SPU People: I love my Royal N. Which SPU will I like even better?

I had a Transfiguration Proteus before the Royal N and bought the Royal N because I expected it to be so different from the Proteus that I wouldn’t forever be comparing unfavourably, as I would had I gone back to my DV17D3. I ended up preferring the Royal N to the Proteus. When I eventually came to get the Proteus rebuilt I was offered an Ogura OA as originally fitted or two other profiles, one of which was a Gyger S (120/6).The Ogura would have been the sensible choice with regard to potential resale value but I opted for the Gyger on the back of what I was hearing from the similar Replicant 100 (100/5) and I can’t say I regret the choice. The Royal N has it on tone but the Gyger Proteus isn’t so far behind and has leading edge detail that the Royal N rounds off, going back will be the decider. Both dig out the emotional content from the music rather well.

Interesting. Which SUT do you use with the Royal N?

I’m not using a SUT, though it’s something I’ll try in the future. I use a Naim MC only Superline upgraded with their supercap power supply. I load the Royal N with 220Ω and the Proteus with 100Ω, The arm is a Schröder Reference. I do have Naim’s rather more primitive stageline N MM phonostage as well but it only has 35dB of gain, I bought it for my mono wired Decca which I use on a Townshend Rock mk2, with which it’s works very well but since the Royal N ideally wants no more than a 20:1 SUT it doesn’t have enough gain for that and I’d need to look elsewhere. I’ll probably need something rather better too. My history with separate phono stages is limited to the Tom Evans built Michell iso (now rather old) and the Superline, both MC only, plus the Stageline N. 

That Stageline with a nice SUT would probably sound really good with the Royal N.

Have you seen this blog about SPUs? He uses a Royal N with a Schröder arm. It's a two part article.

https://medialux.blog/2018/04/27/what-a-feeling/

That was where I got the idea to try the Royal N in the first place but note his comments on SUT matching with it. A classic N or EN would be a better match to the stageline or wait for the Korf and try a G series pickup. Meanwhile there’s the serious fun of enjoying music with the FrankenProteus.