Another aspect that also got me thinking about this, is when you crank the volume on an input of a cd player or DAC when nothing is playing you get silence, but when you do that with a phono stage you will quickly get noise when past a certain threshold when music is not playing. Which got me thinking does anyone have a phono setup where that does not happen?
My Herron VTPH-2 (not 2A), used with an Audio Technica AT-ART9 cartridge rated at 0.5 mv, is amazingly quiet.
I frequently play minimally compressed classical symphonic recordings which can reach brief dynamic peaks of 100 to 105 db at my 12 foot listening distance, but when I turn the volume control up to settings that are well above any that I might ever use I hear zilch unless my ears are very close to the speakers. And likewise when I listen via Stax electrostatic headphones, which certainly do not have a rolled off top end.
That is with the stock tubes, btw, and with the Herron applying essentially no load (i.e., a near infinite number of ohms) to the cartridge.
Comments by some members that I've seen here have have led me to suspect that the more recent VTPH-2A might be somewhat more noisy, at least with the stock tubes, and I've certainly been very happy with the sonics of the VTPH-2, so I have no plans to have the unit upgraded to the more recent version.
Regards,
-- Al