My speakers in a second system are older than yours, Beveridge 2SWs, and the woofers I use with them I built myself in 1970-71. (I am told the original Bev woofers were never very good, and nearly none have survived the 40-45 years since they were made.) the TTs are either a much upgraded Lenco with two tonearms or a Victor TT101, with modified plinth. So I am a firm believer in old stuff.
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In my opinion, the Krell phono stages were OK as SS phono stages used to go back in their day, but these days there are both tube and SS phono stages that handily outperform them. Specifically, modern phono stages are in general more free of artifacts that I used to ascribe to transistors per se, a kind of clinical sheen over the music. Modern solid state units have overcome that issue. Likewise, modern tube phono stages are no longer guilty of narrow bandwidth (droopy bass and soft highs), of which they once were accused, rightly or wrongly. I'd recommend you (winalovski) consider a new phono stage, rather than to pour money into the Krell in order to repair it. Of course, I hasten to emphasize that this is only my opinion, but it is based on lots of listening to a wide variety of phono stages.
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Bill, I was just re-stating the existing bone of contention. In essence I agree with your position. Also, I took the Devil’s Advocate position in stating the argument for pinpoint RIAA accuracy, which is in my mind at least the idea that since the medium does have so many other sources of distortion and since there are undoubtedly RIAA errors in pre-emphasis incorporated into some of the LPs we love, especially the older ones, one might take the position that it is desirable to use a phono stage with the least possible error in de-emphasis, so as to avoid possibly confounding errors in pre-emphasis encoded in LPs. This is just fun and games to talk about and in reality I pay no attention at all to this stuff when listening to music, just like you and most others. Likewise, I do not believe that cartridge loading is such a black and mysterious art.
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The question or the argument is how accurate is accurate enough?
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Actually, you can change the load resistor in any MM stage to whatever value you prefer, if you can identify it and can solder.
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Herman, the word you omitted in describing the input impedance of the EMIA is “high”. The EMIA has a high input Z to facilitate using it with LOMC cartridges that work best into high-ish impedance, specifically cartridges that have high internal resistance, like some Denons and some Benz cartridges or low output MI cartridges that have high inductance, even though their internal resistance can be low. In such cases the EMIA can safely be mated to their SUTs while still properly loading LOMCs with high internal R.
On the issue of the needed accuracy of RIAA, I tend to agree with you that there is such a thing as “close enough” to perfect; I would not choose one phono with .05 db accuracy over another with 0.1db accuracy, if I otherwise preferred the SQ of the latter one, but the argument that can be made for very high accuracy is why add another source of error (= distortion) to a reproductive process that is already fraught with other sources of distortion? I think there is such a thing as accurate enough.
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sgordo, I beg to differ; a SUT has everything to do with the impedance the cartridge will see. There is a direct mathematical correlation, in fact. And the more voltage gain afforded by a SUT, the lower the impedance seen by the cartridge, which will be the input impedance of the phono stage (usually 47K ohms) divided by the square of the turns ratio (which is synonymous with voltage gain). This law of behavior can create difficulties if you want to augment the signal voltage of LOMCs with high internal resistance or low output MI types (because they have relatively very high inductance) using a SUT.
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Virudian, but how about a situation where the internal R of the cartridge is well below the input Z of the phono stage? These days that’s quite possible. Is that now voltage drive, or what? There are now several LOMCs with R less that 2 ohms and several “trans impedance” phono stages with Z greater than 2 ohms, even up to 12 ohms. I don’t know about the Sutherland in particular. Anyway, I only point this out because it may explain my actual listening experience. And those of some others. And what I hear is that each mating can give a qualitatively different result, sufficient gain is not the problem.
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Viridian, As i see it, and as I just wrote it, yes, in theory the current driven phono stage presents a dead short to the cartridge, but in fact it cannot, because if it did, you would have a fancy mute switch. There's the rub with current drive.
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It's very difficult to set a firm upper limit for the internal impedance of an LOMC cartridge that you want to work "well" with a current driven phono stage. This is because each brand of current driven phono stage will present a different input impedance, which is always going to be above zero ohms, the ideal value for current drive. But you cannot have a true zero ohm input impedance, because that is a short circuit to ground. So each matchup between cartridge and current drive phono stage is different in terms of loading the stage. A decent rule of thumb is to use cartridges with internal impedance less than ~12 ohms, and then it's trial and error. (I don't use the term "transimpedance" because that implies that all matches do work fine, and that is not my experience, nor does it conform to the facts as I perceive them.)
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