2. analog
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Phono Stage - The great analog tragedy

In the world of analog playback, there is an interesting observation. There has been tremendous innovation in the field of 
Turntable - Direct, Idler, Belt
Cartridge - MM, MC, MI
Tonearm - Gimbal, Unipivot, Linear Tracking

For all of the above designs we find some of the best reference components designed in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Most of the modern products are inspired from these extraordinary products of the past. But when it comes to phono stage, there is hardly any "reference component" from that era. They just standardized RIAA curve for sanity and left it. Manufacturers made large preamps and amps and allocated a puny 5% space for a small phono circuit even in their reference models, like a necessary evil. They didn’t bother about making it better. 

The result? It came down to the modern designers post 2000 after vinyl resurgence to come up with serious phono stages for high end systems. Unfortunately they don’t have any past reference grade designs to copy or get inspired from. Effectively, just like DACs, reference phono stages is also an evolving concept, and we don’t have too many choices when we want a really good one which is high-res and natural sounding. Very few in the world have figured out a proper high end design so far. And most of the decent ones have been designed in the past couple of decades. The best of the breed are probably yet to come.  

It is a tragedy that our legendary audio engineers from the golden era didn’t focus on the most sensitive and impactful component, "the phono stage"

pani

Showing 1 response by jallan

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jallan
343 posts
 

As a 2 1/2 decade owner of a modded Marsntz 7C (following personal guidance from Saul Marantz for the modding!), and a greater than four decade owner of an Audio Research SP6B with lots of experience tube rolling in both, I am intimately knowledgeable of their sound.

That said, the performance of modern separate phono preamps and line stage preamps together far exceeds the performance of both models as either line stages ir phono preamps. I began to understand this when for kicks, I subbed my little Schiit Saga preamp (with a Sylvania “Bad Boy” 6SN7) for my SP6B and heard more resolution. Shocked me- the “palpability” of instruments, the air around them, wasn’t quite as well produced but it did better pretty much everywhere else. 
I don’t have the best phono preamp- it’s a Hegel V10- but it’s ability to easily change loading (as opposed to in the SP6B only be able to change a resistor by soldering with the cover off, along with the inability to change loading capacitance, and only a one step gain switch that in high gain didn’t provide enough gain to support anything but high output moving coils) made the Hegel a far better match to modern phono cartridge design. It elicits far more information from the record grooves, partially due to better phono cartridge loading flexibility.

I truly loved those Marantz7c and SP6B preamps, but my Hegel/Cary SLP05 combo is on another level. Now I just need to replace my Grace 707 tonearm with something friendlier to medium and low compliance cartridges!

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