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First impression: Herron VTPH-2A phono preamp

I got my VTPH-2A this morning and it's up and running. After about five hours of spinning vinyl, I'm pretty sure I've wet myself, MULTIPLE TIMES! I've primarily played vinyl that I've had for decades, music that I thought I was intimately familiar with. I was wrong. There's nuance I never knew existed. Everything about the VTPH-2A is "right". The bass is tight, vocals superb, instruments have places, etc.  All that I've listened to sounds new and fresh and the most masterfully recorded vinyl sounds live. What I've read about on this forum concerning the VTPH-2A (pretty much all stellar) is true. I've had five different phono preamps and nothing can compete with this, NOTHING. It's a bad ass and definitely a keeper.
professorsvsu

Showing 6 responses by scm

scm
299 posts
 
Just to add a liitle bit to the thread.
I`m using the Herron VTPH 1 MC plus phono stage along with my Tortuga preamp set at 99K and I`m also using a tube based buffer with it .

After nearly two years of using the Herron just as Keith sent it, I recently took out 2 of the Sovteks and put 2 Shuguang 12AX7B`s in.
My phono cartridge is lowish on the output @ .24 mv and so far the system has everything I need.
Has great bass, a lot of airy detail and the amps seem to be just cruising along with little effort !

I had Georges preamp prior and I really enjoyed it and would have kept it in the system but I liked the idea of having a remote and the adjustable impedance feature of the Tortuga Audio.


scm
299 posts
 
@georgehifi

What really seemed to help was adding the tube buffer. The volume level on the numeric display was usually  maxed out at about 54-56 by..."maxed out" I mean what I felt was loud enough.
Now though the display shows 40-42 for the same level.

I think I can flex the walls if I wanted to, there seems to be a lot of pedal left :)
scm
299 posts
 
@georgehifi
So you had enough volume with the passive even though you had a very low 0.24mV MC cartiridge, you didn’t have >100db horn speakers? also what was your amps gain or sensitivity? And the VP1 is the same gain and even higher output impedance.

George..I have a lot of volume on tap as it sits. My speakers are not all that efficient @ 87.5 db or something like that, they are Revel F52.
I had everything spec wise when I was looking for a buffer but I may have tossed them.
The amp is an ATI 3002

scm
299 posts
 
@ professorsvsu
You`re a good sport ! Thanks for that, but if I may, I`d like to add this too:

I actually had to run a splitter off the back of the tube buffer because it only has one output.
So, one goes to my subwoofer amp and the other goes to the main amp.
It may be wrong technically (I don`t know) but it seems to work.
scm
299 posts
 
I`ve been wondering lately if there would be an improvement going to the VTPH-2 from my VTPH-1 MC Plus.
On the surface it doesn`t seem to be cost effective for me because I don`t see myself going back to MM cartridges.
Why pay for features that I`ll not be using !?
Has anybody here compared the two versions using the same MC cartridge ?
scm
299 posts
 
@steveyork...I` m looking forward to your thoughts on the upgrade.

@bpoletti ...That`s quite an endorsement !
I have a ZYX that sounds nice to me but maybe a move up the Herron would help it to sound even better.
Has me really wondering now... 

Does Keith still use/recommend the Sovtek LPS ?

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