Sutherland 2020 vs Parasound jc 3

I have Parasound JC line stage and power amps, and considered the JC3 for my phono.

Only thing that held me back was a total inflexibility of input loading (capacitive and resistive) that a phono preamp at this price should have. Plus, no gain alternatives as well besides the two MM/MC.

As far as noise goes, it must be much better than it's specs by a lot, because a lowly CA 640/650 trounces it on paper.

I have a JC3 with a few hundred hours on it, the sound is definitely more fleshed out versus new but it's also fair to say that it is very neutral overall, not warm and romantic sounding by any means.

The bottom end on the JC3 is the best I've heard in my system so I would not characterize it as being truncated in the least.

It's also by far the quietest phono stage I've heard and very juicy in terms of gain as well.

I love mine but I can see how some may be looking for something different from a phono stage. Regardless of what you choose, I wouldn't take it too seriously until you have some hours on it.

Sksos1,
thank you for your reply.
Did the jc3 change a lot during break in? the new jc3 with a handfull of hours on it sounded so thin and truncated that it would take a major amount of improvement to be satisfactory to me. The difference between the excellent reviews and the mediocre performance i heard made me wonder if review samples are better or if i had an electrical mis match problem with my preamp which i found was not the case. a new sutherland 20/20 is suffering from similar issues.....

Have used the JC3 extensively and at it's price (and beyond) it's wonderful. It did take about 200 hours to open up and sound it's best so give it time. As for being quiet I thought it was until I placed a 22 tubed phono unit in its place and the noise floor dropped to my surprise!

(dealer disclaimer)

Had a new jc3 in my house for 2 days sounded compressed and truncated-but it was new. Audiofreakgeek did your jc3 need some break in time. Please describe

Have you considered the Liberty Audio B2B-1

I make them :-)

Peter

I have the JC 3 and with the right cartridge is amazing!

The JC 3 is very quiet and excels in both detail and dynamics.

I haven't heard the Sutherland in a while but I would characterize the Sutherland sound as refined and less dramatic.

Both are excellent.