Phono Pickup Transformer - What's Good to Get?

Jcbach,

I'll make two recommendations, depending on whether you already have an easy way to adjust cartridge loading.

If you already have adjustable loading, I don't think you'll beat the K&K trannies at their price point. They sell for $225 in kit form or $300 fully assembled. I haven't heard them but they're reportedly high quality trannies. They also include high quality, integral leadout wires terminated with RCA's, which saves you a connection and a pair of interconnects. K&K is a sponsor over at Audio Asylum.

If don't yet have adjustable loading, the BentAudio Mu trannies that I use include that and they are excellent. Great parts and build quality and very good sonics. FWIW, Arthur Salvatore (www.high-endaudio.com) has A/B'd these against his Cotters and prefers the BentAudios. $645 in kit form or $745 fully assembled and burnt in. My highest recommendation, IMO of course.

Check out the Lundahl step up devices offered by K&K Audio. Bombaywalla bought one of these and hopefully he will chime in. I have the K&K phono preamp that uses these transformers and am extremely happy with it.

www.kandkaudio.com

Jcbach,

As Ozzy62 rightly pointed out, I have the K&K Audio Lundahl transformer (LL9206) MC step-up. It is really excellent in its sonic performance. These are amorphous core xformers in a mu-metal shielded can. If you do some research on the Internet you'll find that there are 3 types of xformers: mu-metal, permalloy & amorphous core. My research showed that all the highly prized Japanese step-up manuf. use amorphous core xformers as they produced the most natural sonics of all 3 types.
As DougDeacon correctly pointed out - the loading on these is fixed. This is not really a downside as using a MC step-up fixes the highest cart. loading. For eg. the LL9206 can be set for 1:5 or 1:10 or 1:20 & the MAX cart. loading is 1880 Ohms, 470 & 117.5 Ohms respectively. You can go lower in cart. loading by adding a resistor in parallel to the 47K but you cannot go higher! Trying out various loadings is a good feature of the Bent Audio MC step-ups but they cost more than 2X of the K&K Audio. Maybe this feature is worth 2X the price to you?
The K&K Audio xformer gets my enthusiastic recommendation & you'll find dealing with Kevin to be a pleasure. Do visit his website:
http://www.kandkaudio.com

There are some other xformers too (besides the Bent & K&K) such as the AudioNote made in Japan. However, these are very hard to find (I found one on Ebay in Sept) & when found they are very expensive. The one Ebay was made by AudioNote UK & sold for $400. I also saw one made by AudioNote Japan but that one sold for $3000! The Mitchell Cotter step-ups are long gone & those that come up for sale fetch a high price to the lucky VERY aggressive bidder! I know that TWL will never sell his!! :-)

There is a very reasonable priced one sold by Quicksilver Audio ($425). However, the gain is fixed at 23dB, which might or might not work for you. Here's their website:-
http://www.quicksilveraudio.com/products/coil.html

You can also buy a variety of MC step-ups from Jensen (based near L.A.) which range from $105/xformer to $250/xformer. Then, if you are handy, you can make the chassis yourself or have one of your audio buddies make one for you & wire up the xformer. Here's their website:-
http://www.jensen-transformers.com/mc.html
IMHO.
I'm sorry, I don't know of any others.