...Thanks in advance...Mike
winoguy17
Funny you should ask this question, since I have heard the PV-10a (my ex-wife has the line stage version, and I got to audition extensively in my system a while ago) and just added the A3cr last week. My memory of the CJ was of a warm, slightly fat sound (which didn't work well at all with my speakers -- Apogee Duetta Sigs). I though it was very musical, but I prefered an MFA Magus in my system (more of a classic Audio Research sound than a CJ sound). My sense is the the A3cr is less warm than CJ, but still very rich sounding in terms of the entire harmonic spectrum. Voices aren't quite as fully-embodied (and bloomy) as with a tube preamp, but they are probably much more realistic. I don't remember much about the low end on the CJ, but the A3cr goes very deep (though not as amazingly deep as the Sonic Frontiers Line 1 I auditioned a couple of years ago). The remote control is ok (I much preferred the Sonic Fronters "hockey puck" to the MF) but doesn't appear to have the greatest range -- maybe 15-20 feet.
I don't know if you thought of this, but Creek makes a passive unit which gives you remote capability. Audio Adviser sells it. I do know that the PV10A is a very nice sounding preamp.