MC transformers - what do they sound like?

" if you want an active gain phono stage that outperform any SUT you have to pay the price $$ ".

Agreed. Not easy to find or cheap, but worth doing if you can.

Regards,
Doug

Raul,

If you don't want an argument then what exactly was the purpose of your last post?

You have mis-stated my position on SUT's (again), but if that makes you feel good then I'm happy you're happy. Feel free to do it three times a day, with meals, as needed.

Doing what I can to control health care costs,
Doug

Thom,

Brilliant post. Thank you very much for saving me alot of typing!

The Bent stepups are indeed excellent, though as Thom implied there is no one "best" trannie. Adjusting the reflected impedance on the secondary side (very easy with the Bent's) is vitally important, but even then you have the issue of the primary side impedance interacting with the cartridge. I suppose this is why (IME) some trannies work better than others with a particular cartridge even after reflected impedance is optimized.

As Thom also implied, using trannies well involves a lot of work. LOMC's are extremely sensitive to reflected secondary side impedance. Those who claim trannies have non-flat frequency response simply haven't done the necessary work.

We spent dozens of hours swapping cheap resistors. Finding the optimum value for a cartridge almost always requires doubling up resistors on each trannie. (This allows much finer gradation of resistance values.) Having done all that, we then spent hundreds of dollars on multiple sets of high quality resistors. I'll discuss those results in another post if anyone cares. The results with every cartridge were always an even frequency balance.

At ultimate performance levels, however, it is now my belief that a properly implemented gain stage will outplay any trannie. A transformer must, by its nature, diminish amplitudes and smooth waveforms. The effect in a good trannie may be very slight, but it cannot be eliminated. This means a diminishment of dynamics and a rounding of notes (bloat, in plain language). My new preamp/phono stage is built as Hi5harry described, FET followed by RIAA circuit followed by tubes. It easily outplays the Bent's and every other tranny I've heard. I have a friend who owns nearly 20 different stepups. He's used some of them for over 30 years. Once he got his new preamp (same as mine) they all went into the closet.

Beating the Bent's and Cotters takes a large outlay however. If you aren't able to spend $6K+ on a privately built preamp or $10K+ on a commercial one, the trannie route will often do a better job, provided you're willing to do the work.

>> I am looking forward to continued discussion on this, but mostly, I would love to hear a demonstration.

Open invitation to one and all! Hear it live! Bent Audio Mu's vs. one "no holds barred" FET gain stage.

Of course I defer to Thom's experience with better SUT's. If he'll ship me one we'll include them in the shootout and report. ;-)

I've also heard Frank Schroeder's unobtanium SUT's. They were certainly very good, but some other parts of the system were insufficiently transparent for me to note specific differences between them and the Bents.

>> ... are there certain upstream or downstream choices that affect the step up vs gain stage decision, all other factors being equal?

Great question. One thing that comes to mind is frequently balance. If a system or room happens to be tilted up or down at either end, it might be possible to compensate with SUT's by adjusting reflected impedance. I would never recommend such a "band-aid" approach, but it might work for someone who doesn't have the time, interest or resources to solve the problem directly.

I think that all of us take some learning through this kind of dialogue and I put an example from a person that I respect: this very enthusiastic person always defend the SUT against my opinion about, through the time he grow up ( very fast ) and now he own a high gain phonopreamp and today he knows that is really better than the SUTs that he defended.

Raul,

Thank you for remembering me, but please do me the courtesy of allowing me to explain my own ideas.

I never questioned your contention that a $5K+ gain stage could outplay an $800 SUT. All I have said (and still say) is that those on a budget must choose some compromise, such as:

- SUT
- less expensive gain stage or head amp
- avoid LOMC's altogether

Each of these choices will degrade sonics in different ways. Which degradation sounds "best" or "worst" depends on listener preferences and system synergy.

Gracias,
Doug