Just a follow up for someones benefit hopefully. I still don't know what directions to go. The situation is still unclear but what is clear I need to start trying stuff basically. What I wanted to report on is that I made some power cord changes to my amp and phono pre. This has made making do with what I have really enjoyable. It's prompted me to start moving the speakers around to accomodate the change in sound. Fun stuff and very cost efficient. I didn't put a lot of stock in cables and still have my doubts as to the cost of some but I do have an open mind now. I moved from the Shunyata Venom 3's to AudioArt Power Classic 1's. One with the gold connectors and the other rhodium. The overall presentation has spread out. it was like the image was bottled up previously and now its more open. Less tight now. Thanks Rob Fritz and Audiogon members for all the info sharing etc.
Phono preamp question
I have a jolida jd9 modded by mitch singerman that I run in mm mode with a grado reference 1 into an odyssey cyclops driving thiel 1.5's. My question has to do with upgrading the jolida. The odyssey is an amp with one input and a volume attenuator. The jolida has two outputs, lo and hi. I have to use the hi outs(1.8 volt output) as the 200mv of the low out is just plain enemic. The gain in mm is bit of a question Ive read 55db as well as 70db. this is the only stage i've had and briefly tried out a primare r32 that was nice sounding but flat(again with odyssey amp) I guess due to low gain (in the low 40's). I have no idea what the output voltage was. I'd like to try another stage but I find it hard to find any information on output voltages on any phono preamps. I've seen the ear834 has 1v though I'm not sure the gain in that unit would be enough. Anyone have any experience running into this situation that I hope Ive described well enough to understand even though I'm not sure exactly whats going on myself. As I think I understand it I'm running into this issue because of the passive/line stage input of my amp with most stages being designed to run into an active preamp. My plan in the beginning was to have a short signal path I just didn't realize how lucky I was with my choice of the Jolida being super high gain. Didn't realize my options would be so limited to drive my Odyssey- at least it appears that way. If anyone can help me sort this out or suggest a phono preamp I would much obliged. I have a feeling my amp is just not suitable to running a vinyl only system at least in the price range I find myself in 1-2k. I really like the Jolida I'm just curious about more expensive stages and what they can do and I don't have any one area I'm looking to improve on. thanks a lot for any help at all.
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