Sonic Frontiers Phono 1 vs. BAT Vkp5

I think it's hard to go wrong with the Sonic Frontiers. I know that SF gear can sound dry (try changed 6550 to KT88 in the amps...) but Phono One seems to hit a sweet spot, detailed, neutral and musical. I did not compare to BAT, sorry, but I generally find BAT and SF to have similar family sounds. I did compare to EAR 834. EAR was warmer, lusher, loverlier, at the expense of some detail. I think I could live with either one happily, except that the EAR does not allow adjusting of load.

I own a SF Sig 1 Phono and the sound is great ! Warm , smooth great from top to bottom . Beautiful build quality ! Can be prchased for around $ 750-850 $ US

Thank you, and sorry for my incomplete question. I'm a Italian boy and my english is very bad. Now my system is:

Goldmund Studietto turntable with Benz Glider H 1,9 mV
output.
Pre SF Line2 and SF Power2 ampli
Sound Lab Dynastat.
Bal. or unbal. is not a problem for me.
I wish, if possible, a warm sound on vinyl, SF is perhaps
a few dry?
Thank you for the patience.

I would suggest you don't look at it in terms of "which is better", but you will need to look at the various differences between the units and which one will work for you. Each has it's own sonic signature and good/bad points that I believe you will need to evaluate and listen to for yourself.

You never mentioned which cartridge you're going to use with it, and I think this is very important. The cartridge will have a lot of bearing on which phono stage you should be looking for. Remember the Sonic Frontiers unit can be configured (resistors) to use 3 different gain settings 44db,54db, or 62db. The BAT VK-P5 only has 50db and 55db of gain. If you're going to use a very low output cartidge (<0.6mV) then the Sonic Frontiers unit might be better, otherwise you will also probably need a step-up with the BAT unit. Don't forget it also goes the same way with too high of an output from the cartridge that you might have too high of a gain from the phono stage (I recently had this problem which caused the digital volume control on my Sim Audio preamp to clip.)

Also, are you planning on using XLR or RCA output? The BAT has ONLY XLR outputs, and the Sonic Frontier unit ONLY has RCA outputs.

I would suggest that you should also look at the Audio Research PH3SE phono stage. It is another excellent tube phono stage as well.

BTW, I ended up buying the Sonic Frontiers Phono 1, and I really like it. I bought it because I can configure it with really high gain so I can use a very low-output cartridge which I wasn't able to do with my old phono stage.

Good luck.