SUT Advice - Which Ones Are The Best?
That said, I have read several articles in magazines and the web touting their merits.
Of all the brands out there I am most familiar with Bob's Devices. Art Dudley wrote many good things about his experiences with Bob's SUTs, and I happen to trust Art (God rest his soul), but I'm wondering if there are others I should consider as well. Please post your recommendations if you have experience with any SUTs, regardless of brand.
As for my set-up, I have a SME 20/2 turntable, Tri-Planer tone arm, Lyra Kleos cartridge, and KTE LCR Mk5 Phono preamp. I do not know if I will always use a Kleos cartridge but I do think I will always buy low output MC carts. I hope to buy something that will work with low output MCs but have some adjustability just in case.
I'd love to hear your recommendations.
Thanks!
Peter
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Our phonolinepreamp is an active high gain SS fully
balanced/differential true dual mono input to output, inverse RIAA eq.
with measured deviation of 0.015db both channels ( includes a switchable
Neumann corner. ), class A amp, non-feedback, four layers circuit
boards, all input/output connectors soldered directly to the circuit
boards ( no single wire here. ), external dual mono power supply and a
third for the logic card, bipolar devices for the dedicated MC stages
and FET for the dedicated MM stages, matched and hand selected
active/passive parts, very wide overload margin, true low noise, a stand
alone logic card with its own power supply, etc, etc, etc. Wow, all that when a carefully matched step up transformer will meet or exceed a very expensive active stage. There are different ways to accomplish the goal of raising a less than milli-volt signal to the input level that a MM phono stage is happy with. Some prefer a SUT like me and some prefer active gain stages like you. A quality SUT will do the job very well and need not cost a fortune. Companies like Denon (Engineering firm and cartridge designers) and Cinemag (Altec Peerless based designs) have been around a very long time and have a proven track record. Look carefully at the specs, what deficiency's are causing all these distortions? I'm sure a high end active gain stage can perform well if properly engineered and manufactured with quality components. But for the price of that I can buy several SUT and cartridges. I also prefer to have a simple audio path, one passive component verses dozens of active components. BillWojo |
You can read Arthur Salvatore’s reviews here. He’s comparing many great SUTs, but find his thoughts on ZYX Headamp: "This is, most likely, the finest head-amp I’ve ever heard. I state this because it is competitive with the finest transformers I’ve had, while all the many other (external) head-amps I’ve heard are simply not in that league. The ZYX head-amp is a solid-state device! It is highly unusual for a successful cartridge manufacturer to also design and build an audio component that is so different in fundamental nature (non-mechanical in this instance), with such excellent performance. The relevant details..." - Arthur Salvatore If you want to see what’s inside the ZYX CPP-1 look at the images in my system. Battery powered headamp with special resistors that looks like an MC cartridge coil (I was shocked to see that). Resistors made by ZYX to transfer the output signals with no noise and no inductance at all. They are made of pure coil wire of MC cartridges, cryogenic purified. I remember it was highly regarded by Arthur Salvatore who compared it to some of the best SUTs ever made. |
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