Whest ps.30r

Thank you for all your responses. In the time being I have stumbled upon a stereophile review of the Whest PS.20 phono stage that MF was exited about and I think Brian Damkroger re reviewed later to clarify. In this review BD also states the slight electronic nature of the product compared to the Sutherland. Nice to know I am not the only one hearing this.

Dear Sledge: I know both Ortofon cartridges you own and seems to me that both are not on the " warm " side even in the V tonearm.

IMHO a change/try another cartridges could help before a phono stage change, this NOS vintage Ortofon could help about:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ortofon-M20E-Super-MM-cartridge-M-20-E-Super-NOS_W0QQitemZ400085013949QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5d26ecd5bd#ht_2567wt_1165

Btw, it is a lot better of what that " ridiculous " price can tell you.

Rgerads and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Thanks for the advice Raul, I have used a Grado Sonnata cartidge on the SME and still the slight mechanical nature seems to come through..yes cartidge set up with arm too high could cause this effect to but arm and cart are dam near spot on... I know what you are refering to with the ortofon black but in my system/room it works quite well. I prefer the sound of most mid priced ( sub $800) mm cartridges to mc. I am probably alone with these thoughts though. Will definitely give the ortofon you suggest a go soon.

I have to say that I am highly skeptical of these claims that using a MAC HC power cord makes a "huge difference" in the performance of a Whest phono stage. I have a Whest PS.30RDT. Folks, this is a 20W appliance. I find it hard to believe that really you need 10 guage wire to supply power to such a low power device. I have my unit configured at 60dB gain to output about 0.6V to the pre-amplifier.

Other than that, I agree with the comments about the Whest PS.30RDT. I don't know about the sound relative to the Whest PS.30, but the Whest PS.30RDT produces a nice 3-dimensional soundstage, reproduces considerable detail, good bass reproduction and produces a clear, if not somewhat "sweet" sound (at least to my ears).

I would caution you on "audiophile" reviews because these days they are generally not impartial reviews. One problem with evaluating phono stages (and equipment in general) is that you rarely get an apples-to-apples comparison. When it comes to phono stages, there are differences in gain and load resistance levels among different models that can result in slightly different sound perceptions. So while I personally like the Whest unit that I own, I hesitate to make claims that it sounds better than other units because in reality things are often so close (in terms of sound) and the ability to make truly scientific comparisons is so limited that if you find a unit that sounds good to you, then you are most (if not practically all) of the way there.

Gents. I have travelled the road from PS.20 to PS.30RDT (missed out the plain vanilla PS.30) and have now lived with the latest PS.30RDT 'Special Edition' for the past nonth or so. My requirement was for a very quiet mc phono stage to use with my Transfiguration Orpheus L (0.3mV output). The SE uses a new discrete bipolar module, ClarityCaps, a reworked power supply and updated RIAA filter capacitors. Having put some hours on the clock since purchase and settling on 65db gain and 220Ohms resistor setting for feeding my Karan Reference MkII preamp, I can honestly say that the designer, James Henriott, has kept all the previous atributes of the PS.30RDT and has produced a phono stage that also has that elusive valve-like organic structure but without the noise pitfalls. I use MIT Oracle MA interconnects and a screened 20A copper MusicWorks ReCoil mains cable customised with Furutech FI-50 IEC and UK mains plug.