Has anyone heard the Sumiko


My new integrated amplifier does not have a built in phono stage, so I need an external unit that will support a low output MC cartridge. The Sumiko is inexpensive and looks good on paper, but no one seems to have any experience with it. Any opinions would be appreciated.
rsachek

Showing 2 responses by marakanetz

I realy doubt that Sumiko phono box will be able to reproduce cartridges with lower than 2mV output voltage.
You'll probably need to get Monolithic sound that has settings up to 53dB of gain. With Monolithic sound you can run cartridges down to .6mV + there are impedance adjustments.
...yes, buddy.
Phonomena and Black cube are able to drive lower outs than Monolithic, but presicion and detailability of Monolithic is unbeatable at its price offered(almost twice less than 2 of above!).
I've tried recently Monlithic in my current setup with .9mV cartridge but with passive preamp and I figure out that 53dB gain is good enough for my setup.
Having some sencitive preamp >200mV on input and with moderate gain of 10dB will give you a possibility to drive >.4mV cartridges.
The math is very simple: to get the output phono stage voltage just use cartridgeVoltage * 10^(dBgain/20) and match with input voltage of preamp. ^ is used for the power.
Monolithic outboard power supply is available and it's much bettern than Black Cube or Phonomena battery offered.