I, for one, would welcome the opportunity to audition a top quality phono stage that does RIAA in the digital domain. There's nothing inviolate about the precision capacitors, resistors, and/or inductors that are necessary for accurate RIAA in the analog domain. But I need to hear it.
Still wondering whether Mijo directly compared the Hyperion to the JC1. I owned a pair of JC1s and ran them on my Sound Lab speakers before I later made a major change to the SL input circuit. In the original configuration of the SL crossover, my Atma-sphere amps had a tough time with the very low impedance offered by the old SL crossover at midrange frequencies (2 ohms minimum at about 2kHz and only 5 ohms at around 500 Hz). Also, the resistor in the hi pass filter sucked amplifier power at those very frequencies. In that condition, the JC1 had no problem, but I did not care for the overall gestalt. (This goes back to Dover's statement that you choose an amplifier to suit a speaker; I totally agree.) The JC1s were better suited to drive the old SL backplate than were my Atmas, in the midrange. When I later modified the crossover drastically, I eliminated that impedance dip, and the Atmas sounded far better than the JC1s. Just my personal experience. Presumably, drbond owns SLs with the later revised version of the crossover, which was implemented by Dr West in response to this same problem. I can say nothing about the sound of the Hyperions; I never even saw a pair. But the JC1s are good but not transcendent, in my particular experiment.
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You have heard the JC1 and the Hyperion driving the same pair of Sound Lab speakers in the same room with the same upstream gear?
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What strikes me about "Channel D" and their many products is that they need a PR guy. First, the name of the product line (Channel D) is non-descript if not misleading (because it makes one think of Class D amplifiers, which are not exactly a la mode with high end audiophiles). Second, the naming of the different phono stages of ascending value makes no coherent sense. And on top of that, reading the blurbs on their website to understand their design philosophy, I don't get a clear picture. It's too bad, because their products might be great and might suffer for lack of proper promotion.
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Pani, if you mate the FM122 with a linestage having 12-18db of gain, you’d be in a good place to drive most amplifiers with most LOMC cartridges. (At the far end of that range, you’re adding 18db of gain which would be very capable.) Or did you mean to say that the FM Acoustics linestages have about that much gain? If so, many other linestages also have gain in that range. But a passive linestage or an active one with zero added gain need not apply.
If shopping for a current mode phono stage, my advice is to try to find out exactly what is the input impedance. You want it to be as close to zero as possible, but of course it cannot be zero, because that would represent a short circuit, like a mute switch, for the cartridge. I would look for 10 ohms or less, to take the most advantage of the current output of a LOMC. Likewise, you can estimate the current output of the cartridge by dividing its voltage output by its internal resistance. Right away this tells you that LOMCs with high-ish internal resistance, say greater than 10 ohms, are not going to work so efficiently with a current mode design. So, for one of the lowest voltage output cartridges ever made, the Ortofon MC2000, at .05mV, it has an internal resistance of 2 ohms. Thus it makes ~25 micro-amps of current. Do the calculation for other LOMCs and you will see that the MC2000 actually makes a credible amount of current. Because most have an internal resistance much higher than 2 ohms.
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I am not quite sure why you are so provoked by some of my opinions, but this line of argument is too silly to continue. I’d be interested to see a list of tube phono stages that you currently would endorse as competitive with whatever are the best SS units in your opinion. Even a hybrid type that meets with your approval would be interesting to know about.
I once spent a long afternoon listening to first the Ongaku and then the Gaku-on with an outboard power supply. On the same system and driving the same pair of Audio Note speakers, etc. First one amp, then the other. My impression was both sounded "very good", but they did not sound the same at all. It seems to me that there should be one "Absolute Sound". The best amplifiers should begin to sound the same as you approach perfection in amplification. That experience drove me away from SE amplifiers in general, and anyway SE amplifiers are not suited to driving ESL speakers that I favor, by and large.
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Keep in mind that Raul has a fanatical hatred for any component that uses a vacuum tube. His judgement is not objective. In my opinion, your best course of action is to try to audition as many of these high end phonoline stages as you can, both tube type and solid state type, before making your purchasing decision. I don’t know where you live, but I do realize that it is difficult these days to find a place to just go and listen. You may have to travel to do so.
Contrary to Raul’s insinuation, I never said or even meant to imply that the Manley Steelhead is the be all and end all of phono reproducers. But I think that my tweaked one is pretty good.
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If you are interested, I can talk to him and explain the very simple upgrade I did myself. I can describe the output circuit to him as well. You can PM me.
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drbond, You might talk to Dave Slagle at Intact Audio. He is also associated with EMIA. I could talk to him about the Steelhead phono and line output stages on your behalf. Dave may even have some better ideas, since his knowledge is much deeper and wider than mine. He certainly has the capability to do more than I would dare to do.
I think we get caught up with fancy chassis’ and high prices which sometimes tends to make us forget that all of these devices are made of pretty much the same components: Wires, resistors, capacitors, etc. I think of them as malleable to suit my own preferences. Good circuit design is not the exclusive province of the ultra high priced segment.
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cleeds, By the way, you were quite right to correct me regarding microphones and etc in the recording chain up to the application of RIAA equalization during the making of an LP. I realized after the fact and before you pointed it out that the recording process per se would have nothing to do with either the application of pre-emphasis or the error margin thereof. Thanks for pointing it out to others.
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A major reason I originally chose the Manley Steelhead for the second of my two audio systems is that I wanted at least two sets of phono inputs, one for MM, and of course the Steelhead provides 3. Plus I wanted a "full function" preamplifier, so as to avoid the need to purchase a separate linestage and the associated ICs. I don't know how far back you go in this hobby, but there was a time when all "preamplifiers" or nearly all included both phono and line level on one chassis. I don't know whether or not you have used the linestage section of the Steelhead in lieu of your Ypsilon linestage (I assume the Ypsilon PST-100 Mk2 SE is a linestage), but if you have tried it and found it lacking, I think I know why. Manley used second rate capacitors as output coupling capacitors in the Steelhead, which in my opinion sets the unit back a bit soundwise. Easy to fix. It also affects the phono output.
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I did not mean to imply that +/-2 db was the actual permissible margin for error back in the late 1950s. But I did search for that sort of information, and in the course of that search this is the only number I could come up with. In my last two posts I tried to make it clear that I was not claiming that the error was precisely that wide which I agree is unlikely to be the case. My only point is that when you are arguing over hundredths of decibels with respect to RIAA, in comparing one phono stage to another, eventually you get to the point where tiny differences could make no audible difference, and I still maintain that LPs from the early era and maybe up till now from different manufacturers will themselves exhibit different levels of adherence to the RIAA curve. And I would posit that such differences exceed +/-0.1db, which I think is probably as good as you ever need in a phono stage.
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“Harsh”?
Harsh would be if I were actually “imagining “ the RIAA issue, and by the way I said nothing about S/N ratio. I suggest to Raul that he read up on the history of the RIAA correction. Do you think RCA and Columbia LPs adhered to the exact same spec and with the same accuracy, once they both finally adopted RIAA? That level of perfection was not even required by the NAB, which is the reason I quoted the +/-2db spec. Plus, I was not arguing that it is not a good idea for a modern phono stage to be very accurate, only that at some point quibbling over hundredths of a db becomes mental masturbation.
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On the issue of RIAA correction, I certainly agree that adherence to the standard curve should be tight, but my question is how tight makes any difference? Channel D claim their phono stages are within 0.1db, guaranteed, and typically within 0.01db for any given unit. If you read the history of phono equalization, you find that the original tolerance for meeting the RIAA curve was +/-2db. That was probably the margin for error of necessity, based on the microphones and the recording equipment up to and including the lathes available in the late 1950s. I am not sure whether that applied to making LPs or to reproducing them in the home, but it seems certain to me that most of the vintage LPs we cherish will vary by quite a bit more than +/-0.1db in their adherence to the standard curve. So, when you're decoding one LP vs another, you can not be sure that your phono stage is correcting for the pre-emphasis put into it by the maker with the accuracy claimed. For one LP, it may be as perfect as claimed. For another LP it may be off by much more than 0.1db. So, I would ask for very good RIAA accuracy, but I would not choose one accurate phono stage over another based on ultra-precise adherence to the imaginary pre-empasis curve.
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I have heard the DSA Phono2 in my own home, demonstrated for me by its creator. I compared it to my tweaked Atma-sphere MP1. The DSA did everything well, best of all, I thought it was not especially "solid-state" sounding compared to the MP1. The best SS units these days should not be distinguishable SQ-wise from the best tube or hybrid phono stages. The MP1 is another unit worth your consideration. Drawback would be it only offers one phono input pair. Advantage would be it has a built in linestage of very high quality. The Phono2 was incredibly flexible; if the Phono3 sounds even better, maybe you ought to audition it. Then there are the many megabuck full function preamplifiers and/or phono stages from Solution (Solution 750), Constellation (see their Reference Series), DarTZeel, and others. Plebeians like those of us who inhabit these forums are unlikely to have validated opinions on those stratospherically priced units, except maybe for Mike Lavigne.
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Just one man's opinion, but I have heard the Nagra, albeit not in a few years, and I do not think it would play in the league with Ypsilon, EMIA, and FM Acoustics. Like I said, it's only my opinion.
drbond, I have not kept up with the latest and greatest in current-driven phono stages, but I had set my sights on the BMC MMCI Signature edition. It's balanced and solid state. I don't know whether it has been bettered in the last year or so. You might say it's too inexpensive for your category (~$5000).
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In response to your question about SUTs vs different LOMC cartridges, as long as the cartridge has a low internal resistance, which nearly any good LOMC will have, i.e., less than ~20 ohms, the choice of a SUT is more linked to how much added gain you will need over and above that which is supplied by the MM phono stage to which you attach the SUT. In this case, be aware that the Ypsilon phono stage provides only 39db of internal gain. Most MM stages provide more like 40-50db of gain. That can make a difference (in choosing a SUT) if your goal is to generate more than 60db of total phono gain for a typical LOMC cartridge. Of course, linestage gain also counts in that equation. On Raul's recommendation of the FM Acoustics, I have no comment.
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I've heard both the EMIA and the Ypsilon (on different days driving the same downstream components), and I own a Steelhead v2. You can't go wrong with either of the higher priced alternatives; they both sounded great to me, also using both a Ypsilon SUT and an EMIA SUT, on different occasions. I cannot recall any important differences with any of those combinations. Both are probably a hair better than the Steelhead (with the caveat that I did not hear the Steelhead driving that same particular system), but the Steelhead does offer the option of selectable gain up to 65db, negating the need and added expense of any SUT. Plus, the Steelhead is amenable to a little tweak that I performed on mine that significantly improved its transparency. Tough call, unless cost within this wide range is no object.
You might also want to consider other expensive phono stages that do provide gain enough for an LOMC cartridge, without requiring a SUT. I would strongly urge you to consider a top line balanced, current-driven phono stage, if your cartridge choice is confined to LOMCs with very low internal impedance. Or buy one of those and also buy either the EMIA or the Ypsilon, for your high output cartridges; you can get a very high quality current-driven phono for very little more cost than a top line SUT.
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