Nice rig. I was lucky enough to audition the Sonic Frontiers SFP-1 Signature, the Dynavector P-75 and the Audiomat Phono 1 and the Coph Nia all at the same time. (the first two were my friend's). My auditioning was mostly with a Rega P9 TT and Dynavector XX-2. Please note that the XX-2's output is only .23mV so it really was unfair to the SF. Another friend with a VDH cart. at .65mV was more telling of what to expect with the Sonic Frontiers. I had a very short time with a Shelter 501 mk II as well.
All will have enough gain for you but the SF is only rated around 57db so you wouldn't want to go much lower than your Koetsu's output before hitting the noise floor. It is a beautiful sounding phonostage. Wide, deep soundstage, great bass extension airy natural highs and decent midrange. Drawbacks are the limited gain, more noise, inverted phase (it says that in the manual), and a loading option that need soldering should you want to change it. These are minor unless you plan to try other cartridges. Like we found though, it really has an excellent sound.
The Dynavector is decent and can sound quite good but is not in the league of these other two. Lots of punch and power, but suffers a bit in imaging and subtlety. Layering is a bit confused and the presentation is quite forward. I think it's very good at it's price but I think you can do better with your budget. It lacks some refinement the others have.
The Audiomat very easy to live with. Just plug it in. The power cord is captive so you don't even have to deal with that. And... to my ears, it is overall the best sounding phonostage of the three mentioned.
Like I said, I was using a .23mV cart most of the time so obviously this one worked the best for me but my friend compared all three as well and we both ended up with Audiomats. It has the speed and punch of a SS design (and very quiet) but only gave up a very little bit (to his ears, not mine) of micro dynamic detail of the Sonic Frontiers. The midrange though is fantastic. Detail retrieval is great. Bass may not seem quite as full but it's hard to day that it isn't more accurate. (we disagreed on this issue) I can just say that when I first got it home and set up, I put on a record just to check if it was working properly and ended up listening for over an hour.
I won't get into the Coph Nia since it's not on your list but it's another unsung hero. Quite laid back but something about it really seems "right".
All will have enough gain for you but the SF is only rated around 57db so you wouldn't want to go much lower than your Koetsu's output before hitting the noise floor. It is a beautiful sounding phonostage. Wide, deep soundstage, great bass extension airy natural highs and decent midrange. Drawbacks are the limited gain, more noise, inverted phase (it says that in the manual), and a loading option that need soldering should you want to change it. These are minor unless you plan to try other cartridges. Like we found though, it really has an excellent sound.
The Dynavector is decent and can sound quite good but is not in the league of these other two. Lots of punch and power, but suffers a bit in imaging and subtlety. Layering is a bit confused and the presentation is quite forward. I think it's very good at it's price but I think you can do better with your budget. It lacks some refinement the others have.
The Audiomat very easy to live with. Just plug it in. The power cord is captive so you don't even have to deal with that. And... to my ears, it is overall the best sounding phonostage of the three mentioned.
Like I said, I was using a .23mV cart most of the time so obviously this one worked the best for me but my friend compared all three as well and we both ended up with Audiomats. It has the speed and punch of a SS design (and very quiet) but only gave up a very little bit (to his ears, not mine) of micro dynamic detail of the Sonic Frontiers. The midrange though is fantastic. Detail retrieval is great. Bass may not seem quite as full but it's hard to day that it isn't more accurate. (we disagreed on this issue) I can just say that when I first got it home and set up, I put on a record just to check if it was working properly and ended up listening for over an hour.
I won't get into the Coph Nia since it's not on your list but it's another unsung hero. Quite laid back but something about it really seems "right".