step up transformer for clearaudio

Csr827,

A friend of mine has a Tron phonostage. The design does not afford the user any options on loading, gain, or anything else and the designer insists that the tubes provided are the "best" for that particular design.

While I thought that the phonostage was okay for the money, it performed MUCH better with different tubes in it. I am sure the right combination is really system/personal preference dependent, but, don't take the designer's word for what is best. Do some experimentation on your own. In this particular system, the Amperex bugle boy 12AX7s (I believe) sounded the best.

We did not do any experiments with loading, but I suppose you could do that also. I have a phonostage with a SUT built in, and I optimized its performance by changing the loading of the primary of the transformer. If you don't know how to do this, I am sure you can find someone who can help.

I personally like the sound of preamps with SUTs, but, matching to particular cartridges is an added complication that can make things a hit or miss affair. Perhaps more work, but the result can be very rewarding.

Dertonarm,

I agree that a SUT is a good approach to dealing with low output moving coils. Such cartridges need an additional stage of amplification and any form of active amplification adds noise whereas an SUT does not add noise.

Raul,

Sure, SUTs distort. But, correctly implemented, an SUT does not introduce hiss or any such noise not correlated with the signal. Sure, "noise" can be introduced from imperfect shielding, but the act of converting current to voltage in the SUT itself (i.e., the "amplification" is noise free). That cannot be said of any form of active amplification (look it up in EE journals).

Solid state devices are low enough in terms of noise production that active amplification with solid state devices can also be, for all practical purposes, noise free. SUTs are used in tube phonostages because, in part, it is much harder to get noise-free high gain amplification using tubes.

Whether someone likes the sound of tubes or solid state or SUT or active amplification is a personal matter. There are plenty of designers (and purchasers) who will take the trade-off of SUT distortion and tube noise and distortion over the sound of solid state.

Yes, Raul, many of us are idiots. But, not everyone who disagrees with you -- on the superiority of solid state, on the superiority of moving magnet over moving coils, on the superiority of your own product over anything man or god has ever conceived -- is necessarily an idiot.

Dertonarm,

I agree with practically everything you have stated. Particularly, I agree with your implication that it is not the particular technology that matters so much as developing the right synergy.

On paper (meaning conventional measurement), I don't know if even the best SUTs will ever measure as well as solid state, but, to me, that hardly matters. I have heard plenty of setups with SUTs that sound terrific. My own phonostage uses a SUT at the front end, so I certainly have no issue with SUTs.