How much difference will a phono stage upgrade make?


For the past couple of years I’ve slowly been upgrading my audio equipment. I currently have a Primaluna Dialogue Premium HP integrated amplifier, an EAT C-Sharp TT with an Ortofon Quintet Black MC cartridge, and Tannoy Revolution XT 8F speakers. The weak link at this point, it would seem, is my phono stage, which is a Pro-Ject Tube Box DS. All things considered, my system sounds really good to my ears, but I can’t help but wonder what a phono stage upgrade would bring to the table. I’m looking at the Manley Chinook Special Edition MK II, which is a big step up in terms of cost, but I wonder how much better it will actually sound. Has anybody made a similar upgrade, and was there a marked uptick in sound quality?
12hz
A good phono section will have less ticks and pops even though it is wider bandwidth. Its always nice to find out that your LP collection isn’t as bad off as you thought it was.

What most people don’t realize is that the phono preamp, in addition to enough gain and proper EQ, must also be stable and resistant to Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). This is because a significant amount of RFI is generated by the cartridge itself in the form of bursts of energy at the resonant frequency of the inductance of the cartridge which is in parallel with the capacitance of the interconnect cable. The RFI can cause ticks and pops due to overload of the phono section input. That resonant peak I mentioned can be about 30dB!!


Many designers don’t realize that- hence phono sections that don’t deal with this issue very well.

A side benefit of RFI immunity and stability is that the cartridge no longer has to be ’loaded’ to sound right. This allows it to be more supple and can thus trace high frequencies easier. IOW loading a cartridge causes it to do more work and that in turn stiffens the cantilever, just like shorting the terminals of a woofer makes it stiffer.
I lost 50 IQ points just reading that one. On the bright side though I don’t need to clean my records, just buy a better phono stage. So I got that going for me.
@atisv99 - thanks for checking in. The bottom line is that I really like the Manley Chinook. How does it compare to other phono stages like the Herron? I don’t know because I’ve never heard one in my system. Going back to my original question, however, yes, it made enough of a difference in sound quality to justify the expense. I have a very low output cartridge (Ortofon MC Black) and the extra 5 dB of gain that the MKII offers seems to be a significant benefit to getting the Special Edition.

I would be curious to hear more about the EAT phono stages if you decide to go that route. I briefly looked into that as an option but for whatever reason I was fixated on the Chinook. (I was interested in the Herron, too, but it was beyond my financial reach.)

On a side note, but relevant in terms of support and customer service, the first Chinook that was sent to me was dead in the water. It wouldn’t fire up at all. After minimal back-and-forth with Kat at Upscale, a new one was express shipped to me and I sent the first one back directly to Manley. Both Upscale and Manley worked to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Disappointed but not deterred, I waited an extra couple of days to get one that worked, but it was all very painless. The second one lit right up and has been working beautifully ever since.

Thanks to all on this forum who offered useful advice on this topic.