Sbank...mostly true....Gladstone mostly true... but,not necessarily so... and Nrchy..again mostly true. All this IMO of course. But companies do stand to profit from seperates as opposed to single box units. There are some Full function units (line and phono in same chassis) that can compete with the better seperates. ARC's SP-11 is a nice example. A bit dated now, but in its day there was no reason at all to find a better phono pre amp.Although its a matter of design and matching components such as cables, cartridge, and internal load and capacitance from such units to get the best from them. Then the issue of seperating the power supply from the audio circut is a major reason most high end companies ultimately go with seperates usually at the upper end of their line. Less interaction by larger transformers with emf/rfi issues especially of very low level signals means lower noise and better sound. Hey guys, Im no expert.. but just heard and lived a little audio in my day..Best to all!-Ken
Why is the trend to make separate phono stage
Why is the trend to make a separate phono stage. Say a high end pre-amp such as Audio Research Reference 2 you need to spend $ 10,000 for a line stage and another $ 7,000 for the reference phono stage. Almost every manufacturer has started to separate the two components. Is this to make more money selling two boxes or has technology gotten so sophisticated that it needs to be separate or lastly maybe only 25 % or less of the buyers want phono, so the manufacturer focuses on the 75 % population that need a line pre-amp. For us oldies it used to be easy to add a MC/MM board to the pre-amp to add the phone section. What happened??