Can you pick out what is what?

wolf_garcia, I want to get inspired by other people.  If you say you like spicy food and I do too, I would be inclined to listen if you then told me you would recommend me to try some food I never tried before.  Would`ent you too?

Kind Regards, 

Morten

As long as a phono stage provides low noise and an accurate RIAA response, I’m not certain you realy need an uber expensive one. Sure you can spice things up with fancy circuitry or tubes etc, but ultimately, they don’t necessarily sound better, but different, as has been said an abundance of times. Also, concerning cartridges, I’ve adopted Avid hifi’s take on the matter, the foundation (turntable) matters most. You’d be surprised how well a so called cheap cartridge can sound on a very well made turntable.

audioguy85, the video download pack also contains examples of the same cartridge on the three very different Phono stages.     I will not be giving away my findings just yet, but let me just say I am not disagreeing with you! 😉

 

Sure you can spice things up with fancy circuitry or tubes etc, but ultimately, they don’t necessarily sound better, but different, as has been said an abundance of times.

Remembering that better is different from worse.....

As long as a phono stage provides low noise and an accurate RIAA response, I’m not certain you realy need an uber expensive one. Sure you can spice things up with fancy circuitry or tubes etc, but ultimately, they don’t necessarily sound better, but different, as has been said an abundance of times.

One never needs an expensive anything but sound quality greatly improves with better equipment - especially phonostages. Most people who disagree have never owned expensive gear - they don’t think its worth it and decry the cost for those who do. I've owned an ARC PH 2SE, PH5, PH7, PH8 and now a REF 2SE over the course of 20 years and each time the improvement was significant until I got to the REF 2SE and it's AWESOME. I'm still blown away by its massive architecture of sound, extraordinary detail and sheer musicality.