Solid State Phono Stages

An experienced ear knows what is making a good impression with an immediacy.

Spending time at an event can introduce encounters to devices of interest that are on a shortlist or not.

When an attractor is encountered it is known in an instance, the next hurdle is to learn of how the device is able to be home auditioned.

Laying out considerable sums of money is not necessary to encounter a variety of Phon's.

Selecting a excursion to a event and having a social interaction is a very enjoyable way to make new discoveries and indelible memories.  

Well you could look for a pair of Krell KPA s you want two of them so you can run them true dual mono. You want a pair of them if you want exceptional. 

Regards

I have the simaudio 610 with the clear audio performance dc and I'm really happy with it- very quiet, plenty of detail and great mids. I assume the 810 is similar except better. Either would be a good choice. 

@thiefoflight , all that is old tech. The PC-1 is a very low impedance cartridge. If you want to get the most out of it you want a Transimpedance or current mode phono stage. Examples are the Sutherland Loco and little Loco, the BMC MCCI and the Channel D Seta L or Lino C. I just ordered a Seta L Plus to use with a Lyra Atlas Lambda SL.

@pindac - 100% agree that real world experience is invaluable. I will be attending AXPONA, but it will likely not be a great place to get the most out of phono stages. When I went in 2019, there surely some rooms, but most focused on the proliferation of digital. Also, the rooms and system chains are always different, so chances are it won’t sound anything like it would in my room. I would have to draw conclusions and hope for the best. I have also reached out to my personal network, who has allowed me to try a number of SS stages. But it never hurts to gain perspective from forums as well. What’s happening on this thread may influence me, but won’t solely convince me of any decision. Likely what will is if I can get to a dealer that has one of the top units of consideration and they allow me to demo at home, or if one of those units comes on the market considerably marked down so that I can resell at minimal loss. The latter makes up for most of my audio journey, and it’s been fun to have all the experiences I’ve had as a result, and at times it has even been profitable.

@kerrybh Thanks for advocating again for Simaudio.

@mijostyn Vinyl in general is old tech, as is my cart, but circuit design has evolved in nuanced ways over the last ten years to innovate and outperform, just as it did the ten years prior to that. It was really only the late 70s to mid 90s that went backwards for many (albeit a small few that carried the torch) where 2nd order harmonics were largely given up for specs, and high SNR and CD players became centers for marketing attraction and pushed musicality out of the way. In today’s era where people seek true holography in their experience, both need to coexist, and the tech has gotten better to enable that. Yes, some of the products I’m considering are already ten years old. But perhaps they address areas that compliment the rest of my room and system setup to get me further down the road.

Absolutely love the suggestion for Sutherland and Channel D. I mentioned prior that they are high on the consideration list.