Hi End Pre-Amp shoot out in central jersey?

Rlips, your room/system is *very* impressive! I hope you post your shoot-out results on this thread. I too have a Lamm L1 and would be interested in reading about your shootout if Seldon participates.

I think Mechans is referring to a phono stage?

NOT! Very very few phono stages, new or old, go much beyond 60db. And nearly all that have this much gain achieve it with a step-up transformer which takes a typical MM stage of 35-40db up another 20 to achieve 55-60db to support medium-output MC's.

db = 20Log(Av), where Av is the voltage gain. A gain of 200db would be 10 billion; the 8 billion noted above is close enough.

To imagine a line stage with an output of 1v to drive many amps to serious levels, and do this with a phono/line gain of 200db would imply the phono cartridge has an output of less than a nanovolt. This is silly. And to achieve any kind of phono gain beyond 60 db or so with tubes and deal with the noise issue almost requires miracles....something the SP6 is not capable of, heavily modded or not.

And now back to the main program.

Jafox,

I know that (the EE in me figured it out as well) but was trying to be diplomatic. As you say, and now back to our regularly scheduled program;)..............

As Mechans said (tongue in cheek, I assume)

This kind of ultra low noise tube has yet to classified there are only few electron particle accelerators large enough toidetect(sic) the subtle vibrations that each tube naturally resonates at....It is also best siuted(sic) to nanovolt output cartridges the upside is that no a step up transformer is needed.

Pretty damn funny when you think of it, though

The whole post is written as hyperbole. The gain is ridiculous though for the MC circuit it really is in excess of 70. The line stage isn't exactly low key either. The phono on ther sp6B is legendary as one of the first that could really amplify that small an output signal It really It really is extraordinary but very few including myself can use IT well. My Dynevector puts out 2.0 millvolts the record must be cleaner than a clean room and each mote of dust sounds like a giant explosion. The complaints about the excessive gain are legendary themselves.