Phonostage Advice

Take a look at Musical Surroundings offerings.  I have an older Nova Phonomena and it's very quiet and has a lot of loading and gain options.  I am not familiar with their current lineup, but the Musical Surroundings Nova III fits in your budget.

revisiting my topic, I think I will rule out a Tube MC preamp strictly on noise basis. I am thinking solid state will be quieter and more consistent

negative, the BHK is a pre only no phono

Oh yes the stellar was very good. I would not say it was an "OMG" moment but certainly better. I am told there is a BHK pre as well.....

Very cool - though not an unsurprising result for those of us who have done the endless mixing and matching of analog gear. It's clear you have a nice vinyl front-end which deserves better than that under-powered phono card. It's probably worthwhile to continue auditioning units as opportunity allows, but it's also nice to know you could just get that Stellar and be happy!

OK so I demoed the PS Audio Stellar, the JC3+  against my LS100. Both were better. In terms pf preference I liked the Stellar the best. Brought out emotion in the music and incredible bass control. The LS100 was flatter and bass was not as defined.

@millercarbon my cartridge is definitely not mistracking. i am familiar with that very specific sound. This kind of a flattening of the volume during peaks with "no distortion" lol.

There is another Aleph Ono on usaudiomart too. 

There's a Pass Labs Aleph Ono for sale for $1400 on Agon right now. I have one and love it. Lot's of gain and very quiet.

If there's breakup that sounds almost like static distortion then it may be mistracking. But if that's the case then you should hear it on other similarly loud passages regardless of the record label. Hasten to add, I don't think that's what this is, just trying to make the point that careful listening can point you in the general direction- or if not in the right direction then at least away from the wrong direction.

You can in a similar way eliminate your electronics. Besides dynamic range records are not all recorded (pressed) at the same level. Put on one of your "loudest" sounding records, play the loudest part on it, but play it at less than full volume, and if you don't hear the "clipping" then you just ruled out the phono stage. And cartridge, phono leads, etc. Then play it at higher volume. Now if it happens its got to be the amp. Nothing else is left.

But I find this unlikely. Most of us have some kind of sense that kicks in telling us the system is too loud its getting stressed. Could be the speaker voice coils getting hot and changing resistance therefore sound, could be clipping, could be whatever. Funny thing though, more often than not the last thing we suspect is the room. Like my friend.

Remember a room is an enclosed volume. It has a resonance. Well, multiple resonances. It also has walls that are large flat surfaces that each one of which has its own fundamental resonance. Then there's the corners where the walls and ceiling meet. Its useful to think of these as a horn. Any sound originating in the corner will be amplified and reinforced by the side walls as it travels out from the corner. Therefore a small triangular acoustic panel located in the corner will be far more effective than the same size panel placed just about anywhere else.

Next most effective is along the corner where the walls meet the ceiling. Then the corners where the front, back and side walls come together.

If your electronics pass the first tests these are the logical next steps to take.

Interesting I have a M&K Realtime LP and when I play it, it appears to be clipping. I thought the singer was over driving the Mic. Could it be my Pre??

I had a friend over one time swore Holly Cole was overdriving the mic. Or tape. Whatever. Point is he wouldn't believe me when I told him no way. In order for that to be the case the recording engineer, and mastering engineer, and producer, would all have to be incompetent, and on top of that using crap equipment. Not to mention the performer, who most certainly heard it too. And they all let it pass? Not likely. Being honest I told him its almost certainly some combination of room resonance and equipment I haven't got dialed in just yet. 

Fast forward several months, bunch of room tuning, few different components, and tweaks, play the same track and its gone. Just totally gone.

I have no idea what you're hearing, but it ain't the mic.

I had a JC3+ and it didn't impress me YMMV 

Let us know how the comparison goes.  

wow looks to be unanimous. I do have a buddy locally with a JC3 and an EAR to compare to mine. Thank you so much for your recommendations.
Interesting I have a M&K Realtime LP and when I play it, it appears to be clipping. I thought the singer was over driving the Mic. Could it be my Pre??

I certainly hope so, or I've wasted a bunch of money.  I don't think I ever tried the phono stage in my LS100.  I have a Manley Chinook and Musical Surroundings Nova Phonomena that I use with my LS100.  Both offer a lot more loading and gain options and don't require opening up the LS 100 to make changes, although you do have to open the Chinook to make gain changes.  Someone has a Nova Phonomena listed for $450 here on Audiogon.  It's very quiet and very neutral and detailed.  You can find used Chinooks for around your budget from time to time if you prefer the tube sound.  The Phonomena will have a lower noise floor and is a bargain used.

As good as the Modwright stuff tends to be still its just very hard to do as well as in a stand alone unit. Basically, it breaks down into the advantage of the stand alone unit in having its own dedicated power supply combined with the advantage of being able to physically space these far enough apart to get really good shielding outweighs the inherent disadvantage of having to pay for the case, always one of the more expensive single items on a component budget list.

I'd be surprised if you don't find all the units listed above to be a lot better, and immediately, like it will jump out at you.

That being said however, and this is a big however, there's more variance in the sound of phono stages than most other audio components. This probably is down to the massive RIAA equalization required, combined with the massive amplification, combined with the microscopically millivolt level input they have to work with. Its just very hard to get it right. 

I must have brought a dozen phono stages in for home audition when shopping for mine, everything from Lehman Black Cube at the cheap end to a Linn and Audio Research at the high end with stuff like EAR in the middle and a whole lot more. A lot of these were good enough I could see people being happy with them but the range of sounds was extreme. 

So yes you will (not can, will) get significant improvement, but just need to be careful in order for it to be the kind of significant improvement that you really want.

I think adding the Gold Note PH10 would improve things especially because it's so versatile. I got mine new for under $1400. 
Enjoy whatever route you take.

Modwright is adding the 11dB line stage gain from the 6SN7’s, which I think is deceiving. So if you had an outboard phono stage with an actual 63 dB of gain, you’d get a net gain of 74 dB. My experience pairing under-0.5mV cartridges with phono stages below 60 dB (and in your case 0.3mV paired with 52 dB) has not been good, regardless of the gain in downstream line stage (and I usually have more than 11dB in my line stages). So my answer to your query is - definitely yes, I think you can do a lot better with 1500 into an outboard stage.

One 12AX7 and one 12AU7 for 63db. doesn’t appear to lack dynamics, but then again I havent compared so maybe I dont know what I am missing lol.

Just looking at specs, you’re probably going to be hurting for gain with the 0.3mV Dynavector and only 52dB of MC phono stage gain (in the specs they add the 11dB of line stage gain to get 63dB total gain). Probably sounds like it lacks dynamics right now. And in MM mode (e.g. to use with an MC SUT) you would have a phono stage consisting of two 12AU7 tubes, gross. Sometimes a phono card can be a good deal since you’re leveraging the chassis and big PSU of the main component (VAC preamps’ optional tube phono stages are fantastic), but in this case it doesn’t look too good. I think a 1500 stand-alone stage can beat that, especially used. It will be mostly SS units in that price range, but even then a good one with more than 60dB gain should be a better match for your cartridge than that under-powered card - you’ll at least get dynamics back.

In the top page of phono stage listings right now, there is a Fosgate Signature, Parasound JC3, and Sutherland PHD in your price range.