My conclusion: mid level $$ analog vs digital
Thank you!! I had your very same set up, except with hana el....it was terrific. Blown away at the quality of analog sound for the money. That hana and that pro-ject the classic or the sb classic are hidden gems in my opinion. I have since gone the SUT route with a Jensen transformer into a Tavish design tube phono preamp, sold the musical surroundings preamp. To, me, it made an improvement. |
Jeff, the difference was not night and day so to speak, but to me the Hana el sounded more unleashed for lack of a better term. The mc stages in some tube preamps are an afterthought and don’t always benefit from the actual tubes. Instead they rely on solid state circuitry. On the tubed Tavish the classic, the MM section benefits from full tubes. So by using the Jensen mc 2-rrL sut (JT-44K-DX 1/10 transformers) connected to the MM inputs of the tavish, I’m getting a more tubey sound. So in essence, the SUT will allow you to utilize the full benefits of a tubed preamp by stepping up the mc low voltage to the higher mm voltage. Some preamps with mc sections accomplish this with solid state components (rather than passive transformers) and to me, something is lost or just not right with the sound. Some may beg to differ, but I hear a difference using the SUT, the Hana el was more free, and the transients seemed faster. The hana el as well as your sl both call for 400 ohm or greater load impedance. What is good about the Jensen SUT is that the L model has a built in 430 OHM impedance, so a great match to the Hana. It is also a 1/10 step up, so the .5 mV is stepped up to near 5 mV. These numbers are perfect. Lastly the compliance of the Hana @100 ohms is 17. When plugged into the vinylengine calculator using 13.5 gram arm (the pro-ject classic arm) and cartridge total weight, including the hardware, of about 6 grams, you arrive at a resonance of 9hz. So the Hana is a good match for the pro-ject the classic arm. The hana’s also use Alnico magnets, which to me provide a more organic sound. Herb Reichert mentions this in his review of the Hana el. In my personal opinion, the Hana, the pro-ject the classic (especially the SB), and the Tavish design classic are all steals at their price point. You seemingly get a performance from all three of these components that are above what you would expect for the money. If you want to add in the Jensen mc 2-rrL @ $599, then you can say 4 steals. I would also advise you to grab the EVO machined aluminum sub platter for your classic to replace the stock plastic/abs one. From the pro-ject web page: "It adds more mass to the entire platter and drive system, resulting in additional damping of noise and unwanted resonances. The improved tolerances during production will increase overall speed accuracy. The additional mass improves short term speed stability, or also called Wow & Flutter." https://pro-jectusa.com/product/classic-evo-sub-platter/ |
