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


Recently entered the SPU world. Using a Bokrand/Ortofon AB309 with a Royal N in a Fidelity Research headshell. Which SPU is clearly better and worth the upgrade?

dhcod

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.

I picked up a variety to hear what SPUs have to offer:

Ortofon SPU Classic GM E MkII - close to original sound

Ortofon SPU E GM Gold - good reviews

Ortofon SPU Century - likely top of line

I haven’t heard them yet though.