Next Phonostage

PHil i think there are a few ARC dealers in Houston-Dallas as well....

I had a Steelhead (2.0 version, but without remote) that I bought new, and
used for a number of years. I rolled tubes, and settled on NOS Teles, and
NOS Raytheons for 7044 slots. I ran it through the MM, not the step-ups,
with both a Titan i and an Airtight PC-1.
It is extremely flexible, is built well and Manley's support is second to none.
I far prefer the Allnic H3000 in my system. It sounds less compressed and
conveys more spatial information. It is not a question of 3d image- the
Steelhead was able to deliver that as part of the system, but there is far
more separation of instruments and dynamics peculiar to each one that
comes out through the Allnic.
Some folks have used the Allnic and decided to go another route; i think it
is very system dependent.
I also rolled rectifier tubes in the power supply of the Allnic and currently
use a fat base Mullard 34 first series, and it sounds great. (I have a whole
pile of NOS rectifiers, and have played a little but nothing definitive on
comparisons of those tubes). The audio path uses telephony tubes which
are prone to microphony. Allnic uses special gel-sockets to address this.
FWIW, none of the tubes used in the Allnic are terribly pricey, and the
rectifier tubes are used for a lot of other equipment, including guitar amps.
The audio tubes are not as common, but also aren't terribly expensive. The
best of those, according to the importer and the manufacturer, come from
Philips in Holland, and can be marked variously as Mullards or Siemens.
I found the importer and dealer to be very responsive.
Other interesting phono stages might include Doshi. I'm not up on the latest
Tron gear, but everytime I've heard the system Jeff from High Water
demonstrates, it is good, and others have had great experience with that
company's equipment. I think, but am not sure, that you can opt for various
wiring upgrades, and perhaps a separate power supply on the Tron, but I
may be confusing the phono stage with his line stage or full featured
preamp (Syren?) which i gather is also terrific.
PS: I also had zero tube noise with the Steelhead, and I use 104db efficient
horns. Something awry there, and maybe not the Steelhead?

Wmr57- I always enjoy your posts here.
Lotus- i think we have corresponded here or elsewhere on other gear.
To the OP- good hunting, there are lot's of good phono stages at the higher
end of the scale, but I agree that you should try to audition some of these in
your system- dealers may allow a home loaner if you cover the shipping-
Audio Federation in Denver sells Lamm- also a good phono stage but may
be limited in number of inputs- there
are different gain versions so make sure you try the one best suited to your
system; Albert Porter here, in Tx, is an Allnic dealer, so he's not on the
other side of the world, isn't Oklahoma sorta 'north Tx', etc. You just have to
work with the dealers but the added expense and time of home trial is
worth the trouble- the sound you get is system dependent (and in the case
of tubes, tube dependent for most of them as well).
Note also, one poster mentioned the H3000v, that is the unit with variable
eq curves. It is my impression-and I'm not sure where i got this info- that
the standard H3000 sounds better, but I
can't be sure. Unless you listen to a lot of records that don't follow the RIAA
curve, I wouldn't make the trade-off and would stick with the 'standard'
H3000.

A couple other thoughts, which I should have included in my earlier posts
on the subject:
the Steelhead is dramatically affected by the tubes used; if the loaner is the
one that you thought sounded noisy, that raises additional issues about the
tubes; there are a number of threads here about what various tubes sound
like in the Steelhead, but if you were to go out and buy top drawer NOS
tubes for your listening tests, that's going to add to the expense (although
giving it back to your friend with some killer tubes might be a nice gesture
if he is willing to give the unit up for a week to let you play with it- and have
it on hand as needed to compare with others).
The Allnic requires a fair amount of burn-in time- figure at least 100 hours
minimum, and benefits from a better rectifier tube than the one it ships with;
The ARC-- I'm not up on my latest ARC gear ( though I've owned many
pieces of their equipment, starting in around 1974-5) but that may also
require some serious burn-in; I'm not sure about the phono stages, but I
see very high burn in times for the line stages;
You want to pay attention to this, even though the dealer ought to. In some
cases, the dealer should have a 'house loaner' to make available.
I've also heard good things about Paragon in Michigan, which handles the
Doshi equipment.
You can buy an RIAA 'converter/adapter' (for lack of a better word) that
enables you to run a CD into the phono input to accelerate burn-in time
when you are not listening. KAB sells one pretty cheaply, and it works.

Thaluza- on the question of tube rush/noise, i can hear everything over my Avantgarde Duos at 104db efficiency, funky AC, grounding issues, and neither the Steelhead nor the Allnic gave me a problem with noise, tube, grounding or otherwise. A pretty astute listener came to visit a few weeks ago, and was amazed at how quiet the system is, you have to put your ear to a horn to hear any noise at idle with the gain up. Ambient noise in the room can mask things too. For example, while my central air conditioning is pretty quiet, I can hear it. So, I crank the air con to meat locker levels, then shut off to listen; when the tubes make the room too warm, i'm taking a break, cranking up the air con again.

Yep, lower Manhattan is a mess right now. We are north of the city 25
miles or so, along the Hudson, and the river towns were just devastated.
Just getting in and out of the city is a nightmare, and I know that the utility
companies have been working 24/7 to restore basic service. We were lucky
to get power back last night, but much of the neighboring areas are still
blacked out, gasoline shortages, etc.
I hope he is OK, too, he is a good guy, although I've only spoken to him a
couple times. It's hard to overlook the irony of his company name.

Wrm- thanks for the good wishes, i sent you a PM.

Anybody running old Quads has my vote (at least in the midrange). Good for you, DHcod.