Ultimate turntable/phono pre-amp setup???

[RooF]

Hello,

For those of you who still value the vinyl as a sampling source but wish to reduce signal to noise ratio to the max and capture the very essence of the record crunch (punch, warmth....whatever!!!)

I am talking needle, turntable even tone arm, and most important the pre-amp.Budget is good so you guys can go ahead and be very creative!!

Thank you very much.

[crna59]

Rockport Sirius III $73,000
Van Den Hul Colibri XCP and XGW Cartridges $15,000
Lamm LP2 Delux phono stage or the Manley Steelhead $7,500

Room and associated equipment..... priceless!!!

Here is a pic of my friend Mike's room!

Mike's room

Regards,
Bruce

[Frost]

Ill assume this is a real question and a healthy budget still means reasonable...

I would (did) buy a vpi scout and a decent phono preamp such as the Lehmann Audio Black Cube or the preamp from bottlehead.

Frost

[max cooper]

Here is a pic of my friend Mike's room!

Whenever I see the listening room with the single chair in the "sweet spot" it always reminds me more of a torture or interrogation chamber than a place to listen to music (just MHO )

What if you have friends?

[shapemod]

Shure V15VxMR seems to be a standard, no HiEnd Esoteric bullshit. I would be highly interested in a good preamp as well, since I use Vinyl as a samplesource a lot!

[Thermionic]

If you want a V15XMR you better get your skates on as Shure have made a press release stating it will be discontinued...

Apparently (you can't believe all you read so this may not be entirely true) Shure are having hassle obtaining a material needed for the cantilever, and rather than have the supplier bend them over a barrell they have chosen to discontinue.

There are so many good phono preamps available these days, I wouldn't know where to start on recommendations.

When I went to the Hi-Fi show at Heathrow last September, there must have been more companies releasing Turntables than in the heyday of vinyl 25 yrs ago! Even Marantz have a new TT with Clearaudio arm - it's got to make you chuckle to see a mainstream company release their first TT in 20+ yrs, by market demand!

If you're going for MC cartridges I would suggest using step-up transformers (Sowter make a wonderful set that I use) as electronic MC stages are traditionally noisy compared to the "free gain" a decent transformer affords.

Roof - when you say "budget is good", you might want to give us an idea of the ball-park, I can think of amps that'll cost $200K USD!

I would recommend anything by Tim de Paravincini (EAR) pre / power amp-wise (509 particularly), and any of the SME range of turntables. There is a new TT from Rolf Kelch that was originally branded "Thorens" but now I believe "Kelch" - this is a monster, I've picked up the platter and it must weigh 20KGs! It also sounds incredible.

Nottingham Analogue are worth trying, as is Clearaudio (The Master Reference if you want to clean your bank account out)

Walrus have a decent line up of TTs, inc the SME Model 10:
http://www.walrus.co.uk/vinyl/vinyl.htm

If you really want to bankrupt yourself, check some of the ranges here: http://www.metropolis-music.co.uk/

There are so many interesting products coming out these days if you're a vinyl head, my advice would be to attend the shows and book demos with the items you find interesting.

Justin

[RooF]

First I would like to thank all the people who responded to my question your info is greatly appreciated!
Man That Room!!!!!!
These links have opened new doors for new toys!
And it keeps going on!!!!
thanks!

[Kmotr]

I don't think I can afford the "ultimate" turntable / preamp combo, but would like to hear some budget preamp suggestions.

I will be using my set up for sampling as well and would like to get a good signal from my turntable. I know that a lot of guys use a DJ mixer as their preamp, but I think that a dedicated preamp would be a better choice.

[Synth80s]

I've never used it, but RME's new mic / line / phono product looks interesting if you need to interface with a computer:

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/hdsp/hdsprpm.htm

RME's drivers and general product quality are well established.

-Synth80s

[threm]

Max Cooper wrote:
Whenever I see the listening room with the single chair in the "sweet spot" it always reminds me more of a torture or interrogation chamber than a place to listen to music (just MHO )

I don't agree.
It's not much music I really bother to listen to these days. If I do it's because it relates to me in a personal way and I prefer to be alone.
But a sweet spot having room for two chairs would be better, just in case.........
That high-end room above would be perfect if not for the stiffness I would get, despite the great chair, trying to forget about all those well known african villages I could feed and educate for the investment. But that argument is old here. The room and some prozac and I would be fine.

[Thermionic]

I don't think I can afford the "ultimate" turntable / preamp combo, but would like to hear some budget preamp suggestions.

I will be using my set up for sampling as well and would like to get a good signal from my turntable. I know that a lot of guys use a DJ mixer as their preamp, but I think that a dedicated preamp would be a better choice.

NAD and PROJEKT both make phono-stages that come in small boxes retailing for approx £30 - 35 GBP a piece. You can run them off a 9v battery, which is a nice alternative as a battery will perform on a par with the most elaborate mains psus. I've heard both of them and the value for money is superb as you can get low-noise ics pretty cheaply these days which enables them to offer a decent sound for such a low price.

Above that you could try the Creek Phono stage. It's a discrete class A design, starting at £140 for a MM only version.

If you're planning to sample then the "organic" (excuse my choice of adjective!) nature of class A could well make things sound less fatiguing.

Justin

[headz]

Hi,
for capturing the most of records sound I can recomend the Creek phono pre's too, they are high end sounding and still in an fine price range, below that I only liked the NAD phono pre.
soundwise the creek was superior...

depending on your turntable you have to look out for a good stylus system as well as this will affect sound a lot as well...

[ttauri]

Originally posted by headz
for capturing the most of records sound I can recomend the Creek phono pre's too

Another satisfied Creek user here (which I actually looked into at Justin's suggestion back when I asked the same question here ).

(Though I definitely have found more improvement changing my cartridge, than from switching phono pres.)

Peece,
T. Tauri

[Data Entry]

Does anybody know if there is a passive phono amp, that will go into line level?

For a new stereo receiver, that has no phono inputs.

[Thermionic]

Originally posted by Data Entry
Does anybody know if there is a passive phono amp, that will go into line level?

For a new stereo receiver, that has no phono inputs.

That would be outside the laws of physics I'm afraid - a typical MM input-stage will require 35dB of gain, the max you can get from a transformer is around 20dB IIRC, and that's not taking the relative impedance / current-drive issues into account. Many phono pres implement passive RIAA EQ, but that's about as far as passive technology in phono stages goes. I prefer transformers for stepping MCs up to MM input level, but that's only around 20dB gain and you have a separate gain-block prior to line-input.

TTauri,

That's cool to hear you're enjoying the Creek man! You have to wonder if some "pro audio" OEMs could take a leaf out of Creek's book in terms of what you get for the outlay...

BTW, Congrats on the recent licensing deals on your tracks! (I noticed at the DeepSpace board).

Out of interest, a compromise I've implemented for my studio turntable is to use Ortofon OM cartridges - when there are ham-fisted people around I stick on the OM "DJ" or OM "Nightclub E", but when I need quality I fit the OM 30 "Super", and adjust the tracking-force. The OM30 isn't the greatest hi-fi stylus, but it will outperform any "DJ" stylus by an enormous order of magnitude (For anyone unaware, it's a moving-mass / compliance fact that DJ carts cannot compete with hi-fi carts). The OM30 is a tad "cold", but the detail is good. The OM transducer is the same for the whole range, so you can mix-and-match styli to suit application.

Justin

[jabney]

This is what I've been listening to my records through lately: http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewto...21&forum=16&23

Of course there are two big strikes against it:

1. It runs on the CreamWare Scope platform - in other words (grab the smelling salts) it's not Pro Tools

2. It's free, so - as any true audiophile will tell you - it can't sound any good (even if it does).

[GuruInSpace]

Originally posted by crna59
Rockport Sirius III $73,000
Van Den Hul Colibri XCP and XGW Cartridges $15,000
Lamm LP2 Delux phono stage or the Manley Steelhead $7,500

Room and associated equipment..... priceless!!!

Here is a pic of my friend Mike's room!

Mike's room

Regards,
Bruce

talk about UGLY speakers

[Kmotr]

Thanks for your suggestions guys...

NAD and PROJEKT both make phono-stages that come in small boxes retailing for approx £30 - 35 GBP a piece.

I found a few NAD preamps on the internet, but no luck with PROJEKT. Are there any specific NAD (or PROJEKT) models you'd suggest?

Above that you could try the Creek Phono stage. It's a discrete class A design, starting at £140 for a MM only version.

Actually, the same with Creek .... I found a few. Any one in particular? Also, I'm not sure what "MM version" means...

Justin, I have this ONKYO receiver http://www.crutchfield.com/S-wjeMvJl...10&I=580TX8211 How would it compare to the preamps you suggested?

My turntable is a Thorens-145 and I have a Shure M97XE on it....

As I wrote earlier, most people use DJ mixers as a preamp for sampling. I tried to find some info on that and read somewhere that one of the reasons is that a DJ mixer has a better power supply than a standalone preamp. Is it true and if so, how does that affect the sound? As you can tell, I'm pretty new to this stuff....

[Tiouz]

Hi Roof,

What about using a Technics SL1200 turntable for it's quality, reliability, and the possibility to match your song tempo if needed with the pitch of the turntable wich will be way better than any dsp process.
for the preamp check the nagra PL-P (tube phono preamp) wich will be pricy but not that much.

http://www.nagraaudio.com/highend/index.php

[Thermionic]

Kmotr,

No disrespect to your associate, but anyone who generalises like that in regard to the psu issue is completely off-track. A psu is a psu, you see crappy ones in hi-fi and DJ equipment, linear / SMPS or otherwise.

In all honesty I think you're better off with a preamp for hi-fi - not only will the signal pass through less circuitry (no summing buss, no extra gain make-up stages, no eq etc), but on the whole a firm such as Creek or Rega are light-years ahead of any firm such as Vestax or Stanton (nice carts, shame about the hardware) in terms of build and audio credentials.

The only firm I have any time for in DJ gear is Rane, but IMHO, Rane put in a less than satisfactory performance subjectively - I have an MP24 I haven't turned on in months. Rane know what they're doing build and psu-wise, it's just that IMHO and many others the sound is pretty uninspiring.

If you want a disco-mixer that sounds good you better get scouring around for a Bozak, that is the only one IMHO.

Creek Phono Stage

NAD Phono pre

Project SE

Other Project Model

Note I spelt "Project" incorrectly before!

Hope this helps!

Justin

[Thermionic]

BTW, "MM" means Moving Magnet which is the type of cart that the MX97E is. Moving Coil carts tend to be more expensive and require more gain and different terminating impedance. If you don't intend to buy a MC, just get a stage that works for MM. I have yet to hear of a disco-mixer that has a MC stage!

J